page_title: Lake freighter
section_title: Future museum potential
hierarchical_section_title: Lake freighter / Famous vessels / Future museum potential
caption_attribution_description: English: picture of the great lakes freighter M/V Roger Blough.
context_page_description: Lake freighters, or lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes of North America. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships.
  Since the late 19th century, lakers have carried bulk cargoes of materials such as limestone, iron ore, grain, coal, or salt from the mines and fields of the upper Great Lakes to the populous industrial areas farther east. The 63 commercial ports handled 173 million tons of cargo in 2006. Because of winter ice on the lakes, the navigation season is not usually year-round. The Soo Locks and Welland Canal close from mid-January to late March, when most boats are laid up for maintenance. Crewmembers spend these months ashore.
  Depending on their application, lakers may also be referred to by their type, such as oreboats, straight deckers, bulkers, sternenders, self unloaders, longboats, or lakeboats, among others.
  In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the Lakes, but by the early 21st century there were fewer than 140 active lakers. SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in 1975, became widely known as the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Great Lakes.
context_section_description: Cement steamers: The cement fleet of steamers is rapidly being supplanted by tug/barge combinations like the Integrity and Innovation. Historic cement carriers include the SS St. Marys Challenger (1906), SS S. T. Crapo (1927), the SS J. A. W. Iglehart (1936), SS Alpena (1942) and the SS Paul H. Townsend (1945).  The SS St. Marys Challenger has been converted into a barge, though her wheelhouse is sitting on a dock in Toledo, Ohio, waiting to become part of the National Museum of the Great Lakes.
  SS Arthur M. Anderson. launched in 1952, is still running. She is famous for having had the last contact with Edmund Fitzgerald before the latter sank. She was also the first would-be rescue vessel to search for Edmund Fitzgerald.
caption: MV Roger Blough in Milwaukee for winter layup in February 2014
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