I thought of the Great Lakes freighters I've seen over the years as I finished my post, Remembering the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, earlier this week.
We saw the Canadian freighter Atlantic Erie off on Lake Superior while we visited Michigan's Upper Peninsula a few years ago.
The Atlantic Erie is a Canada Steamship Lines ship built in 1985 as the Hon. Paul Martin, one of many ships I've found presumably named for a Canadian politician and former prime minister. Martin's business career included time as President and CEO of the Canada Steamship Lines.
The freighter took its present name in 1988 and, at 736 feet long, is one of the largest boats in Canada's fleet.
If you look closely at the picture, you'll see the owner's Web Site address painted on its side.
I took this image of the Charles M. Beeghly while visiting Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum.
The museum is on the Detroit River, making it an ideal place for freighter watching.
The Shenango Furnace Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, owned a ship named the Shenango (built in 1909). The company sold that boat in the 1950s and built a new boat named Shenango II.
Shenango II, like the Edmund Fitzgerald, cost about $8 million to build and launched in 1958. This 710-foot-long boat was one of the larger boats on the Great Lakes, with only four boats longer than it at the time of its launch. One of them was the 729-foot-long Edmund Fitzgerald.
The Interlake Steamship Company of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased Shenango II in 1967 and renamed it for a steel company executive, Charles Milton Beeghley.
The company lengthened the ship to 806 feet in the early 1970s.
Officials tried to rename the boat in 2007 for a U.S. Representative James L. Oberstar of Minnesota. The ship became the Charles M. Beeghly again only days later because Oberstar felt naming a ship for him was inappropriate.
The Detroit River is a half-mile to two-and-one-half-miles wide. I took this photo from Belle Isle, in the middle of the river, so it's interesting to see how large the Beeghly is in relation to this particularly narrow part of the river. The building you see on the shore behind the ship is about 12 stories high!
Want to learn more about life aboard a freighter? Check out Deckhand: Life on Freighters of the Great Lakes by Nelson Hayadamacker and Alan D. Miller. Hayadamacker was a young deckhand working on Great Lakes freighters in the early 1960s, sailing with five different Interlake Steamship Company vessels.
Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.
© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved
An interesting post, thanks. Love the idea of a web address on a freighter!
Posted by: Anna | November 12, 2010 at 08:05 AM
Anna-I didn't realize the URL was there until long after I took that photo!
Posted by: Dominique King | November 13, 2010 at 01:38 PM
That's very cool that the museum is on the river. Sounds like a beautiful and very interesting place to visit.
Posted by: gypsyscarlett | November 14, 2010 at 06:05 AM
Now that's advertising!
Posted by: Anna | November 14, 2010 at 10:44 AM
Gypsy-It is a nice location for the museum. You can watch the freighters from the grounds, or indoors from a room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the river. They've also got a kiosk where you can check out the freighter schedule for the day so you know when to watch for the big boats.
Posted by: Dominique King | November 14, 2010 at 07:24 PM