Lake Frieghter

Lake Freighters, or lakers, are large freight ships that travel the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence seaway.  They transport all sorts of goods - grains, gravel, ore etc.

When I was in Port Colborne Ontario last week I got to get up close and personal with a laker that was getting ready to winter in a lock on the Welland Canal. The Canal is used by ships to go between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

These ships are huge.  They are up to 730ft long and 100ft wide.

The following are shots of the ship in dock, and of another one I saw steaming west on the canal the following day.

The cool thing about the lakers is that anyone can get right up to them. I literally reached out and touched it.  As you can see, they are huge:

This ship I saw sailing down the canal while at a geocaching event (Doc House's New Years Cachin' Eve). We all waved, and the pilot honked his horns back at us.

Once last look... sailing off into the distance. This ship was heading towards Port Colborne, perhaps to winter beside the other ship pictured above.  The canal was scheduled to close the next day, so he couldn't have gotten that far.