On the Great Lakes: A Mackinaw Dance for U.S. Steel

By Paul Witteman

"The uniform of the day," says Captain Gordon Hall, watching his parka-clad deck crew scramble around on the slippery bow, "is anything to keep warm." It is 0900 hours, with a --15DEG F wind-chill factor, and the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw is about to slip her berth in Sault Ste. Marie. She is headed for Whitefish Bay, a shallow and troublesome body of water leading into the treacherous inland sea that is Lake Superior. In 1975 the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, eulogized by Singer Gordon Lightfoot, was heading for shelter in the bay through a November gale when she sank with a crew of 29. In real winter, which in these parts begins in late December and does not let up until April, Superior's blasts drive ice down the bay in windrowed slabs, like giant serving dishes stacked in a sink.

Merchants in pursuit of profits have sailed Whitefish and Superior since the French fur traders' time, 3 1/2 centuries ago. But for most of that time--until seven years ago, in fact--the ice blocked even the biggest ore boats from January to April. The 35-year-old Mac will push 30 miles out into Whitefish and then back down through St. Marys River and the locks of Sault Ste. Marie, clearing the way for downbound ore carriers and for empty ships upbound from the steel mills at Gary, Ind. Each winter the 290-ft. Mac makes "track" not only through the solid heavy ice but through once broken ice refrozen in crazy-quilt patches the Coast Guardsmen call "brash." Moving through brash, says Hall, "is like trying to punch yourself through a room full of marshmallows." The Mac copes differently with ice 2 ft. thick. The old cutter does not exactly knife through it. She just sort of squashes the stuff, bit by bit. As we hit a swath of virgin ice half a mile wide, out in the bay, the twin screws in the stern force the ship's nearly 2-in.-thick tempered-steel bow up over the edge of the ice. The ice bends, then yields with a deep, dull, grinding mutter. Below decks, it sounds as if the Mac is bumping along over a dry bed of rocks. Down in the engine room crewmen wear plastic ear muffs to muffle noise from the cutter's ancient 2,000-h.p. diesels. As the ice field gives way, the Mac slips back and forth in a bow-to-stern rocking motion, soothing enough to make your eyelids droop.

Winter navigation on the Great Lakes, besides making tedious and costly work for Coast Guard icebreakers, is a highly touchy issue. The Mac's mission is part of a seven-year, $27 million experimental program, now in its last year, to determine whether or not winter navigation is practical. The folks in the steel industry, led by U.S. Steel, believe it is. Giant ore boats now cost $50 million to build, and the industry wants to use them all year for a better return on its money. Year-round navigation also provides a steadier flow of taconite to steel furnaces, eliminating the need for the old, pre-winter stockpiling of ore in Gary and other mill towns. An established, year-round flow would mean that U.S. Steel could permanently cut back on the size of its 26-ship Great Lakes fleet.

U.S. Steel feels passionate on the subject, not merely because it accounts for 20 million of the 80 million tons of shipping a year that passes through Sault Ste. Marie but because it insures its own fleet and can set the rates. Other shippers are far less committed to winter navigation because basic ship insurance rates rise prohibitively in the dead of winter.

Environmental groups look at still another bottom line. They fear that the life patterns of fish, birds and other wild animals may be permanently altered by winter navigation, damaging an already precarious ecological balance. When the ice is broken and heat trapped in the water below is released, so the argument goes, the life cycles of various fish may be affected. Just this January an environmental group in New York State called Save the River helped derail a similar navigation study projected for the St. Lawrence Seaway. For Captain Hall, the irony of his role as a public servant helping to keep the furnaces of the domestic steel industry stoked is cheerfully clear. Says he sardonically: "After it got started, the free-enterprise system worked well for about five minutes." But he has also played host to an assortment of environmentalists aboard the Mac and finds their pitch frustratingly laden with conjecture. "How can anyone tell if we're frightening the fish?" he asks.

The question may be answered within a couple of years by the U.S. Congress, acting on recommendations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, three downbound boats, led by U.S. Steel's Roger M. Blough (named for the company's former chief), plough past, distant shapes blurred by a sudden snow squall. The Blough is 858 ft. long and very efficient at lugging a payload of taconite pellets in a straight line. Negotiating the harrowing turns of the ice-clogged shipping channel, though, is not the strong suit of the Blough or of any lengthy ore carrier. Shepherding the flotilla of three past Johnson and Stribling points, the two most treacherous turns en route to Lake Huron, will keep the Mac busy until 2 o'clock the next morning.

Up on the bridge, illuminated by dark red night lights that do not impair vision, the watch is nursing the Blough and her followers down-channel. The Mac leads, softening the brash in the channel and "leaning on the corners," as Gordon Hall puts it. The channels are desperately tight. Ore carriers must have room to pivot around the turns without their bows or sterns straying from the deep water. There is much moving back and forth by the Mac in an effort to flush the ice from the shipping lane, and she shakes like a wet puppy. The "Mackinaw Dance," the crew calls it.

The morning brings a fresh set of problems. An ore carrier called the George Stinson is downbound. Known unaffectionately as "Gorgeous George," the Stinson is a recently built 1,000-ft.-long Goliath of the lakes. Gorgeous she isn't; unmanageable she is. Says a company skipper who has been on the lakes since 1936: "Those thousand footers don't belong up here." Hall further defines the problem. "They need a lot of power to avoid getting stuck. But if they come barreling around the turns full bore, they wind up in the trees."

Unlike U.S. Steel, National Steel Corp., which owns the Stinson, shuts down its shipping operations in the worst of the winter. As a result, this is the last run of the year for the Stinson. "He can smell the barn," says Hall. Prematurely, as it turns out. Gorgeous takes a turn wide, her bow wavers dangerously in the direction of the shallows and half a minute later she has slithered inshore. Not in the trees, to be sure, but helplessly hemmed in by tons of brash, powerless to move. Ever so carefully the Mac steams in, hacking at the brash.

A broadjump's length away from the looming hull, the Mac makes a pass down the Stinson's starboard side. "I hate to try you this way," the Stinson's skipper radios Hall. "I'd hate to get blamed by U.S. Steel for holding up this parade."

Gorgeous churns free in 45 minutes. The parade proceeds again, in slow cadence. And again it is 2 a.m. when the Mac breaks off to leave the Stinson 's skipper to his own devices, well on his way to Detroit. In the morning of the third day, there is some mopping up to do in the channel, some marshmallows still to be punched. It is 52 hours after setting out when the Mac noses into her berth. It costs $16,000 a day to operate her, but Hall seems happy. He tips his hat back on his head and sighs: "This is a lot more rewarding than arctic icebreaking. At the end of a day here you can look back and know you've helped someone. Up there you just go out and count polar bears."

Paul Witteman

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