Look Out, Ice: Wednesday's arrival of two U.S. Coast Guard Cutters – our Twin Ports-based Alder (black hull) and the beefy ice-breaker Mackinaw (red hull) – means a double whammy (or double rammy) for ice getting in the way of the start to the maritime shipping season. Photographer Paul Scinocca took shots of both cutters as they came through the Duluth Ship Canal. The appropriately named cutters cut a 100-foot lane for vessels from Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth-Superior. The lane is being widened by the Canadian Coast Guard ship Samuel Risley, which followed the U.S. cutters and will head to Thunder Bay. Between the Coast Guards and the efforts of tugs from locally based Great Lakes Towing Company and Heritage Marine, several vessels that wintered in the Twin Ports will shortly be on their way with loads, according to the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, including American Spirit (which wintered in Lakehead Pipeline Dock in Superior); H. Lee White (Hansen-Mueller Elevator M; Superior); Mesabi Miner (Superior Midwest Energy Terminal; Superior); Kaye E. Barker and Lee A. Tregurtha (both at Fraser Shipyards in Superior). At 12:12 p.m. today, Interlake Steamship Company's Kaye E. Barker, escorted by the Mackinaw, became the first laker to pass under the Aerial Lift Bridge in the 2019 shipping season. It was bound for Two Harbors to load iron ore and then continues on Indiana Harbor. Built in 1952, the Barker also closed the 2018 season as the last vessel into the Twin Ports on Jan. 15. Recent rains and warm weather had reduced Lake Superior ice cover to about 65 percent as of Thursday, reports Jayson Hron, director of communications and marketing at the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, but he adds "the U.S. Coast Guard reported ice fields in excess of 12 inches thick still remaining on the Lake, along with approximately 16 miles of ice cover outside the Duluth entry." The Alder crew posted a lovely little video this morning of ice breaking (it's not as easy as this looks!). Photographer Jane Herrick shows us what it means when a vessel comes to home port, with photos of the Alder families greeting the crew and cutter.
Fraser Shipyards had a busy winter and wraps up those five vessels heading out from the Twin Ports. Still in dock for now is Tim S. Dool, says James Farkas, president and COO of Fraser Shipyards. James notes that the company employed 225 people to work on the vessels this winter, including about 100 with special skills hired from outside the region. "From my perspective, it’s been an average year, maybe a little bit higher" than Fraser's usual winter workload, says James. The company also employed 12 welding students at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College, who worked part-time with professional mentors. Fraser, along with its sister companies, Lake Assault Boats and Northern Engineering, provides 12 scholarships at WITC – six in welding, three in machine tool and three industrial arts or industrial maintenance – to grow the next generation of workers.
Meanwhile, on the East Side: The Soo Locks have been revving up to receive the line of freighters that will be awaiting the 12:01 a.m. opening on Monday (March 25) of the locks for the season. This week the locks were "rewatered" (aka filled with 73 million gallons of water) signaling the end of winter maintenance and repair, reports Tanda Gmiter for MLive. As seen in these photos, when the metal "stop logs" were removed, the water flowed back in, and divers then slipped into the icy, 33° F water to connect the lifting beams, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers notes on Facebook, "took only a few minutes so divers were able to safely and comfortably work in dry suits." The Soo Locks Visitor Center will be open from about 11:30 p.m. until 1 a.m. on Tuesday so people can watch the first vessels lock through. Much farther east, the Welland Canal linking lakes Erie and Ontario was to open today. The Lake Ontario portion of the system officially opens Wednesday, marking the 60th opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and allowing Great Lakes' access to the ocean-going vessels or "salties" that visit Lake Superior. A history and timeline of the St. Lawrence Seaway can be found online. Last year the seaway had its best shipping season in a decade, logging a 7 percent increase from 2017, Jayson reports.
Times Up for Norgoma?: The St. Mary’s River Marine Heritage Centre has a month to find a new home for the museum vessel Norgoma, or the historic ship will be towed to the Purvis Dock at Algoma Steel, which is not accessible by the public, at a cost of $50,000 for the tow plus $40 a day fees to the non-profit volunteer group. The city council of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, voted 7-3 to have the aging ship towed temporarily to the Algoma Steel dock by April 15 or earlier, weather permitting, according to Elaine Della-Mattia in the Sault Star. The council and the heritage centre have looked for a year for an alternative to the Norgama’s current location without success, reports David Helwig for SooToday. The majority of the council wants what they consider an eye-sore removed from its prime location at the Roberta Bondar Marina and has plans to add up to six additional slips to rent there. The towing cost could capsize the heritage centre. “We don't have the capital for it,” Warren McFadden of the marine centre board told the city council. "We'd have to liquidate what we have,” David reports. According to Elaine’s story, “All costs are to be billed to the St. Mary’s River Marine Heritage Centre. If the centre can’t pay or becomes insolvent, the city can choose to decommission the vessel at a cost of $150,000 or find a new owner for it.” On its Facebook page, the heritage centre folk are asking for volunteers this weekend to help with removing items from the ship. The Facebook page Seldom Seen SSM posted a photo of the Norgoma in place near the Roberta Bondar Pavilion and, via Photoshop, what it might look like without the historic ship. “Thanks to Photoshop you can get an idea of what the Roberta Bondar Marina will look like without the Norgoma adding some charm … and much needed wind block for the boats,” the post notes. “My family owned a boat for 28 years, we parked beside the Norgoma many, many times because it was great to dock our 1940s tugboat beside the 1950s ship in port. Our Marina will be losing all character and is now just a plot of water with some wood in it.”
More Lupine Reshuffle: Relocation of wolves from Ontario to Isle Royale continued this weekend. It is believed four to six wolves remain n Michipicoten Island, where they face starvation without the caribou herd there. The ecological game of dominos included moving the now rare Lake Superior region caribou off Michipicoten earlier in 2018 to protect them from wolves that had crossed an ice bridge there a few years ago. Those caribou were airlifted to the Slate Islands, which is where the herd originated from decades earlier and before they were removed, again because of wolves. The New York Times posted a story yesterday about the latest transfer, a project funded in part from donations from the International Wolf Center and the National Parks of Lake Superior Foundation, which posts online updates on the transfers. The non-profit groups have mounted an urgent GoFundMe effort linked to a narrow window to move the wolves. As apex predators, the wolves are welcome to Isle Royale, which faces problems from over population of moose because the natural island wolf population had declined to a related pair apparently not able to produce viable pups. Thanks to earlier transfers, about six wolves are now on Isle Royale.
Honoring Lew: This week the Superior, Wisconsin, senior center was officially renamed the Lew Martin Senior Center to honor the broadcaster and politician, who died in February at the age of 102, reports CBS3. Lew had been involved with the senior center for the last three years, and Superior Mayor Jim Paine officially signed a city council resolution for the renaming. Lew was on the Douglas County Board for 30 years and began his interest in local broadcasting in 1936 while he attended Superior State Teacher’s College. Lew was born in Superior in 1917. There will be a celebration of his life and legacy at 5:30 p.m. tonight at Faith United Methodist Church in Superior followed by a gathering at the Elks Lodge #403.
Mini Mushers: Warm temperatures willing, we might be seeing a resonable melting away of our winter white stuff, but we wanted to give a shout out to how much fun winter can be (really, no joke). Hartley Nature Center in Duluth posted a video this week of its pre-school class learning about mushing … from the dog's perspective! That "Hike! Hike!" you hear is musher for "Forward!" (more or less). The center will be sponsoring a second Citizen Science Volunteer training workshop tomorrow, at (and in partnership with) Boulder Lake Environmental Learning Center, for volunteers interested in helping with the Northland Vernal Pool Initiative & Anuran Surveys. "Vernal pools," the workshop post tells us, "are ephemeral, or short lived, seasonal wetlands that provide critical habitat for a variety of species, including frogs, toads, insects, and fairy shrimp." We're not making up the fairy shrimp part - The New York Times did an article on them and a few of us older folk might recognize them as the "sea monkeys" sold in comic book ads. Oh, and "anuran," for those of us who had no clue, are tailless amphibians, aka grown-up toads and frogs. Volunteers can still sign up with either organization before those pools start forming.
Photo & graphic credits: Paul Scinocca; Jane Herrick; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Lake Superior National Parks Foundation; Hartley Nature Center