Our boat took us right near Ore Dock 6. These docks load iron ore pellets from railcars onto ships and unload limestone from ships to railcars. The active Dock 6 was built in 1918 and the adjacent, inactive Dock 5 was built in 1914. Operated by the Canadian National Railway of Montreal, Dock 6 can load ships via a conveyor belt system or gravity-feed; the conveyor belt system can load 10,000 tons of iron ore pellets onto a ship per hour.
A ship being loaded with taconite pellets.
A Canadian National ore train on the dock.
Docks 5 and 6.
The ore docks were mammoth and impressive. I returned inside for my dinner then went back outside to enjoy the views and take more photographs.
The coal terminal on the Superior side of the bay.
Another large Great Lakes freighter.
A second scrap terminal on the Duluth side of the bay.
The US Highway 2 bridge with the Grassy Point Drawbridge beyond.
The open draw span on the Grassy Point Drawbridge which was built by the Northern Pacific Railway who contracted it to the American Bridge Company of New York in 1912. Currently owned by the BNSF Railway, it is 1,660 feet long and the largest span is 430 feet. It has two tracks, one of which is in use and is a swing bridge, through plate girder and trestle, over the St. Louis River connecting Superior, Wisconsin to West Duluth, Minnesota.
The US Highway 2 bridge which carries vehicles from Superior to Duluth.
A limestone dock.
A large lake ship on the bay.
More coal.
That ship is still loading coal.
Algoma Central Marine.
The Interstate 535 bridge.
Another freighter at the dock for unloading.
Duluth.
The sun had set over the hills above Duluth.
United States Coast Guard Ice cutter Alder, a 225-foot buoy tender that also breaks ice on Lake Superior near the beginning and end of the shipping season. The Alder was designed not to ram or cut through ice, but to ride up onto it and use the ship's weight to break the ice beneath the bow. The crew will add weight, craning enormous concrete blocks onto the deck, when battling thick ice.
The Duluth marina.
The Aerial Lift Bridge which we now waited to pass under to reach Lake Superior.
The Aerial Lift Bridge lifted.
Our boat would now pass beneath the bridge and head for Lake Superior.
Looking up at the bridge.
Superior Point Entry Lighthouse. A lighthouse commenced operation on Minnesota Point in 1858, just five years after the completion of the bypass canal at Sault Ste. Marie that allowed vessels to easily move between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. Minnesota Point Lighthouse was extinguished in 1885, after its role had been taken over by a pierhead light on the northwest side of Superior Entry. In June 1893, the pierhead light, a skeletal frame structure of twelve-inch square timbers, was moved to the pier on the southeast side of Superior Entry, where an elevated walkway was built to provide access to the light in stormy weather. The Lighthouse Board recommended that a fog signal be added to serve with the relocated light and that a dwelling be erected on the Wisconsin side of the entry for the keeper, who was still living in the dwelling at the old Minnesota Point Lighthouse. At this time, over 900 vessels arrived and cleared from Superior Bay each year, carrying commerce with a value of over $28 million.
A six-inch steam whistle, housed in a twenty by forty-foot building just behind the light, was placed in operation for the first time on October 15, 1893 and a duplex, with six rooms in each of its apartments, was built for the two keepers now required to run the station. During its first decade of operation, the steam whistle was in operation an average of 394 hours each year. In 1898, a pole was placed on the inner end of the south pier, and a post lantern was shone from it to range with the pierhead light. This rear pole light was replaced in 1902 by a square, pyramidal frame tower, sixty-two feet high, which was painted white and topped by a black octagonal lantern room. A fourth-order lens was mounted in the lantern room and started to display its fixed white light with the opening of navigation on April 1, 1902. This frame tower had previously been used as a temporary lighthouse on Devils Island and became available in late 1901 after that station was completed.
Superior Entry Lighthouse went into commission on June 30, 1913 at the outer end of the southern breakwater. This two-story, concrete structure is oval in plan and situated on a concrete pier that rises eleven-and-a-half feet above the concrete breakwater. A circular tower rises from the outer end of the lighthouse, and is surmounted by a cast-iron deck and a fourth-order helical bar lantern room, from which an occulting white light was exhibited by a fourth- order, Sautter, Lemonier, & Cie. drum lens at a focal plane of seventy feet. A clockwork mechanism, powered by a seventy-five pound weight that was suspended in a drop tube and had to be wound up every four hours, revolved a screen inside the lens to produce the light’s characteristic: five seconds of light, followed by five seconds of eclipse.
The Aerial Lift Bridge looks good in any light.
The Superior Point Entry Lighthouse on the left and the Minnesota Point Lighthouse on the right.
Leaving the harbor entrance behind as we made our way out onto the waters of Lake Superior.
The shoreline of Duluth.
We left the Aerial Lift Bridge behind as we journedy further into the lake.
Duluth.
The boat returned under the Aerial Lift Bridge and back to the dock, ending an excellent cruise aboard the Vista Fleet. After we docked, I took the school bus back to the Radisson then walked the five blocks back to the Best Western for the night.
| RETURN TO THE MAIN PAGE |