Interlake Maritime Services is new parent company of Original Soo Locks Boat Tours
Middleburg Heights, OH – Interlake Maritime Services’ new subsidiary Soo Maritime Services has acquired the assets of the American & Canadian Lock Tours which include the tour boats Hiawatha, Bide-A-Wee and Holiday that provide river and lock tours.
A third-generation business owned and operated by the Welch family, the Original Soo Locks Boat Tours has been a popular tourist attraction in the Soo since 1934, and will continue as usual under the new ownership.
There are two separate lock tour companies in Sault Ste. Marie: Original Soo Locks Boat Tours (white-painted boats) and Famous Soo Locks Boat Tours (the buff-colored boats Nokomis and Le Voyageur). The two shared some aspects of their operations for many years but that arrangement ended in early 2021.
“The Soo area plays a vital role in Great Lakes shipping and we’re excited to have new employees, new tour boats and a waterfront presence to continue the legacy of educating the public on the importance of the Soo Locks,” wrote Mark W. Barker, president of Interlake Maritime Services, in a press release. “We’re looking forward to working with the Soo team, which has built such a successful business in Michigan’s oldest city that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.”
Interlake Maritime Services also operates the Lake Michigan Carferry SS Badger and the Interlake Steamship Co.
Steve Welch, owner of the Original Soo Locks Boat Tours, passed away at Sault Ste. Marie on Jan. 26, 2022.
The Barker’s connection to the Soo goes back more than 50 years. Members of the Barker family called the Soo home for many years, with relatives working as a local butcher and aboard the supply boat that serviced the Great Lakes vessels. Little did the family know then that young James R. Barker, who took his first ride on an ore boat when he was 9 months old, would grow up to be stationed at the Soo in the Coast Guard and eventually buy the fleet that his grandfather and uncle had worked to supply years earlier.
lnterlake’s family of companies have a rich maritime history in the Soo as well. The lnterlake fleet has been carrying the bulk cargoes that have powered the region for more than 100 years and can still be seen regularly coming through the Soo Locks.
In 1934 Capt. Milo Beechgood Welch originated the Soo Locks sightseeing boat tours in Sault Ste. Marie, according the company’s website. As a seasoned tugboat captain, Welch was employed by the Great Lakes Towing Co., and always noticed that the Soo Locks had an attraction with visitors. People were simply intrigued by the ships locking through the world’s largest locking system. At that time, the only passengers that went through the Locks were aboard palatial passenger steamships or shipping company guests riding on the large lake freighters.
Capt. Welch believed that the only way to truly experience the Soo Locks was by boat. He believed that all visitors to Sault Ste. Marie deserved the opportunity to experience the Soo Locks by riding through them. Financing such a dream would be difficult, as the local banks thought the idea was doomed to certain failure. They reasoned that people were satisfied seeing the locks from the lock wall. The banks were wrong, and the company has been in business ever since.
Interlake Maritime Services
S.S. Norisle revitalization project is full steam ahead
Manitowaning, ON – A representative of the S.S. Norisle Steamship Society says the restoration and proposed use for the historic ship are still being explored, that the project is definitely not dead. The project has only been curtailed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Norisle has been moored in the Manitowaning harbor since its decommissioning by the Own Sound Transportation Company in 1975.
John Coulter, director of restoration for the society told The Expositor, “the proposal for complete restoration of the ship hasn’t changed, only the ability to negotiate with various agencies and the government has, due to the pandemic. The idea is to restore the ship to a four-star Great Lakes cruising ship. That has always been the case.” The Norisle would be one, if not the only Canadian cruise ship that would venture throughout all the Great Lakes.
Mr. Coulter said that the pandemic has been the real problem in the process. “All meetings of our group with various officials have been put on hold for the past two years. Whatever movement we had made been making prior to the pandemic has been restricted since.”
He noted the ship was painted last summer. “However, the rest of the proposal and negotiations we were involved in has been in a state of flux since COVID hit, especially in our ability to hold meetings and negotiations.”
As for negotiations and who that has involved or will continue to be once the pandemic has subsided, “I can’t go any further on the extent of that at this time. We are trying to be as respectful to the ship and the community as possible.”
Manitoulin Expositor
$3.7M grant to aid Lafarge port upgrades at Alpena; hoping for larger ships
Alpena, MI – An Alpena company will snag a piece of more than $241 million in grants awarded to upgrade U.S. ports.
Lafarge Alpena, which last year asked the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration for help paying for upgrades to one of its boat slips, will receive $3.7 million as one of 25 grantees of DOT’s port infrastructure development grants, awarded at the end of 2021.
The investments in the Alpena port, and others across the nation, will strengthen supply chains and speed up delivery of goods to residents, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in a news release.
The City of Alpena partnered with Lafarge in applying for the grant, which required public sponsorship. Lafarge will use the grant to improve an existing but rarely used boat slip, making it deeper and wider to allow access by freighters longer than the ships that currently pick up loads of cement at the Lafarge port, plant manager Jeff Scott said.
Structural work on the adjacent dock, including adding a roof to a storage structure, will allow for offloading on both sides of a freighter dropping off raw materials.
Old-style vessels could reach the slip’s unloading equipment, but the larger ships Lafarge hopes to attract can’t, Scott said. Those older, smaller ships are fewer and farther between on the Great Lakes, and Alpena needs to attract the larger ships more common on the horizon to remain competitive as a port city, he said.
Larger ships also carry more product, meaning one freighter can do the work of two smaller vessels, creating a smaller carbon footprint and lowering the cost of doing business for the company.
The improved slip would be open to public vessels when not in use by Lafarge and could benefit the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Scott said in June.
Lafarge will have to pay a portion of the $5 million project before government money kicks in, with funds channeled through the city as the project’s sponsor. Grant rules require that Lafarge buy American for all project materials and services except in extreme circumstances.
Lafarge will apply for dredging permits in spring. Scott hopes work on the slip can begin in fall, with projects expected to be complete in mid-2023.
Alpena News
NACC Quebec and Algoscotia continue their refit at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands
View images in the gallery.
Lecture series set for Great Lakes museum
Toledo, OH – A program about the people, places, and moments of the Underground Railroad in northwest Ohio will kick off the National Museum of the Great Lakes’ spring lecture series later this month.
“Freedom on the Horizon,” is planned for 7 p.m. Feb. 23 at the museum, 1701 Front St., or online via Zoom, the museum announced.
The second lecture, “The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas,” is planned for March 23. The final presentation, highlighting the history of the Army Corps of Engineers on the Great Lakes, is scheduled for April 6.
Event registration is free but required for all lectures. In addition to its role in the Feb. 23 lecture, the Heritage Sylvania historical organization also will produce an Underground Railroad exhibit opening at the museum later this winter. For further details, see the museum’s website at https://nmgl.org.
