# The Great Lakes "Canaller"



## ideasby (Dec 29, 2007)

Before the St. Lawrence Seaway opened, a type of ship, long familiar on the St. Lawrence River and in the Great Lakes was known as the "Canaller" and was the result of the difficult geographical features of the St. Lawrence River and the limitations of the canals built to overcome these difficulties. Canallers were divided into three main categories; bulk, package and special freighters.

With the early agricultural development of the Canadian prairie provinces, grain was the largest single commodity in the eastbound traffic and as a bulk cargo has been the mainstay of the canal traffic even as far back as 1800.

The wheat cargoes originated mainly in Fort William-Port Arthur and were shipped via large Upper Lakes freighters through Sault Ste. Marie to elevators at ports on Lake Erie, such as Port Colborne.

At these elevators the grain was transhipped to canallers for carriage to Montreal where it is again transhipped to ocean-going vessels for overseas points. After 1930 Upper Lake vessels the opening of the Welland canal enabled the Upper Lakers to continue to ports such as Prescott.

The heavy eastbound grain traffic was balanced by a new westbound cargo. This was the Labrador iron ore whichwas shipped largely by ocean-going vessels from the ore port at Seven Islands to Contrecoeur, Que., whence it is was carried by canaller to Hamilton and Lake Erie ports.

Imported special type ores for the U.S. steel industries were also transported via the canals, having been discharged from ocean-going vessels at Sorel and Montreal.

Before the Labrador iron ore traffic development in the postwar period the bulk traffic through the canals was almost entirely eastbound giving rise to an uneconomical situation when ships had to return west in ballast.

The bulk cargo vessels which were employed in the grain and ore trades always formed the largest part of the canal fleet..The basic features of these vessels and their general layout remained the same in most cases.

The wheelhouse, together with the deck officers' and crew's accommodation, was placed as far forward as possible and the remainder of the accommodation together with galley, mess rooms, and so on, were grouped round the casing aft.

The chief reason for the forward wheelhouse was to enable the wheelsman to see the exact position of the bow when entering locks and channels but it also has some disadvantages, especially in bad weather. The wheelsman was, in that situation, without a point on which to steer and this led to the fitting of the steering pole or "spearpole".

The inconvenient division of the accommodation into two separate islands, was eliminated in some of the newer canallers which were built with all accommodation aft and with a sunk forecastle. 

Canallers were built for many specific cargoes and included:

Tankers - Paper Carriers - Pulpwood Carriers - Coal Carriers - Cement Carriers

For more information visit http://www.abouthegreatlakes.com/canallers.htm


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## williamjshaver_4263 (Nov 25, 2021)

almost all canalers were built in variety of uk yards... 350 ft/ 50... rougly 3000t.... ran from upper lakes to lower st lawerence river till seaway made them redundant, big ships on lakes were upper lakers, from superior lake ports to georgian bay, or as far east as prescot untario, cargo got remanifested to small canalers to lower river ports till 1959... almost all canalers were coal fired and triple exp steam engine, some were converted to oil when ww2 statred for deep sea use.... yeah bucket brigade to bring bauxite from west indies to saguaney river port ...port alfred que, most took the trip via intercostal waterway, hudson river to albany, eire canal to buffalo, then down lakes st lawerence river to saganey river ... all to aboid u boats.


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