Editor’s note: Find more dynamic photography by Jeffrey Doty at www.facebook.com/jeffrey.doty.71 and https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/befromduluth.
On Friday, January 7, 2022, Jeffrey Doty captured this striking image on Lake Superior, in Duluth, MN. Sailing under the flag of the United States, the Edgar B. Speer approaches the city, emerging from the lake’s whispy “sea smoke.” This and other vessels will await “a berth for one of [their] final loads of the season…,” wrote Greg Moir on Saturday, January 8.
The twin-screw, self-unloading, bulk carrier was built for the Great Lakes Fleet of the United States Steel Company. It launched at Duluth, under warmer weather conditions, on May 8, 1980.
At 1004′ in length, the mighty carrier transports up to 73,700 tons of taconite pellets, from the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota. Taconite is a variety of iron-bearing sedimentary rock. Iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate.
The Edgar B. Speer transports these pellets to U. S. steel mills, where they are melted down into steel.
