Harbors

Conneaut, Ohio, in 1991. Another photo from the Lake Erie ports excursion I mentioned a couple days back. Camera: Chinon Genesis III

LS&I Dock, Marquette. The ship in the background is Lee A. Tregurtha. 1990, I believe. Camera: Minolta 110 Zoom SLR

And today we prove the possibility of taking an excellent photograph with an inexpensive camera.... Took this photo by pointing my camera out my hotel window in Houghton on the prettiest fall weekend I remember, in late September of 1990. The Keweenaw National Park was not "real" at this time but while we were in the vicinity we had some contact with the efforts which would create it. The wreck of a building complex across the Portage River was the Quincy Copper Smelter in Ripley--it still stands, more or less, and folks still hope to restore it. That would be worthwhile, but I'll believe it when it happens. Like Cliffs Shaft Mine and Painesdale's Champion, these buildings were last fully active in 1967, but have not stood up nearly so well. The ship in the foreground is Ranger III--transportation to Isle Royale National Park--and the buildings in the foreground are a part of that truly remote park. I was in town for a meeting of the South Shore Special Interest Group (DSS&A SIG) of the Soo Line Historical & Technical Society, which was just forming at the time (the SIG, not the Society). We spent the weekend touring mining locations, looking over old rolling stock, and sharing stories. A good time. This photo has often been mistaken for a model railroad picture. Nope: A photo from real life. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

S/S William Clay Ford--once Walter A. Sterling, now Lee A. Tregurtha--passes under the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge on a grey August day in 1988. We were in Duluth to attend the annual convention of the Missabe Railroad Historical Society. The Ford had been loading at the DMIR docks earlier in the day--I have more photos--and we made a point of being at the Duluth Ship Canal when she left for points south. Notable: This is the second ship to bear William Clay Ford's name and is not the ship whose pilot house overlooks the Detroit River at the Dossin Museum on Belle Isle. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

Unloading coal at Ontonagon, Michigan.

This is the ferry slip in Port Huron, Michigan, taken from the park they've built at Desmond Landing . CSX used to have a busy yard, just south of the Black River, whose purpose was to handle rail traffic which crossed the US/Canadian border on barges. That traffic has migrated to the new St. Clair tunnel (now named for Paul Tellier ), which opened in 1995. That's Sarnia, Ontario, in the background.

The ship is Teakglen, photographed at Sarnia's Government Dock last weekend. This ship's reported to be bound for the shipbreakers within the next few weeks.

Taken from the Kewaunee breakwater, out by the lighthouse . An interesting array of buildings; slightly active on this Monday morning.

Cobia, on display at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc. The local shipbuilders constructed 28 subs during World War II; although this particular sub was built in Connecticut, it's of the same family as the Manitowoc ships. Moreover, Cobia was stationed in Milwaukee for about a decade (National Guard work), so there is a genuine Wisconsin connection. The only other time I was in Manitowoc was the day the sub was first opened for public display, back in (I think) 1986. That was just accidental. For the record: This is among the finest museums I've visited, on any subject, in any place. Easily justifies a visit to Manitowoc. Shot from SS Badger.

August 1990: The ship named Presque Isle beside the ore dock called Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan. Beyond the dock is Marquette's Presque Isle Park, which may explain something. But the ship's probably named after Erie's Presque Isle. I posted another photo of this ship some time ago, with a comment on the mixed paint job the ship would be sporting a couple years hence. This photo shows the original paint scheme. The ship is unloading coal into the conveyor system known as the Presque Isle Coal Dock. A piece of that facility clips the upper right corner of the photo. The conveyor moves the coal to piles around Wisconsin Electric Power's generating plant (still another facility named Presque Isle). Strangely, the (ship) Presque Isle is too wide for the ore dock to reach the hold's center, so she'll head elsewhere for an ore load. Properly speaking, Presque Isle is not a ship at all; she's a barge with a tug boat built into her stern. If you study the details in this photo, you'll see how they fit together.

Here's a better illustration of the layout of the Marquette upper harbor coal dock. The ship Presque Isle is snugged up against the ore dock, and has run its unloader to the coal dock. The whole thing's conveyors and similar transport mechanisms. The really neat thing about the Marquette upper harbor is how close you can get to the boats. This photo shows that well.

Missabe Railroad's tug, Edna G, docked in retirement next to the ore dock she long helped service at Two Harbors, Minnesota. The Two Harbors Lighthouse is barely visible out near the end of the spit of land. Posted for Bulldog1 . Hi, Suzy! Taken in 1990 with my Minolta Freedom 100. Further proof that it's possible to take fine photographs with inexpensive cameras. This photo used to be on another site. New, far better, scan posted May 20, 2006.

The harbor at Ashtabula, Ohio, on a cloudy but sunlit day in 1991. We'd started the day in Kalamazoo, driven to Erie, Pennsylvania, then began working our way back home with stops at most of Ohio's Lake Erie harbors. Each harbor has its own personality.... The "bridge" is a conveyor between the coal (taconite?) yard/dock (off the screen to your left) and the trains beyond the Coast Guard station. No idea what that ship is. Camera: Chinon Genesis III. Added to Cream of the Crop as my current personal favorite picture.

Interlake 's thousand foot laker James R. Barker takes on a pelletized iron ore load at Taconite Harbor , Minnesota, August of 1996. The big structure's LTV's ore dock. The railroad runs in a big loop atop the trestle . The smokestacks behind Barker are atop a power plant. This photo reminds me that I haven't been in Minnesota since that vacation. Need to do something about that. Camera: Chinon Genesis III. Scanned from a grainy slide, which explains the peculiar sky.

My favorite harbor: Conneaut, Ohio, as it looked in 1991. This was one of the busiest harbors in the world for much of the twentieth century (it's Lake Erie's nearest port to Pittsburgh), and remains busy enough to be interesting. All packed into a remarkably small area . The harbor's not very wide, and less than a half mile long. The black mechanical thingies are Hulett Unloaders --wonderful and improbable contraptions whose mission in life was unloading iron ore from large ships. They'd already been retired when this photo was taken and have since been removed. Self-unloading ships are doubtless more efficient, and are clearly more versatile, but they're far less interesting to watch.

The Steel Corp's gorgeous Cason J. Callaway takes on coal in 1991. This is what I like about Conneaut.

The replica of Oliver Hazard Perry's relief flagship, Niagara , at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1991. "Relief" because Perry's original flagship, Lawrence , was rendered inoperable during the Battle of Lake Erie . The replica Niagara , which apparently incorporates some pieces of the original ship, was quite new at the time I took this photo. Shot this one by holding the camera up over a fairly tall fence, then pressing the shutter release. One of the neat things about the Chinon camera is that you've usually got an excellent idea where the thing is pointed, even when you can't look through the viewfinder.

That neat conveyor again, and the Ashtabula Coast Guard Station. The entry to Ashtabula Harbor--or part of the harbor, anyway. 1991. Camera: Chinon Genesis III.