 |
||||
|
The Harbor Line |
The St. Lawrence Seaway:
You just put your pack on your back and your canoe on your shoulders and headed west. A couple of years, a climb of 602 feet and 2,342 miles later — you were there. That is, if you didn’t forget to pack a lunch. Today the carriers and shippers of the international maritime community move literally millions of tons of cargo along that formidable stretch of river, lakes and locks, making a daunting task look astonishingly easy.
A key to the practical use of the passage is the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System, which runs from Montreal to the eastern end of Lake Erie. The Seaway was the vital link that complements the Canadian Welland Canal Locks and the Soo Locks, owned and operated by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in Sault Ste. Marie. The Seaway was built over five years by both the United States and Canada, beginning in 1954. The Seaway can now accommodate vessels with lengths of 740 feet, widths of 78 feet and drafts of 26 feet. On May 3, 1959, the British-flag Ramon de Larrinaga became the first ocean ship to arrive in Duluth-Superior via the Seaway. A new era in international commerce had begun. Over the next 40 years more than 8,500 oceangoing vessels would call on Duluth-Superior. Adding the Canada-flag vessels that would make a full Seaway transit to reach Duluth-Superior would bring the total to more than 15,000 vessels, or 375 a year. In that same period, about 250 million metric tons of Seaway cargo would be shipped via the Twin Ports. No wonder that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in dedicating the Seaway in Montreal on June 26, 1959, said, “The parade of ships already passing through the Seaway on their way to and from the heart of a continent strikingly demonstrates the economic value of this new channel.” He went on to say, “But the Seaway is far more than a technical and commercial triumph. It has more significance than just the successful construction of even this notable aid to commerce and navigation. It is, above all, a magnificent symbol to the entire world of the achievements possible to democratic nations peacefully working together for the common good.” Today the Seaway is jointly operated and maintained by the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation and the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation of Canada. U. S. Seaway Administrator Albert S. Jacquez and Canadian Seaway Management Corporation President Guy Veronneau will help Duluth-Superior celebrate the Seaway’s 40th anniversary by joining a panel of speakers on July 26 at the Transportation Research Board’s Summer Ports, Waterways & International Trade Conference. During this event, Administrator Jacquez will present AGP Grain Limited, Lake Superior Warehousing Co., Inc., and the Port Authority with U. S. Seaway Pacesetter Awards. The awards go to U. S. ports and terminals that post increased overseas shipments through the Seaway from year to year. |
|||
We don’t know who first made
the trek from the Atlantic Ocean to the spot of land now occupied by the
Twin Ports cities of Duluth, Minn., and Superior, Wis. But we know that
whomever it was had what we would call today a clear sense of direction. How to get from Point A (the ocean) to
Point B (the Twin Ports) was never a mystery: 
Those big ships going in and out of the Duluth harbor help pump the
life into Minnesota’s economy. Our state has so much to offer, but
we’d be in trouble if we weren’t a key link in the St. Lawrence
Seaway System. Happy 40th Anniversary. 
History has spoken. Just as John Blatnik envisioned, the St. Lawrence
Seaway became one of the great waterways of the world. We celebrate this
vision, and its realization.
