FORT FRANCES — A tie vote left the fate of two historical tugboats in limbo on Monday.

Municipal councillors in Fort Frances are narrowing their choices for how they want to showcase the boats, but they still haven’t landed on a final choice.

The Hallett, a 60-foot logging tug, served Rainy Lake for decades until its retirement in the 1970s. It used to be displayed on a berth in the water along the town’s waterfront, but major flooding in 2022 threatened to wash it away and forced it onto dry land to a temporary space in the Sorting Gap Marina parking lot.

The Owandem, a smaller vessel that often worked in tandem with the Hallett, was brought back to Fort Frances by friends of the local museum in 2017 and refurbished; it has remained in storage in the town’s municipal works yard sin

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