SOO LOCKS -- It’s a good day for commercial boaters who do a lot of business traveling on Lake Superior when the Soo Locks are opened. Usually for the first few weeks, the boats have to dodge big ice. But there’s a remedy for this, and if there’s ice in the way, there soon won’t be.
"The whole ship is shaking, it's impossible to do work," laughs Just Kimura.
That's how Lt. Cdr. Justin Kimura describes the United States Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw busting through the big stuff, the thick, unforgiving ice.
“This year it's extremely mild, and I'm a little disappointed frankly, as an ice breaker coming in as an ice breaker, you want to see that heavy ice," says Kimura.
Here's a look at the Saint Mary's River. Usually in early March, you can expect thick ice laboring the Mackinaw to cut a path for the beginning of commercial traffic season. This year, if you didn't know the water was extremely cold, you might consider going for a dip.
The Mackinaw crew was assembled early Thursday morning for the mission of opening the Soo Locks. Along with this ship, two other Coast Guard Cutters along with one Canadian cutter were the first to embark on the journey down the Saint Mary's River into the Locks, and lock up from the low-lying Lake Huron side to the frigid waters of Lake Superior.
All there was between the dock and the locks was a thin shale of ice.
The Captain says he doesn't remember a time when the locks have been this open, this early in the year.“This is a very unusual winter for us here in the Great Lakeswhen it comes to ice breaking, it's been a very mild winter," says Cdr. Scott Smith, the Captain of the ship.
As the Soo gates opened after 13 minutes of locking up to the level of Lake Superior, it was just about the same story, nothing but thin, irrelevant ice. There wasn't any shaking of the boat, it wasn't impossible to hold a camera steady, it was out-of-the-ordinary smooth sailing.
“It signifies the transition between the winter close season and the open season, and really the start of more commercial traffic," says Smith.
Even though it wasn't an icy adventure, the Mackinaw has to make sure there's a path, because the locks open on Sunday.
Captain Smith says the Cutter Mackinaw will leave Friday to break up any ice in Whitefish Bay. He says reports show there isn’t much ice there either, which makes the mission easier. But he says that’s not always a good thing, because it cuts down their chances for training.
