Lake Freighter - Cargo

Cargo

Lakers are generally bulk carriers; that is, they carry cargoes of rock, ore, salt or grain in large contiguous holds, not packed in containers. The earlier ships required rail cars unloading on ore docks and unloading machinery at the receiving docks, but modern Lakers are self unloaders, allowing them to unload faster and in more ports.

The most common cargoes on the Great Lakes are taconite (a type of iron ore), limestone, grain, salt, coal, cement, gypsum, sand, slag and potash. Much of the cargo supplies the steel mills of the auto industry, centered around the Great Lakes because of the ease of transport. Other destinations include coal-fired power plants, highway department salt domes and stone docks, where limestone is unloaded for the construction industry. US-flag freighters carried the largest portion of the trade, accounting for two-thirds of all cargo by weight. US boats carried most of the iron, limestone and cement while Canadian boats carried most of the potash and almost all of the salt and grain moved on the lakes.

Destination harbors, boat sizes and legal restrictions greatly affect the pattern of haulage. US boats hauled almost all of the iron ore on the lakes (79%) - from US mines to US mills on large US ships. This reflects the requirement of the Jones Act, as well as the industry using large volumes of material while being concentrated in a few large harbor locations. Salt and Canadian grain can be hauled to numerous smaller ports of either country on smaller, mostly Canadian, boats which can also enter the St. Lawrence Seaway with the Canadian ports of Montreal and Quebec City.