January 05, 2026
Winter may have started a little early this year on the Great Lakes, but neither the U.S. nor Canadian Coast Guards are keeping traffic moving through the ice, according to the Lake Carriers' Association.
The U.S. Coast Guard's (USCG) only heavy icebreaker, MACKINAW has been missing in action along with several smaller icebreaking 140-foot icebreaking tugs and an ice capable buoy tender.
The quick onset of winter caused major problems for both the USCG and the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) as they attempted to complete the annual removal of floating aids to navigation before ice damaged the buoys or moved them off station. That mission impacted icebreaking, delaying many federal icebreaking assets from assisting commercial traffic through ice that has formed across the Great Lakes.
The CCG has not provided a single asset to the Great Lakes icebreaking effort. Two CCG icebreakers have been working in the St Lawrence Seaway around Montreal while a third has an engineering problem and remains at the dock in Sarnia, Ontario. Adding insult to injury, U.S. ships that call on a Canadian port are charged an icebreaking fee despite no icebreaker assistance.
Ice is currently impacting traffic across the Great Lakes Navigation System in places like Duluth, Minnesota, the St Marys River in Michigan, the Straits of Mackinac, Green Bay, and the western basin of Lake Erie to include ports like Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio. Delays have been significant with a recent closure of the St Marys River due to shifting ice pulling aids to navigation in the channel. The St Marys River is the major artery of the system connecting Lake Superior to the lower lakes.
"The U.S. Coast Guard is focused on their acquisition of Arctic Security Cutters, yet they can't even keep our internal domestic waters open. This is a major national security problem if steel mills in the U.S. cannot have a reliable supply chain during the winter. The USCG and CCG claim that icebreaking is a shared mission, yet we haven't seen a Canadian icebreaker operating on the Great Lakes yet this season. We need the CCG to do their share, another heavy USCG icebreaker and we need to replace the smaller 40 plus year old icebreaking tugs," stated Jim Weakley, President of the Lake Carriers' Association.
Source: Lake Carriers' Association