Lakers

Tall ship Roseway, docked at St. Ignace, Michigan, last summer.

Still creeping into MacArthur Lock at Sault Ste. Marie....

This ship was built in 1936 as an ocean-going tanker, sailing first as Pan-Amoco and later as Amoco (you can likely guess who owned her). She's been carrying cement on the Lakes as JAW Iglehart for National Gypsum and its successors since being rebuilt in 1965. History on the Boatnerd site . Pretty ship.... ============== Photographed in 1995 using my Chinon Genesis. This pic has some technical difficulties (fast film flaws, mostly) but I'm relatively pleased with it. That warehouse is in the background....

As a ship approaches the viewing platform above the MacArthur lock at Sault Ste. Marie, the perspective suddenly changes. Instead of looking at an approaching ship, you can suddenly see all the machinery on the deck and you start to get interested in the details.

Herbert C. Jackson at Sault Ste. Marie; June of 2005.

This is what I like best about watching boats at the Soo: You can see the people who work on these ships. Particularly if the boat's in Macarthur. Engineers Day, 2005.

Then they get even closer. Engineers Day 2005. (Engineers Day 2006 is June 24 --next week. Just in case you want to go.)

The deck of laker Herbert Jackson at Sault Ste. Marie, Engineers Day, 2005. Here we see the large hatches and the unloader boom.

Another angle on those folks looking over the edge of the Jackson. Here we can begin to see some of the details behind the pilot house.

The only sheltered place on the deck of Herbert C. Jackson is a mix of heavy equipment and recreation area.

A crewman walks along the deck on Herbert C. Jackson at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He gives a sense of scale for the large hatches which occupy the ship's deck. Jackson's not a large boat by current standards, but she's certainly large enough to satisfy most of us. Notice the sightseeing boat Chief Shingwauk in Poe Lock, beyond the Jackson (which is in Macarthur Lock). Engineers Day 2005.

Herbert C. Jackson was built with a passenger cabin. Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Engineers Day, 2005.

In Sault Ste. Marie's Macarthur Lock. Ontario's Sault in the background. And notice all the people on the massive lock door.

The unloading boom--and most of the deck--of the laker Herbert C. Jackson, at the Soo Locks in June of 2005. Most modern Great Lakes ships have self-unloading capabilities, which greatly increases their usefulness.

Interlake's Herbert C. Jackson at Macarthur Lock, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, June of 2005.

Memorial Day weekend, 1990, from the deck of Boblo boat St. Clair . Taken on the annual river outing of the Marine Historical Society of Detroit . My memory says the boat at the coal dock was James Barker , but I consider that unreliable. I'm gonna be paying for my fast film habit forever....

The Corps of Engineers has a large crane barge, called Paul Bunyan, at Sault Ste. Marie. Shown here in Davis Lock on Engineers Day, 2005.

Passenger ship Nantucket Clipper and 1000-foot lakes boat Oglebay Norton downbound at Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, sometime in 1998. This is my Chinon Genesis at its best. I reached through the fence, pointed it at the ships, and let the camera get the focus right. It generally handled these situations right; over the years I learned to trust it. Of course, if I tried to do this nowadays I'd likely get shot....