Maritime Transportation And Shipping Talk

It has been almost a month since I last wrote something here. The New Year is in full swing on the Saint Lawrence River. Even though it’s in the middle of winter ships traffic on Saint Lawrence River is still going as far as Montreal. The Seaway Lock System is closed for the winter months. Canadian Coast Guard Ice Breakers are readily available for any ice jams in the river. They will have the river flowing again in a very short time should it happen to jam up. Container traffic on Montreal doesn’t seem to slow down any during the winter months. Canadian Lakers are laid up for the winter but there are a few that are still operating in the open waters on the east coast of Canada. Traditionally winter months in this area was used for vacation and some sorely needed time for the families involved in shipping. Having a Seaway system like ours means that the summer months were very busy and time off was hard to find. Ports like Montreal used to close down completely and operations were moved out to the Maritime Provinces. Cities like Saint John, New Brunswick used to take the brunt of the business from Montreal during those months. Companies had a full operation in those ports. They just moved their people down for the winter. Icebreakers and better ships changed all that the day the Government started to keep the River open to Montreal during the winter months.