Top hat ceremonies to kick off Welland Canal opening
PORT COLBORNE, ON – A beaver fur top hat will be presented to the captain of the first downbound vessel on the Welland Canal when the 2023 shipping season kicks off in Port Colborne this week.
The city’s annual top hat ceremony takes place Wednesday in the pavilion at Lock 8 Gateway Park, 163 Mellanby Ave., with breakfast at 8 a.m., followed by the event at 8:30 a.m.
At the opposite end of the canal, a top hat ceremony will take place at St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre, 1932 Welland Canals Pkwy., at 10 a.m.
Port Colborne’s ceremony started in the early 1970s under then-mayor John Buscarino and involves a ceremonial beaver felt fur hat being presented to the captain of the first downbound vessel — headed to Lake Ontario from Lake Erie. An anonymous person donated the turn-of-the-century Tress & Co beaver felt fur hat to Port Colborne Historical and Marine Museum, which has loaned it out annually since 1999.
The captain of the first downbound ship is also presented with a hat to keep. In years past, it’s been presented to the same captain, same vessel, tug and barge combinations and even a U.S. coast guard icebreaker. It’s unknown which vessel will be the first downbound through the city, but at least four of six vessels that wintered in Port Colborne are above Bridge 19A, the Mellanby Avenue Bridge, and facing north.
The captain of the first upbound vessel — headed to Lake Erie from Lake Ontario — on the 43-kilometre, eight-lock Welland Canal will be presented with a top hat as well in St. Catharines.
St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. will officially launch the 65th navigation season of the 3,700-kilometre-long St. Lawrence Seaway at St. Lambert Lock on Montreal’s South Shore.
It will host an on-site event with seaway president and chief executive officer Terrence Bowles, the American Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. deputy administrator Adam Tindall-Schlicht, and Gregg Ruhl, president and chief executive officer of St. Catharines-based Algoma Central Corp.
The seaway invested $32 million in infrastructure work this winter, which included the deck on the Homer Bridge on Queenston Street, connecting St. Catharines and Niagara-on-the-Lake, being replaced, and the west abutment of the Clarence Street Bridge in Port Colborne being refurbished. Both bridges reopened Wednesday.
Originally scheduled to close on Jan. 7, the canal remained open until Jan. 9 this year. As part of a five-year pilot project, the seaway has extended its season into January for the past four years.
During the 2022 shipping season, the seaway authorities said more than 36 million tonnes of cargo moved through the lakes and canal system. That was down 5.03 per cent, 1.922 million tonnes, compared to 2021. Contributing 11 million tonnes to the total were dry bulk commodities, such as coke, salt and potash.
Potash shipments shot up 100 per cent last year as global issues — the invasion of Ukraine and sanctions imposed on Russia — affected fertilizer and grain supplies. Potash is a key ingredient in fertilizer, and Russia is one source of the mineral. Ukraine and Russia also account for more than 20 per cent of worldwide grain exports.
Welland Tribune
U.S. Steel restarts Blast Furnace #8 at Gary Works
U.S. Steel has restarted the No. 8 blast furnace at its flagship Gary Works steel mill.
The Pittsburgh-based steelmaker, one of the Region’s largest employers, idled both the No. 3 blast furnace at Mon Valley Works in Pennsylvania and the No. 8 furnace in Gary last year after steel prices came down from historic highs in 2021 amid fears of a looming recession.
U.S. Steel has restarted both blast furnaces over the past couple of weeks as market conditions have improved.
The steelmaker said it restarted the blast furnace because of rising demand and improving prices.
Steelmakers have gone from facing headwinds to getting winds behind their sales thus far this year. The domestic steel industry has especially benefited as automakers have ramped production back up after being hamstrung by semiconductor chip and other supply chain shortages in recent years.
The No. 8 blast furnace at Gary Works can make up to 1.5 million tons of iron annually. It was originally idled for a planned maintenance project last year and was supposed to be restarted in August after three months of construction, but then market conditions deteriorated and U.S. Steel opted to leave it down until demand returned.
No one was laid off as a result of the idling. The temporarily displaced workers were moved to other parts of the sprawling steel mill that stretches for seven miles along the Lake Michigan lakeshore.
“We continue to monitor market conditions and bring furnaces back online when business conditions allow,” U.S. Steel spokeswoman Amanda Malkowski said. “There is no employment impact from bringing #8 back online, nor was there any employment impact in bringing it down.”
U.S. Steel also operates the Midwest Plant in Portage, which has many finishing lines that prepare the steel made at Gary Works for a variety of commercial uses.
NWI Times
Mark your calendars for Soo Boatnerd Picnic and Freighter-Chasing Cruise
Join us for the Annual Boatnerd Picnic and Freighter-Chasing Cruise on the St. Marys River during the annual Engineers’ Day weekend at Sault Ste. Marie June 29-30. Find details on both events here: https://boatnerd3.jasonbowlerdesign.com/boatnerd-soo-gathering-june-29-30-2023/
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- 2022 Top Hat ceremony. Brad Wood photo
