To see this image in 3-D, click here . We hear a great deal of the Suez Canal and of the Panama Canal, but there is a canal in the United States that handles more traffic than either. The Great Lakes in the United States furnish the most remarkable inland waterway in the world. To make this waterway navigable all the way from Duluth, Minnesota, to Buffalo, New York, it was necessary to do several things. The river connecting Lakes Erie and Huron had to be deepened and the connection between Lake Huron and Superior had to be negotiated in some manner.
More tonnage passes through it yearly than through any canal in the world.
Boats laden with iron ore from Superior, grain from Duluth, or coal from the Pittsburgh district all pass through this waterway. The odd looking freighter entering Lake Huron is well adapted to carrying ore or coal on the lakes. It is like a huge iron box with a flat bottom. There is a little house at each end. In one the crew lives.