1888 to connect Manitoulin Island with the mainland. In an industrial synergy, Clergue planned for the mines to give him two resources he desired: sulfur for his pulp and paper operations and nickel for steel-making. Construction on the Manitoulin and North Shore Railway began almost immediately and, characteristic of Clergue, it was with an expanded charter which included an ambitious southern extension via railcar ferry across Lake Huron's Georgian Bay from Manitoulin to Tobermory, and from there down the Bruce Peninsula to Meaford, Wiarton, and Owen Sound. In 1901, construction began on Clergue's steel mill at Sault Ste. Marie, which would ultimately become Algoma Steel. His railway and steel interests had the backing of several federal politicians, such the cabinet minister Joseph-Israël Tarte and senator Raoul Dandurand, and he was able to secure a lucrative contract with Andrew George Blair, the federal minister of railways and canals, to supply rails for the federally-owned Intercolonial Railway, as well as a mandate that all rails purchased for federally-subsidized railways be Canadian-made. Clergue also negotiated a contract to supply steel to Krupp, the German arms manufacturing conglomerate. Turn of fortune Captain of a fast-growing industrial empire that now employed 7,000 people, Clergue was celebrated by boards of trade, politicians, and the media as having conquered the wilderness of Algoma, which until this point had been little impacted by European colonization. Implementing his theory of industrial integration, Clergue formed the Consolidated Lake Superior Company, which had a controlling stake in all of the industrial interests he had founded, with most of the remaining shares held by his Philadelphia and New York financial backers. It was initially valued at million. Signs of underlying problems began to appear as some of Clergue's enterprises struggled to fully launch. His steel plant's Bessemer converters began to come online, but the blast furnaces necessary to produce pig iron for the converters were still incomplete. To Clergue's frustration, he was unable to manufacture steel at Sault Ste. Marie as an entirely internal process. By September 1903, the Algoma mill had produced only 1,243 tons of steel rails and was unable to service the loans it had taken out the previous year, a large part of the debt being owed to the Speyer financial interests of New York City. The company failed to meet its payroll obligations and the various Consolidated Lake Superior plants and mines were shut down. On September