Great Lakes Freighters

Across the vast freshwater seas of North America, immense working ships carry the raw materials that built cities, supplied steel mills and connected the continental interior with the wider world. Great Lakes Freighters tells the complete story of the ore boats, grain carriers, coal ships, stone boats and thousand-foot freighters that transformed inland navigation into one of the world’s great industrial transport systems. From Indigenous trade routes and the first sailing vessels to steam power, steel hulls, mechanical grain elevators and self-unloading ships, this richly detailed narrative follows the evolution of commerce across Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. The book explores the Soo Locks, the Welland Canal and the St Lawrence Seaway; life aboard a working laker; the ports, mines, shipyards and steel cities sustained by the trade; and the fog, ice and sudden storms that made the lakes as dangerous as any ocean. It also recounts the Great Storm of 1913, the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald and other wrecks whose lessons reshaped ship design, rescue services and maritime safety. Combining industrial history, maritime engineering and human experience, Great Lakes Freighters reveals how a relatively small fleet continues to move extraordinary quantities of ore, grain, limestone, salt and other essential cargoes through the heart of North America.