Soo Locks Opens Early for Head Start on 2025 Upper Great Lakes Season
The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers celebrating the opening of the Soo Locks on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula this morning, March 21, providing an earlier-than-anticipated start to the 2025 shipping season on the Upper Great Lakes. The lock is reported to be one of the busiest maritime locking systems in the world handling more than 4,500 vessels and 80 million tons of cargo each year.
It was a balmy 19 degrees F (-7 degrees C) this morning but it did not stop the festivities and the race to see which vessel would be first through the locks. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, reports the first vessel, an articulated barge and tug combo, actually arrived before 2:00 p.m. on March 20 to secure the first in line position. This morning by the time the lock opened at 8:00 a.m., they said three freighters were waiting to make their way into Lake Superior.
The lock is located at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The lock closes each winter for maintenance, this year running approximately 10 weeks. During that time, the Army Corps reports maintenance crews performed a variety of critical tasks on the Poe Lock, including fabricating and replacing anchorages on gate 3, commissioning the temporary dewatering system, filling in nonoperational ship arrestor recesses on the downstream end, flushing and cleaning the hydraulic systems for the rehabilitated ship arrestor systems, navigation button rehabilitation, removing underground storage tanks and repairing the winter work bridge recesses. The Poe Lock was not dewatered this year for the scheduled maintenance but contractors also used the time to complete upstream stop log recess repairs.
First vessel honors for the 2025 season went to the tug-barge combo as the lock reopened to vessel traffic (USACE)
Honors for the last vessel through the lock on January 16 went to the American Mariner, a 730-foot freighter loaded with more than 20,000 tons of wheat. Through the Poe Lock this morning first was the tug Clyde S. which is 130 feet in length and was working with the Erie Trader a 740-foot barge. Both are owned by VanEnkevort Tug & Barge.
The Army Corps reports it opened the Poe Lock early in response to requests from the shipping community. It started the 2025 season giving shippers a head start before the St. Lawrence Seaway reopens on March 22. They expect an influx of Canadian vessels and international shipping when the full system is open for the season. The Army Corps was pleased to make it possible for the larger lock to begin operations early. However, the smaller MacArthur Lock will remain closed opening in April.
To ensure navigation would be possible, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mackinaw made its way through Soo Locks on March 19. It went to break ice in Whitefish Bay on the northern side of the lock where vessels enter Lake Superior.
Once completing the locking, the vessels are heading across Lake Superior to Duluth, Minnesota.