Coast Guard opening Grays Reef Passage
SAULT STE. MARIE, MI — Per 33 CFR 165.901, Captain of the Port Northern Great Lakes will open Grays Reef Passage, effective 1200 local time on 4 April 2025.
The Coast Guard would like to remind all recreational ice users to plan their activity carefully, use caution on the ice, and stay away from shipping channels.
Blacky earns Toronto port’s top hat
TORONTO, ON – The Port of Toronto’s 164th annual Top Hat ceremony was held March 31onboard Canfornav’s motor vessel Blacky. PortsToronto President & CEO RJ Steenstra awarded Captain Sergei Soldatkin of the Blacky with the top hat for being the first ocean-going vessel to arrive at the port.
It was a tight race with Maccoa this year, bur Blacky arrived first from Imbituba, Brazil, with more than 19,000 metric tonnes of sugar for Redpath Sugar.
In attendance were MPP Chris Glover, Rev. Judith Alltree, Ashley Black of Redpath Sugar, and Jason Crooks of Canfornav.
Janey Anderson
2025 “Know Your Ships” available now
The new shipping season is at hand, and so is the release of the 2025 edition of Know Your Ships, the popular annual field guide to boats and boatwatching on the Great Lakes & St. Lawrence Seaway, now in its 66th year.
New this year is the ability to preorder the midsummer EXTRA magazine, which will feature a 50th anniversary tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew, when you preorder the book.
Order at this link: www.knowyourships.com
Virtual Visitor Center Program
Explores 3-D Shipwreck Modeling
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society (GLSPS) plans to create a 3D model of every shipwreck on the Great Lakes. Andrew Goodman, Minneapolis-based diver, photographer and GLSPS board member joins us in the Virtual Visitor Center to share how the 3-D modeling project is going and what their work has revealed so far. Join us for the free presentation at this link: https://meet.goto.com/VirtualVisitorCenter/models
Exhibit “Steam and Steel: Propelling the Future of the
Great Lakes” Opens May 23 at Great Lakes Science Center
Cleveland, OH – Explore the history of Great Lakes shipping as Great Lakes Science Center celebrates the centennial of the Steamship William G. Mather with a special exhibit, Steam and Steel: Propelling the Future of the Great Lakes, from May 23 through September 1. Once the flagship of the Cleveland Cliffs, Inc., the Mather is now a museum allowing guests to explore the ship and see its huge cargo holds, brass and oak pilot house, elegant guest quarters, and four-story engine room.
Entering the Steam and Steel exhibit inside the museum, guests will first encounter a 14-by-10-foot replica of the front hull of the ship, providing the perfect place to snap a selfie before embarking on your journey into the history of the Mather and the world of Great Lakes shipping. Displays of artifacts from the Mather, and historic photos chronicling Cleveland’s shipping history, will showcase how Lake Erie and access to the other Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Atlantic Ocean helped shape the growth of Cleveland as a hub for commerce, industry and innovation.
Interactive exhibits will allow guests to experience what it was like to steer the mighty Mather, load and unload cargo, and raise and lower the drawbridges on a model canal lock. Other exhibits will allow guests to see how technological innovations in shipping, including the addition of radar, dual propeller bow thrusters, and the automated boiler system, contributed to the Mather’s long and successful run as a Great Lakes freighter and helped it become “the ship that built Cleveland.”
Great Lakes Science Center
