The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THE LOG (continued) v4 Alexandria Bay, Frankfort and St. Clair Flats . would be converted to seasonal operations, while the facilities at Duluth, Oswego, Port Huron and Two Rivers would be expanded. *** Group Desgagnes, purchasers of the defunct Quebec and Ontario Transportation Company fleet of steamers and motorships, has disposed of three of the four larger vessels. Involved are the steamers LAC STE. ANNE, MELDRUM BAY and OUTARDE, all of which are now scheduled to be dismantled at the old Algoma Steel dock at Port Colborne. Their departure leaves only the steamer GOLDEN HIND available for larger-vessel service for Desgagnes, aside from Desgagnes' recently acquired salty FEDERAL PIONEER, renamed c) CECILIA DESGAGNES. The GOLDEN HIND may see service in the grain trade in the upcoming season, according to a reliable source. She has been in layup at Toronto since a year ago last fall. *** A second Great Lakes Live Steam Whistle Blast has been scheduled for June 22nd at Detroit Edison's Marysville Plant. The event will again be sponsored by the Port Huron-based Lake Huron Lore Marine Society. Those of our members who have steam tooters and would like to enter their whistles for the event are asked to write the Port Huron society in care of the Museum of Arts and History, 1115 Sixth Street, Port Huron 48060. *** During the 1984 navigation season, traffic in the Welland Canal was up 7.4% to 53.9 million metric tons over the preceding year, while traffic in the Montreal-Lake Ontario section rose 5.2% to 47.4 million tons. Grain was the number one commodity at 23.5 million tons, iron ore second at 11.4 million. Ore traffic in the Seaway has increased 53% over the past two seasons. *** Our member Tom Caine has been elected President of the Propeller Club - Port of Duluth/Superior, *** Two idle American-flag lake vessels may see further years! service as marine museum headquarters in Bay City and Manitowoc, if present plans materialize. Involved are the sandsucker NIAGARA and tanker AMOCO INDIANA, respectively. The tanker, built at Manitowoc in 1937 as Standard Oil (Indiana) Company's RED CROWN, has been in layup at Sturgeon Bay since December, 1982, while NIAGARA, built at West Bay City in 1897, has been in ordinary at Erie since the fall of 1982. *** While the owners of the ferry service between Ludington and Kewaunee continue their struggle to keep that operation going, using CITY OF MIDLAND 41 this winter, groups from Milwaukee and Muskegon met in mid- February to discuss resumption of ferry service between those two cities, discontinued in 1971. Those plans are said to involve use of the Canadian-flag, 318-foot ferry SECHELT QUEEN. *** Upper Lakes Towing's JOSEPH H. THOMPSON is already undergoing Fares in her conversion for barge use. Menominee dock, she has been stripped of ot big stack with work now underway to clear her after cabin. *** The Cleveland-based U.S. Coast Guard tug NEAH BAY was engaged in icebreaking operations in the mouth of the River Raisin at Monroe during the week of February 18th, these efforts aimed at reducing potential flooding in that area which has occurred with some regularity during the spring thaws. Photos of the operation in the press and on TV have revealed the presence there of the long-idle steamer SHARON, undoubtedly awaiting the tow to the shipbreakers. *** By late January, scrappers had reduced the hull of PATERSON by 50% at Thunder Bay, with 95% of HORACE JOHNSON gone and half of JOHN HULST's stern removed at the Canadian Lakehead. At Duluth, work was continuing to dismantle the aft section of WILLIAM B. SCHILLER at the Hyman- Michaels yard. Reflecting the pace of present shipbreaking activity on the Great Lakes, at this time, there are nine yards engaged in that work; seven on the Canadian side, two on the U.S. side. Some 21 vessels are either being cut down or awaiting the torch at those locations. *** The 1985 navigation season in this area will commence about March 10th with the departure from the Rouge of the motorship HENRY FORD II in resumption of her coal run between Toledo and the Rouge facility. HE new consortium of independent American tug operators have joined forces to form Lakewide Towing Group, Inc. The aims of the firm are to market and coordinate shiphandling services to both domestic and foreign customers at principal Great Lakes ports and the Soo. The companies comprising the new combine are Gaelic