Michipicoten (1952 ship)

Michipicoten (named Elton Hoyt II when she entered service in 1952) is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by Canadian shipping firm Lower Lakes Towing. Michipicoten primarily hauls taconite from Marquette, Michigan, to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She has a capacity of 22,300 tons, a speed of 14 mph, and a length of 689 ft.

Construction
Michipicoten was built in 1952 by Massachusetts Heavy Industries in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was one of three vessels built to similar plans for the Interlake Steamship Company. It was launched as Elton Hoyt II. The other two vessels, Johnstown and Sparrows Point, were built for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

All three ships were brought to the Great Lakes via the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, restricting their size. Specifically, Elton Hoyt II measured 626 ft long, with a capacity of around 20,000 tons. She was powered by a 7,700 shp Bethlehem Steel cross compound steam turbine and two oil-fired Foster-Wheeler water tube boilers. As Elton Hoyt II was brought through the rivers, her cabins and pilothouse were carried on-deck, assembled in Chicago, and entered service on August 15, 1952.

Service history
Over the course of the next nearly two decades, Elton Hoyt II entered a pattern of shipping iron ore from Duluth, Minnesota, or Superior, Wisconsin, to a number of ports in the lower Great Lakes.

Throughout the 1950s, Elton Hoyt II had an incident-free career. In 1957, she was lengthened by 72 ft, increasing her total length to 698 ft. The lengthening also increased her capacity to around 23,000 tons. In 1966, the Elton Hoyt II was sold to Pickands Mather and Co. She remained in their fleet until 1973.

Conversion to a self-unloader
23 years later, in 1980, Elton Hoyt II was again upgraded, this time in a conversion to a self-unloading vessel. She was converted at the Toledo-based American Ship Building Co. In 1985, Johnstown, which had not been converted to a self unloader, was sold for scrap. The third ship, Sparrows Point, was converted in 1980 and sailed as Buckeye until 2008, when that ship sustained severe damage to her engines and shortly after was converted again by the Rand Logistics/Lower Lakes Towing company into the barge Menominee, leaving Michipicoten the last fully functional member of her class.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Elton Hoyt II saw varied use. For some seasons, she did not sail. In the 1990s, the vessel was certified to carry grain, and made several trips to Buffalo, New York, in addition to her regular loads of taconite.

Sale
On April 10, 2003, it was announced that Elton Hoyt II was sold to Lower Lakes Towing, a Canadian shipping company. She was renamed Michipicoten after the Canadian river of the same name. The name Michipicoten means "Big bluffs" in the Ojibwe language and refers to the hills near the river. She was christened on May 24, 2003, in Sarnia, Ontario. The ship began supplying taconite to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

In December 2010, Michipicoten was laid up in Sarnia. Over the course of several months, her steam turbine system was replaced with a MaK 6M32C 6-cylinder 8,160 bhp diesel engine and a new pitch propeller. The cost of the upgrade was around US$15 million.

Hull Damage
On June 8, 2024, the ship observed hull damage while traveling near Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The ship's crew reported hearing a loud bang while the vessel was in deep water. The ship began taking on water, and at one point reached a 15 degree list. The crew was able to issue a distress call and start pumps that alleviated the list to 5 degrees. The distress call was met by the M/V Edwin H. Gott who waited with the Michipicoten until the arrival of U.S. Coast Guard. The vessel made her way under her own power to Thunder Bay, Ontario with escorts from the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard. At the time it was thought the vessel had struck an underwater object; however, there has been no evidence found to suggest a collision.

While in port, divers inspected the hull and determined the likely cause may have been fatigue. Divers discovered a nearly four-meter crack in the hull. A member of the Coast Guard stated "It looks like a hull failure, which could be the result of stress, fatigue, age of the vessel," he said, but cautioned that a full investigation is needed to determine the cause for certain. The exact cause of the damage remains unknown. The divers placed a temporary patch to the crack.

On June 20, 2024, Michipicoten left Thunder Bay under her own power bound for Fraser Shipyards in Superior, Wisconsin where she is currently awaiting inspection and repairs. She was escorted by the tug Helen H.