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3. Season's Greetings - cont'd. The 2000 season may have been a busy one for some lakers, and the self-un- loaders stayed busy. But it was not a good year for the straight-deck bulk carriers, which traditionally spend most of their operating time in the grain trade. But this year, very little grain was moving and it was not until the autumn that things began to look up a bit. As an example, two Upper Lakes Shipping straight-deckers laid up at Toronto never fitted out at all, while five others spent a large portion of the season laid up here. There were lots of salt-water ships trading into the lakes during 2000, and trade into Toronto continued strong. Of special interest were the newest additions to the Fednav fleet. But disappearing from the scene after many years of service into Toronto and Hamilton was Christensen Canadian African Lines, which has been purchased by the Canadian Pacific interests and merged into its Lykes operations. Christensen recently had three ships serving the lakes, namely THORSHOPE, THORSLAKE and THORSRIVER, and one of them already has made her first appearance in Lykes livery, bearing the name LYKES WIN­ NER. Lake shipyards were busy but mainly with repair work. Port Weller doubled the hull of ALGOEAST, and built a new bow and midbody for the former H. M. GRIFFITH. A combination repair and new construction job involved the repair of the broken hull of ALGOWOOD and the addition of a new ten-foot section. Marinette Marine continued to churn out U. S. Coast Guard buoy tenders, and Bay Shipbuilding turned out barracks barges. Perhaps the most notable new lake vessel was, however, not even built on the lakes; the new Seaway-max self-unloading barge GREAT LAKES TRADER, now running for the Van Enkevort interests, was built in Mississippi and completed in Louisiana. Scrapping? What's that? It hardly exists anymore on the lakes, with excess tonnage already trimmed out of most fleets. Work did, however, continue at Port Colborne on the old C. S. L. seIf-unloader hull sections. It gives us much pleasure to extend our thanks to all who have supported the efforts of the Toronto Marine Historical Society during the 2000 season. We include the members of the Executive Committee who have attended to the ope­ ration of the Society and chaired our entertainment meetings despite a myri­ ad of little (and sometimes not so little) problems along the way; the members who are our regular correspondents and contributors to "Scanner" and without whose help we could not put out the newsletter at all; those who an­ swered our call for lay-up listings; those who delivered "Scanner" in their local areas and thus kept your membership fees down by containing mailing costs; those who contributed historical items for sale for the benefit of the Society, and those who bought them; those who put on the entertainment programmes for us, and those who attended them, and all the many who suppor­ ted us with their continued membership in the Society. And now, in concluding these remarks, it is time to pass along to you the very same words which we say every year at this time. Repetitive they well may be, and they even may seem a bit unimaginative, but they truly are sin­ cere in that they come right from the heart and because they mean so very much. We can think of no better way to speak of the coming of Christmas, and of our inevitable passage into a new year and, technically, into a new de­ cade. We are saddened that some of our old friends are no longer here with us to make the passage, but we know that they have "crossed the bar" to a better place and await us there. Many of our members are closely associated with the lake shipping industry, and it is our hope that the 2000 navigation season was for them as pleasant, safe and profitable as could be possible. We wish for all of our sailors and vessel operators the very best for 2001. Indeed, we hope that the coming year will be a great one for all of our members and, of course, for the To­ ronto Marine Historical Society itself, and for "Scanner".