Elmer Engman, our Duluth correspondent, reports that May 6th was a cold and windy day in the harbor where the PAUL R. TREGURTHA was taking on a cargo of taconite at the CN ore docks in Duluth.

You would normally see her load coal at the Midwest Energy Terminal in Superior Wisconsin. Right now there is not enough coal left for a large ship.  The terminal is scheduled to close operations on June 30th.  The power plants that were supplied by the terminal have shut down or have been converted to natural gas.

The PAUL R. TREGURTHA was built in 1981 and is 1013 long with a beam of 105 feet. She still is the largest ship on the Great Lakes.

Photo by Elmer Engman

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Elmer Engman is a long time resident of the Duluth area. He started scuba diving in 1968, because of an interest in maritime history, and wrote the first dive guide for the area called, Shipwreck Guide to the Western Half of Lake Superior. He is a past board member of the SS Meteor Maritime Museum and the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. He is also the founder of the Maritime history program called “Gales of November”.