47944 WWII GREAT LAKES CARRIERS STEEL PRODUCTION & SUPPLYING RAW MATERIALS FOR WAR EFFORT

Created by the Office of Emergency Management during WWII in 1942, LAKE CARRIER shows “the steel mills where the armaments of war are forged” and the ships that transport raw materials for production. The film is narrated by Frederick March and was directed by Guy Bolte with music by Jack Shaindlin. At :44, the steel furnaces of Gary, Indiana, Toledo, Ohio, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo and other cities are seen. At 1:40, the great fleet of lake carriers are seen transporting iron ore across the lakes in a “continuous procession” transporting 3 million tons of iron ore at a time. At 2:40, the Duluth Superior Harbor is seen. At 3:00, the Great Mesabi Iron Range is seen. Electric shovels are seen at the Oliver Iron Mining Co. loading 100,000 pounds of ore on individual railroad cars. At 4:15, the railroad moves the iron ore to the ore docks, carrying 8.5 million pounds of ore in one load. At 5:20, an entire lake carrier is loaded by gravity feed in 3 hours. At 5:56 ship controls aboard the SS Charles M. Schwab are seen as the lake carrier gets underway. At 7:00 some heavy weather is seen on the Great Lakes and the “winning of the Battle of the Great Lakes” is described as being as important as the “Battle of the Atlantic.” At 7:40 the Schwab enters the St. Mary’s river system and the Soo Locks to leave Lake Superior. At 8:30 the steel mills are seen producing the “sword of victory”.

Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships.

Lakers carry bulk cargoes of materials such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal or salt from the mines and fields to the populous industrial areas down the lakes. The 63 commercial ports handled 173 million tons of cargo in 2006. Because of winter ice on the lakes, the navigation season is not usually year-round. The Soo Locks and Welland Canal close from mid-January to late March, when most boats are laid up for maintenance. Crewmembers spend these months ashore.

Depending on their application, lakers may also be referred to by their type, such as oreboats (primarily for iron ore), straight deckers (no self-unloading gear), bulkers (carry bulk cargo), sternenders (all cabins aft), self unloaders (with self unloading gear), longboats (due to their slender appearance), or lakeboats, among others.

In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the Lakes, but by the early 21st century there were fewer than 140 active lakers. One of the best known was SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in 1975, the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes.

The SS Charles Schwab lake carrier shown was built at Cleveland, OH in 1923 for Interlake Steamship Co. (Pickands Mather & Co.)

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

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