Ships Ahoy!: Lots of 2020 maritime season "firsts" this week. The H. Lee White (seen here) was the first through the Poe Lock on Wednesday (Mar. 25), when the Soo Locks opened. The 704-foot-long freighter was upbound from Sturgeon Bay, Mich., headed for Superior. The lock-through, one minute after midnight, was a smooth – and speedy – one, with the Lock Master noting: "Start of lockage 0001, bow over the lower sill at 0009, lockage complete at 0045." On the western side of the Lake, the first freighter out of the port of Duluth-Superior was the Burns Harbor. It left through the Superior Entry at around 1:50 a.m. Sunday (Mar. 22) with iron ore pellets bound for Burns Harbor, Ind., from BN No. 5. The first freighter under the Aerial Lift Bridge was the Hon. James L. Oberstar, seen in this lovely capture by Scott Bjorklund. It left at about 10 p.m. Monday (Mar. 23) after departing empty from Fraser Shipyards bound for Two Harbors to load with iron ore pellets. Meanwhile, the Port of Thunder Bay reported that for the first time ever, a tug-barge has earned the port's Top Hat Honour as the first arrival after the Soo Locks opened. The vessel combination came to the Mission Pier entrance there at 9:30 p.m. Thursday. The tug Sharon M1 with barge Huron Spirit came to discharge about 5,000 metric tonnes of calcium chloride brine solution at Pollard Highway Products (Trillium Distribution), used as a road stabilizer and dust suppressant. The Top Hat went to the tug-barge Capt. Ray Davis and Chief Engineer Vladimir Lats, though the usual ceremony did not take place due to Covid-19 concerns. The first-of-the-year honour is usually captured by a bulk freighter with a grain shipment, and the Algoma Sault did arrive just hours after for grain. Another bulker that wintered in Thunder Bay, CSL Welland, also has departed the port with a grain cargo.
On the Covid-19 Front: The Great Lakes maritime industry, which hauls more than 200 million metric tons of cargo annually, is considered among the essential services allowed to continue in the face of stay-at-home orders. To that end, however, there are new protocols in place relating to Covid-19, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority noted in a release on Thursday. It quoted Jim Weakley, president of the Lake Carriers' Association, as saying, "A tremendous team focus has gone into getting the fleet outfitted and sailing safely with healthy crews. This has been a truly concerted effort by the sailors, the vessel operators, U.S. Coast Guard, Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, public health officials, the Great Lakes dock and port operators, and service providers that keep our fleet sailing." Among the strict steps instituted to keep crews and communities safe are these: • Approval to embark or disembark pilots and crew could be limited at the discretion of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Centers for Disease Control. • All pilots and crew must be monitored for COVID-19 symptoms and 96-hour advance notice of any suspected cases must be provided to the lead agencies and control centers prior to inspectors boarding the vessel. • Ships underway on Lake Superior are required to immediately contact the U.S. Coast Guard or the CDC's Minneapolis Quarantine Station regarding any suspected COVID-19 cases or symptoms. The situation will be monitored throughout the shipping season, including after the Seaway opens to oceangoing traffic on April 1.
One More: Steve Sola owns the inner breakwater lighthouse tower right beside Duluth's Aerial Lift Bridge, and he got a great video of the Paul R. Tregurtha, the longest laker at 1,013 feet, passing through the Duluth Ship Canal. Gotta love those heralding horns.
Water Webinar: While the Coronavirus has flooded the news, we are still entering the season when high waters in the Great Lakes need watching. To that end, Wisconsin Sea Grant posted a YouTube rebroadcast of its March 18 Great Lakes Water Level Informational Webinar. The 1.5 hour webinar has a variety of experts speaking from Wisconsin Sea Grant, Wisconsin DNR and the National Weather Service. There are also helpful links on the page to downloadable handouts about water levels, resources for property owners and information about placing water control structures.
Clothing for a Different Storm: The makers of the famed Stormy Kromer hats in Ironwood, Mich., have converted some of their production to the making of masks and hospital gowns after getting desperate calls from regional facilities. "A small team of our sewing engineers, production and purchasing managers met on Sunday to discuss this critical need and how we could help. By that evening, we created a mask sample according to one of the hospital’s specifications and an employee’s husband was driving 150 miles to hand deliver it." The company is ramping up with this new product as orders come in.
Helpful in Print: Joshua Pearce, a Michigan Technological University professor of electrical and computer engineering, is an open-source hardware expert (think 3D printing and similar technology patterns free for all to use). Joshua also is co-editor-in-chief of HardwareX, the leading peer-reviwed open-source scientific hardware journal. HardwareX has made an all-call for papers to build an open-source, 3D-printed ventilator and other COVID-19 medical hardware. They need ideas, printers, medical experts and a synthetic lung, according to a story by Allison Mills posted by the Houghton, Mich.-based university. "The research on open-source ventilators is not new, but when it started a decade ago the technology was not there. Now it is, and we have substantial motivation, and we just need to bring all the information together,” Pearce said. “Even complex medical devices are not outside the realm of possibility anymore.”
Sociable Distancing: Jerri Gruber posted this joke on Good People, Places & Things, poking a little fun at how much distance most of us folk in the Big Lake neighborhood can manage. Around the full 1,300 or so miles of lakeshore spread along Minnesota, Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin, we number fewer than 640,000 residents. That gives us plenty of room for social distancing. But in recent weeks, our local folk, usually warm welcomers of visitors and seasonal residents, have had to make hard decisions to ask people to stay in their main home areas. Local counties have issued requests to visitors and seasonal residents not to flock north and thereby helping to protect vulnerable local residents and not overwhelming our modest medical facilities and day-to-day resources in smaller communities. While we know transportation of food and other products like, yes, toilet paper, has gone on steadily around the country, that doesn't mean that tiny-town groceries are getting up-to-the-minute deliveries. So please keep in touch with us through sociable media, and we'll post photos showing how we're doing and ones that remind you, and us, of what a precious place this is where we live. We hope to welcome you with open waters, open businesses and open arms soon.
You're Breaking Up: The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alder, home ported in Duluth, usually might be hanging around Thunder Bay about now, cutting a fine navigation channel through any ice for incoming vessels at the port. But thanks to the semi-closure of the U.S.-Canadian border, allowing only certain products and people to traverse between the two countries, the Alder was redirected this week through the Soo Locks and then down to Lake Michigan to help place buoys for the coming maritime season. It first loaded up with the buoys in Milwaukee (seen here) then headed to south of Chicago. In the Alder's stead, the Canadian Coast Guard cutter Samuel Risley headed this week to Thunder Bay to ready the port for vessel traffic. This photo of the Risley sailing by the Sleeping Giant came from Michelle Key. Non-essential travel – including tourist travel – across the U.S.-Canadian border continues to be restricted, though supply chains, including trucking, and people who live on one side of the border and work in an "essential" job on the other also can continue crossing.
Thuddenly, A Happy Ending: Photographer/Naturalist Connie Hartviksen, whose work is featured in our "Many Happy Returns" story in the April/May issue of Lake Superior Magazine, posted an uplifting note this week about a close encounter that started with a thud and ended with a fare-thee-well. Here's her story, posted on the Thunder Bay Field Naturalists' Facebook page:
"Thud! In a split second I knew what had happened. I ran to the window, and I could see this Downy Woodpecker laying upside down in the snow. This doesn’t happen often but with all the woodpecker activity and frenzied territorial and breeding displays this last week, it wasn’t a surprise. They just aren’t thinking straight. I have a protocol when this happens that I thought I would share. I believe that it gives a stunned bird its best chance at survival, and I am almost always successful at this. I always have a safe box handy … it is a small lined cooler with a zippered top and a folded towel in the bottom. Outside I dash with box in hand and check for signs of life. Sometimes the bird will fly off right away if they are able, while some need to recover for a bit first. This little one was still breathing well so I picked it up gently and placed it in the box. I zipper the box almost shut leaving just a small peek-hole so I can check on it. I always bring the birds inside for some quiet time. I am not comfortable leaving them outside when they are vulnerable. In my case, there are predatory birds, the fox and even squirrels that can be nasty. In more urban settings, they would be easy-pickins for cats. So they come in where it is safe and warm. I check regularly and usually within an hour or less, I can hear fluttering in the box. Ready for release, so outside we go. Often when the lid gets unzipped, they fly out immediately. Sometimes, like today, I needed to lift it out. I set it on this 4-foot tall stump and within a few seconds it flew off. My good deed for the day." A good deed and good advice.
Photo & graphic credits: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District; Scott Bjorklund; Steve Sola; Wisconsin Sea Grant; Stormy Kromer; Michigan Tech; Jerri Gruber; U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alder; Michelle Key; Connie Hartviksen/Thunder Bay Field Naturalists