When the 1000' freighter American Spirit is tied up in the Soo, we had to get RIGHT up close!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:02]Well, hello.

[00:00:04]Hopefully you can hear me over the the wind.

[00:00:08]Maybe you can see that we are somewhere different.

[00:00:12]That is the east end of the hydro plant there.

[00:00:16]You are never going to believe.

[00:00:19]You're never going to believe what Argo found.

[00:00:22]Like Oh my gosh, this is definitely a first here, dog.

[00:00:27]He I've I've mentioned before numerous times he has skills.

[00:00:32]No marking that.

[00:00:35]But he's outdone himself this time. So We are at the carbide dock here.

[00:00:41]And well I know he's eagerly looking for some place to pee.

[00:00:48]But uh Let's see back and forth.

[00:00:51]Come on, dog.

[00:00:53]We got to show the thousand foot American Spirit.

[00:00:59]Like Holy cow.

[00:01:06]That's definitely a first right there.

[00:01:07]Look at that.

[00:01:10]That This will officially be the closest I've ever been to a footer.

[00:01:16]Right up here.

[00:01:18]So Previous to this it was in the uh in the Poe Lock there for Engineers Day.

[00:01:27]But [snorts] this This is even closer.

[00:01:32]>> [laughter] >> That Right there.

[00:01:39]Right there.

[00:01:40]That is crazy.

[00:01:43]Ooh.

[00:01:45]Can walk under the lines here.

[00:01:49]It's not super tight. This one isn't.

[00:01:52]The one on the bow is though.

[00:01:55]And I'm kind of Well, see I I may have lollygagged too long. We'll see here.

[00:02:02]Trying to draw out the reveal there of the American Spirit.

[00:02:08]Oh, no.

[00:02:10]Come on, dog.

[00:02:12]He's like, "I I came here to sniff and mark make my presence known."

[00:02:19]And I'm not letting him do that. So that's a Yeah, that's a legit cable right there.

[00:02:26]Cool, it has like a little handle on there.

[00:02:29]Actually makes sense so you don't have any risk of getting your your hand pinched.

[00:02:35]So we have here is salty.

[00:02:39]And that is the Federal gosh.

[00:02:44]Let me zoom a little bit more.

[00:02:49]Whoa, whoa, whoa, Federal Nagara. Wow.

[00:02:53]There we go, Federal Nagara.

[00:02:57]They just left the lock and I'm imagining I think that's a Oh gosh, man.

[00:03:10]I'm out of practice here.

[00:03:17]Imagine they will go in next. So I did hear someone on the radio.

[00:03:24]Really bad form. They were standing by the VFW.

[00:03:27]Trying to get a hold of them on the radio, which is not only illegal but really rude and inconsiderate.

[00:03:37]So don't pester these ships with your handheld VHF radio.

[00:03:43]You know, they're they're doing their job, you know, they're They're not performing circus monkeys, you know?

[00:03:52]Um I'm pretty sure my Broadcastify station recorded him.

[00:03:57]If so, I'll I'll put it in here just as an example of what what not to do.

[00:04:04]Really rude.

[00:04:06]This is for Niagara Bird. Niagara Bird.

[00:04:08]Niagara Bird. This is Port Well Ship Watching. I'm standing on your starboard side there, sir.

[00:04:15]Uh you want to go to uh channel 68.

[00:04:20]Niagara Bird, I'm on uh channel 68.

[00:04:24]On a VHF handheld.

[00:04:26]Michigan Trader, you on there uh sir channel 9 on VHF uh handheld.

[00:04:32]Niagara Federal. Niagara Federal.

[00:04:34]Niagara. This is Port Well Ship Watching.

[00:04:37]On channel 68 on a handheld VHF radio. I'm standing on your port side, sir.

[00:04:43]Just wondering if we can have a captain salute.

[00:04:49]I don't know why exactly the American Spirit is here.

[00:04:52]They were coming up the river yesterday and they dropped anchor in Hay Lake.

[00:04:58]And I was thinking this, you know, because there was such a delay yesterday for fog.

[00:05:04]So they dropped anchor at Hay Lake.

[00:05:08]But then they were still there this morning and then the tug Colorado went down there and kind of just came up with them and I think helped them get into place here along the carbide dock where they where they are now, obviously, cuz they're right here.

[00:05:27]So I don't know why other than they here. So This is one of the reasons why they refurbished this carbide dock so they'd have a spot for the footers to tie up. So now we can can legit obviously been tested here. A footer can tie up here.

[00:05:45]The big cruise ships like the Viking Polaris and Viking Octantis, we've seen them tied up here.

[00:05:51]So this Like I said, this is one of the reasons why they they rebuilt all this.

[00:05:58]For this reason right here.

[00:06:00]Wow.

[00:06:01]That is a big ship.

[00:06:03]>> [laughter] >> Looking straight up at I don't know, 30 30 ft up, you know, like Yeah.

[00:06:16]And there's over 20 ft of ship in the water, you know?

[00:06:20]Like that's insane.

[00:06:24]So Here we go.

[00:06:29]So I'm 6'4".

[00:06:34]I can reach up about 8 ft high, you know?

[00:06:38]Like Yeah.

[00:06:45]What do you think of that, dog?

[00:06:47]What do you think of that?

[00:06:50]Want to get a little closer?

[00:06:55]He's not super fan of this as you can tell.

[00:07:02]He's continuing to feel better.

[00:07:05]You can see he's Maybe you can see his tail wagging. He's wanting to sniff and pee just like normal, you know? So Been getting more food into him.

[00:07:15]And he's been seeming fine. So There's a little bout with whatever that was looks to have passed and now we need to get some weight on him.

[00:07:25]So You may not believe this by looking now cuz I'm wearing this coat and a toque.

[00:07:33]It was 61° earlier today.

[00:07:37]But as the day progressed it cooled down and this wind came up. That's why I'm here dressed as I am.

[00:07:43]The 61°.

[00:07:44]We walked at lunch without a coat or anything. I was wearing my Ojibway hat. So That was really nice.

[00:07:55]Tomorrow is supposed to be much colder and rain and possibly some of that four letter S word.

[00:08:06]>> [sighs] >> That's melting with the quickness, but That was the ship.

[00:08:14]I swear.

[00:08:16]>> [laughter] >> All right. Well, there we go.

[00:08:21]Here is Oh, I see they've kind of They're creaking up against the boards.

[00:08:26]That's what we're hearing.

[00:08:29]So Like I said, this is the closest I've been to a footer.

[00:08:35]Pretty darn cool to see a thousand foot American Spirit.

[00:08:40]So I'm going to wrap this up.

[00:08:43]Take a few pictures with Argo here.

[00:08:45]And we're going to call it a video.

[00:08:47]So Thanks for joining myself and the very best boy.

[00:08:53]And we'll be back, of course, as always.

[00:08:56]Really soon.