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RACHEL REABE: Good morning, and welcome to this Main Street radio special from the Duluth Harbor. I'm Rachel Reabe. Our show today is all about the ships on Lake Superior. 1,100 boats from around the world will pass through the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior this year. We'll talk about Minnesota's international seaport and shipping trade during our first hour.

At noon, we'll turn our attention to the boats that didn't make it into port. The Edmund Fitzgerald may be Lake Superior's best known shipwreck, but it's only one of the hundreds of boats on the bottom of this huge lake. A panel of shipwreck experts will be here to tell their stories and answer your questions.

But first, let's find out what life is on one of the big ships on Lake Superior. Main Street Radio's Leif Enger was on board at Bulgarian tramp freighter when she pulled out of the Twin Ports last week with a full load of North Dakota wheat. Here's his report.

LEIF ENGER: At 7:15 PM, a tugboat bobs around the prow of the Okoltchitsa, a 600-foot freighter set to embark for Europe with 15,000 tons of spring wheat. It's pouring. Rain hammers the ship's green decks and massive red hatch covers. It sweeps like a blizzard across the tugboat spotlight. The tug bears down, and the Okoltchitsa, groans away from the dock.

[? DON WILLEKE: ?] 410.

[? CAPTAIN GANSHEV: ?] 410

LEIF ENGER: Issuing commands on the bridge deck is American pilot, Don [? Willeke. ?] He knows the shallows in and around the harbor, the shoals of Superior. Captain [? Ganchev ?] at his side affirms each order. A young helmsman in Reebok sweats and flip-flop sandals adjusts course.

[? DON WILLEKE: ?] Midship.

[? CAPTAIN GANCHEV: ?] Midship.

LEIF ENGER: The bridge deck is darkened for night travel, lit only by glowing radar and instrument screens with the Okoltchitsa under power the tugboat slips its lines and peels away toward the city.

CAPTAIN GANCHEV: All right, then. Thanks again there, Don. We'll talk to you.

LEIF ENGER: Straight ahead, the Duluth Lift Bridge climbs its cables, opening a huge square door to the rest of the world. Ships move at the speed of history. The Okoltchitsa at daybreak is like a transient sphinx, shouldering through fog at 14 nautical miles per hour. Helmsman Dimitar Hristov, in his mid-20s, rattles off the voyage's ports thus far, Israel, Amsterdam, Brazil, Toronto, Duluth, next, Italy.

DIMITAR HRISTOV: I am one of the luckiest men because I work for this company. There are many people fit for working for shipping, but they have no chance.

LEIF ENGER: Hristov says shipping is one of the few stable elements in Bulgaria's ruinous national economy. The fall of socialism brought democracy but so far no prosperity. The war in neighboring Kosovo deepened Bulgarian problems of joblessness and falling salaries. A ship's officer can make the equivalent of $1,000 a month, 10 times what he might make on shore.

On deck, nervous sparrows glean a meal from grains spilled during loading. They've pretty much got the deck to themselves. It only takes 22 sailors to run the ship, a few engineers to mine the 12,000-horse diesel, three ship's officers to navigate, two cooks, two stewards, and a handful of able-bodied seamen or ABs.

While methods change, the ABs do what ABs have done since Robert Louis Stevenson went to sea, man anchor lines, turn winches, swab the deck. Now swabbing is done by an AB with a sparrow scattering high-powered hose, washing the spilled wheat overboard.

[? STEFAN HARLAMPO: ?] The first time when I was in a boat was wonderful. We were in Holland, in Greece and Turkey. It was wonderful.

LEIF ENGER: Stefan [? Haralampo, ?] the chief steward, stoops in a claustrophobic kitchen under the bridge deck. He's making the captain a cup of coffee, 5 ounces of water, 3 tablespoons of pulverized Brazilian beans, and 2 of sugar. Stefan wears a white shirt, black pants, and the look of a man who has outlived a first love.

[? STEFAN HARALAMPO: ?] It's hard to be alone when you know that there are kids and family and wife is far away from here.

PAT SAJAK (ON TV): Event is the category. Read your numbers before the show to see. We'll start with Chris. It's going to be you. Good luck.

LEIF ENGER: In the ship's mess, four sailors keep an eye on the TV while downing fried eggs with fresh red peppers and feta cheese. It's a testament to Vanna White's appeal that none of them speak English. Down the hall, Dimitar Hristov rests in his cabin between watches. He prefers reading, novels, science books and the bible, which he's come to rely on to ease the long months away from his wife. Asked about his statement that he is among the luckiest Bulgarians, he admits luck can be relative.

DIMITAR HRISTOV: Every time when I came back, I promised to fire this company, to look for any job on the land. And every time I assure my wife that this was the last time I sail. But when you live on the shore for a month, two, three, you expire your money and make your decision to go again there.

LEIF ENGER: Without a knock, Dimitar's door opens. It's an older sailor on some urgent errand. Dimitar nods and checks his watch. When the man leaves, Dimitar leans forward, irritated. Under socialism, he says, many profited by spying on their employees or neighbors. Now, under democracy, those people have been forgiven and often given the best paying jobs.

DIMITAR HRISTOV: After changing the social order, all this pretends to be clear, to be innocence, and a lot of them now are here among us. It's not fair. There is so much younger people who need a job.

LEIF ENGER: By nightfall, the east end of superior looms. Pilot Don [? Willeke ?] has brought the Okoltchitsa as far as the Saint Mary's River and is ready to get off. The ship doesn't stop for this. A small pilot boat now roars up alongside the Okoltchitsa at about 7 knots. The deck is slick with rain and spray. [? Willeke ?] swings himself over the side and climbs down a rope ladder as if it were a set of stairs downtown.

[? DON WILLEKE: ?] See you later. Have a good trip.

LEIF ENGER: With [? Willeke's ?] departure, a new pilot has climbed aboard. He'll guide the ship through Sault Saint Marie, now just a distant clutch of lights, and down the St. Mary's to Lake Huron. The captain paces the darkened bridge. Dimitar Hristov is back at the helm and Stefan appears holding a cup of coffee, looking out at the next set of lights to be left behind. Leif Enger, Minnesota Public Radio.

RACHEL REABE: You're listening to a Main Street special from the Corps of Engineers, Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center. I'm Rachel Reabe. We're up on the second floor of the museum's pilothouse exhibit, facing a wall of windows overlooking the Magnificent Lake Superior. And it is a beautiful day in Duluth.

Bright blue sky, just a smattering of white clouds that are merging into the much deeper water of Lake Superior, which is behaving itself, at least for today. Boats have been crossing this formidable body of water, carrying people and cargo for at least 150 years. Although we're 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Duluth superior boasts one of the busiest bulk ports in the United States. You can get there from here, thanks to a string of lakes, lochs and rivers.

Our guests this morning are Davis Helberg, the Executive Director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, Edward Ruisi, ship agent with Duluth's Guthrie-Hubner agency, and ship captain, Dennis Aho, with the Western Great Lakes Pilots Association. Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome to Main Street.

EDWARD RUISI: Good morning.

DAVIS HELBERG: Good morning.

DENNIS AHO: Good morning.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone lines are open for your questions and comments, listeners. If you are in the Twin Cities, you can call us at 651-227-6000, 651-227-6000. If you are outside the Metropolitan area, please reach us by calling 1-800-242-2828, 1-800-242-2828.

Mr. Helberg, give us an idea of what kind of cargo is coming in and out of the Duluth port. Generally, what are we seeing?

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, outbound is the predominant type of cargo that moves through the port. In fact, if we were a nation looking at the balance of trade, we would have an embarrassment of riches because our cargo is heavily weighed outbound.

RACHEL REABE: So they come in empty for the most part?

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, a lot of them do. The outbound and principal cargoes are iron ore taconite pellets, as they're called locally, or iron ore pellets. Iron ore represents about 45% of our trade in average years through the '90s. The most quickly growing component of our cargo mix is low sulfur Western coal out of Montana and Wyoming. That in recent years has been about 35% of our cargo mix, but in this year, in fact, it's up to about 40% by itself.

And then the third leg of it, which gets the most attention usually from the press and the public because it attracts the oceangoing activity, is the grain, the bulk grain from the Dakotas and Western Minnesota. And that's about 10% roughly. So between iron ore, coal, the Western coal, and grain, that's nearly 90% of our tonnage and virtually, not all, but virtually all of that is outbound.

Inbound, the largest single commodity is limestone. Limestone, that's used as a fluxing agent in the iron ore pellet making industry. And also surprising to many people, it's also used in sugar manufacturing by the sugar beet plants out in the Red River Valley.

So those are the main cargoes, but we also have sort of a grocery store or supermarket variety of other commodities ranging from things that most people haven't heard about, like bentonite clay to salt, a lot of cement comes in general cargo, which is anything boxed, bagged, loose crated, and so on. We had some Swedish wood pulp just two days ago inbound.

RACHEL REABE: So that was an unusual. Captain, what's the most unusual cargo you've carried on a ship through the Great Lakes?

DENNIS AHO: That would have to be on a Lithuanian ship a few years ago. These large aluminum tanks were built for the paper mill up in Cloquet, Minnesota. And they were so wide that you had to walk out on the wing of the bridge to see the Duluth ship canal. So I took some photographs of that just to show people that that was the biggest cargo we had. And then from the port authority, they went up to the paper mill. But that was the most unusual, I think.

RACHEL REABE: And you have to hang a sign on the boat, oversized load, or don't they do that on the Great Lakes?

DENNIS AHO: Not to my knowledge. Coast Guard hasn't required that yet.

RACHEL REABE: Our phone number, 651-227-6000 if you are in the Twin Cities. If you are outside the Twin Cities, you can call and join our conversation about shipping at 1-800-242-2828. What percentage of the boats coming into the Duluth Superior Harbor are the lakers, or the domestic boats? And what percentage are the foreign boats?

DAVIS HELBERG: Of the roughly 1,100 ships that we handle annually these days, about 200 are ocean-going. People tend to think that it's a lot greater than that because there's such a high profile. It's at perceived romance and glamor of shipping and the foreign languages and the customs and the styles and so on. Of the balance, about 600, 650 are US lakers, domestic lakers, and 200 to 250 Canadian lakers. So there's three tiers, really. It's the US lakers, the Canadian lakers, and the oceangoing from various maritime nations of the world.

RACHEL REABE: Mr. Ruisi, your agency handles, which of the boats, an entire mix of all of them?

EDWARD RUISI: An entire mix. We handle the saltwater vessels. We'll handle lakers.

DAVIS HELBERG: And you look after it. You look after Canadians as well as US, of course.

EDWARD RUISI: Yes, Canadians, right.

RACHEL REABE: But with the foreign ships coming in, I'm sure they require a whole different set of procedures and a raft of paperwork. What are the sorts of things you have to do to get everything ready for a foreign ship to come into port?

EDWARD RUISI: When we know that the vessel is coming, we're contacted by the ship owner. They'll ask us for a pro forma disbursement account. So they'll know what the costs are to expect. We will make out a pro forma for them and send it to them showing the various services what they're going to cost them. And then we'll know who their agent is in Montreal, and we'll be contacting that agent to get the vessel GTA in Montreal. And then--

RACHEL REABE: So you're trying to figure out what time they're going to arrive here.

EDWARD RUISI: What time they're going to arrive here.

RACHEL REABE: You have to get their berth ready for them, let them know when they can come in.

EDWARD RUISI: That is correct. Then we notify the shippers, the grain elevators, so that they can tell us where the ship will load. And then once we have that in line, we keep everybody informed of the vessels arrival.

RACHEL REABE: So you're the consummate middleman letting everybody know, so everybody's on the same page.

EDWARD RUISI: On the same page.

RACHEL REABE: You also handle all the customs forms.

EDWARD RUISI: Right. That comes in next. Now, we notify the-- we're in constant contact with the pilot office here, and they'll keep us updated when it's coming. And then we will instruct the pilot office, what we want to do with the ship. Either we want to put them at anchor or we want to put them into a certain elevator.

RACHEL REABE: And that's always a question. I've been to Duluth many times where we look out and think, they don't look like they're moving. They can't be moving. They've been sitting there in the same place for two hours. And so they are anchored out waiting for their spot to open up in here.

EDWARD RUISI: They're waiting for their spot to open up.

RACHEL REABE: And sometimes they anchor out.

EDWARD RUISI: Right. Now, there's a few reasons why they stay out a long time. Sometimes they're ahead of their contract. They could be a week or two weeks ahead of their contract. I've had that.

RACHEL REABE: And they just have to stay out there on the boat?

EDWARD RUISI: We stay-- they stay out there because we don't want to incur any expenses for that boat. Another-- some other times they have a problem, the shipper and the buyer with a letter of credit. If that is not in order, we can't load the ship. So the ship will stay out there.

RACHEL REABE: And then you're in phone contact with them or you're going back and forth.

EDWARD RUISI: Well, what happens is we'll go out to the ship in the launch, and we'll take with us a grain inspector, the National Cargo Bureau surveyor, the [? stevedore, ?] and we'll inspect the vessel for cleanliness. The National Cargo Bureau surveyor will check the vessel stability, make sure that she's going to load correctly, so it won't capsize when it gets out to the Atlantic.

RACHEL REABE: So all of that, the preliminary work for the ship to come into port. Let's take some phone calls. We're going to go to the phones. Dorie from Minneapolis is standing by. Good morning, Dory.

DORY: Good morning. This is absolutely fun listening to. I do have a question. You have consistent, and I'm sure, steady customers of shipping out as well as coming in to get shipments. And tell me more about those as well as the time frames throughout the year you probably are busier than other time frames.

And what kind of stuff is being shipped out during certain times of the year like, around Christmas? Of course, in the winter time, it would be probably impossible, if not hard. But during the summer, it obviously is going to be busier. But within the summertime, what times for what shipments come in and out?

RACHEL REABE: Good questions. What's the busiest time of year, Mr. Helberg?

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, it depends on the season. There's always variables. The iron ore moves pretty steadily from when the bell rings in the spring until the season is over. If the market is strong, the coal moves at a steady gate from opening to closing.

RACHEL REABE: But not the grain.

DAVIS HELBERG: But the grain, usually, we'll see a surge in the early part of the season because of any grain that's been stored up over the winter. There's been cargoes booked through the winter. We often will have somewhat of a lull in mid-summer, say what, early June through August.

EDWARD RUISI: July. Yeah.

DAVIS HELBERG: In that period, July, August. And then when the new harvest comes in, we'll start seeing an uptick again in about September and usually from that point to the end of the season. If we're having a respectable year in grain movement, we'll have a strong and heavy fall.

RACHEL REABE: As we are this year.

DAVIS HELBERG: Yeah.

RACHEL REABE: So give me an idea of how many boats might be in the harbor on any given day and how many might be out at anchor. On a busy day, what does it look like?

DAVIS HELBERG: On a busy day, we could have a dozen or 15 when you include the lakers.

EDWARD RUISI: Right. Easy.

DAVIS HELBERG: All things considered. And then in the so-called heyday of at least the last 40 years of my experience, we've had seasons we'll never see again in terms just because a lot of things have changed. But today, I'd say 12 to 15 is a pretty busy day ahead.

EDWARD RUISI: I would say that.

RACHEL REABE: Captain, when does the shipping season open? How early do you get on the lake? And at what time is it usually you cannot move things anymore on the water?

DENNIS AHO: Well, I go to work when the Saint Lawrence Seaway opens. So I'm a little later, but the lakers usually start, I'm going to say mid-march, right around there.

DAVIS HELBERG: Yeah. Our laker season, of course, is controlled by the opening and closing of the Soo Locks, the locks at the Eastern end of Lake Superior, which bring us down to the water level of Lake Seirra.

RACHEL REABE: Because if that's not open, there's nobody coming back the port.

DAVIS HELBERG: That's the choke point. We're captive to the Soo Locks and the Soo Locks open on March 25th, annually.

RACHEL REABE: No matter what the lake looks like?

DAVIS HELBERG: This is an agreement thrashed out in the early '90s between all of several parties of interest. Open on March 25th, close on January 15th. The seaway, though, as Captain Aho was just saying, is flexible.

The US and Canadian entities that operate and administer-- jointly administer the seaway will agree on dates depending on weather and ice conditions as they're projected and unexpected demand. And usually, the seaway will open on or about April 1 or the last week of March, closes late December. Usually, we have our last seaway traffic out of here about 15th of December, latest.

RACHEL REABE: Tom is standing by in Saint Anthony. Good morning, Tom. Welcome to Main Street.

TOM: Good morning. First, let me start by saying hi to my four-year-old son, Zachary. He's listening right now. He's heavy duty into this shipping, into the boats and everything. We're planning a trip up to Duluth this weekend. And I was just wondering if there's any type of a lull in the shipping on the weekends, if it's strictly a Monday through Friday type thing or if it's all the time.

RACHEL REABE: Is shipping any respecter of dates or days?

EDWARD RUISI: No, it's daily, every day, especially weekends. And they all-- always seem to show up on Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

RACHEL REABE: Just when you're trying to get off work.

EDWARD RUISI: Right. We want to get a weekend off. They show up.

RACHEL REABE: So they keep going.

EDWARD RUISI: And if the elevators want to work and the ship has one work, then we bring them in and we'll work them on the weekend. And the crews don't like that because they thought they were going to have a weekend in port and they love to go to the mall. That's the first thing they asked. I think these pilots should work for the Chamber of Commerce because they seem to know what all the nightspots are in town.

RACHEL REABE: So you're saying that the foreign seamen on the boat, when they get in, they want to go shopping.

EDWARD RUISI: Yeah, they headed for the mall right away. Dennis can contest to that.

RACHEL REABE: To buy what, Mr. Ruisi? What are they--

EDWARD RUISI: Dungarees, anything to bring home to their families.

DAVIS HELBERG: We've seen-- these are exceptions, but we've seen people buy used cars, which causes a big problem. Then ideally, the ship's going to have cranes on deck, but if it doesn't, then they can't get the car aboard. Salesman-- used car salesman earned their reputation sometimes.

RACHEL REABE: It's not like an overhead bin in an airline. These guys can kind of go wild. You got a lot of room.

EDWARD RUISI: I've seen them go over to the Goodwill. And these are the people from India. And they'll literally clean out the place. And you'll see the Goodwill truck come alongside the pair and use mattresses, and you name it. They really go on board.

DENNIS AHO: Speaking of cars, we had an interesting thing a few years ago in Milwaukee. I had just docked one of these ro-ro ships and the bow swings away and you drive on tractors or trucks, and that. And I read in the paper or saw on the television a day later when I was in Chicago on another vessel that they caught a car theft ring all the way back to Poland or something, and they had a Jeep Cherokee on board. It still had the Illinois plates on it. So they knew it wasn't a legitimate car deal.

DAVIS HELBERG: Right. Just a couple of-- if I may make a couple of comments about terms that are used. Ro-ro means roll on, roll off. We see an occasional rare ro-ro here. When I roomed with Eddie Ruisi before I got married 100 years ago, Ed--

EDWARD RUISI: Just about.

DAVIS HELBERG: Just about. When Ed was referring to weekends-- it was from Ed, I think, I learned that the wonderful thing about this business is you never have Monday morning blues because every day is the same. I mean, you get into a rhythm and people who are working on the waterfront get paid overtime on weekends at the grain elevators.

But the ore docks, for example, and the coal docks, they're on shifts. They operate 24 hours a day. So the grain and the ore, it's not the same issue as it is with the oceangoing ships. They're working around the clock, seven days a week, opening of season to closing of season.

RACHEL REABE: I'm Rachel Reabe. This is a special Main Street radio broadcast from Duluth's Maritime Visitor Center. We're talking about the Twin Ports' shipping industry. You're listening to the sounds of a Great Lakes freighter leaving the Duluth Harbor this morning. The bridge operator initiates a series of blasts as the Canadian mariner passes underneath Duluth's historic Aerial Bridge. And the ship responds with the traditional captain's salute.

We are live right next to the ship channel in Duluth. Our guests this morning, Davis Helberg, Edward Ruisi, ship captain Dennis Aho. MPR's Main Street radio coverage of rural issues is supported by the Blandin Foundation, committed to strengthening communities through grant making, leadership training and convening. We'll be back with more of Main Street after a look at news and weather.

LYNN NEARY: Hello, I'm Lynn Neary. One of the reasons listeners like you contribute to this station is because they appreciate being kept informed of news events that are important to their lives. Tune in any day, and you'll hear analysis, opinions and predictions by people from all walks of life. It's news and information we hope helps ensure that your own opinions, whatever they may be, are well informed. It's your financial support that helps keep this source of quality news and information available whenever you need it.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: With news from Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Greta Cunningham.

Democrats appear to be giving up the fight to delay a Senate vote on the nuclear test ban treaty. Minority leader Tom Daschle says neither he nor President Clinton is willing to make any further concessions to Senate conservatives. The treaty is expected to be voted down largely along party lines. Supporters concede they're far short of the 67 votes. They need to ratify the treaty.

The world's biggest tobacco company, Philip Morris, has acknowledged that tobacco isn't safe and that smoking is addictive. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart says the company must still answer for decades of deceptive advertising. The Clinton administration has filed suit against cigarette makers, seeking to recover billions in what it calls ill gotten gains.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says yesterday's military coup in Pakistan creates a new level of uncertainty in the region, especially now that India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Yesterday, the army in Pakistan took control, seizing public buildings, airports, state broadcasting stations, and the homes of government ministers. India has put its army on alert, although no unusual troop movements have been seen near the border.

Forecasters are watching a new tropical storm in the Caribbean. They say the storm could grow into a hurricane and possibly threaten Florida.

In regional news, Minneapolis attorney Michael Ciresi joined the race today for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Rod Grams. Ciresi led Minnesota's tobacco lawsuit, which ended in a $6.6 billion settlement. At a State Capitol news conference today, he described himself as a strong, effective leader and a tireless advocate for Minnesotans. He said Grams is not.

The forecast for Minnesota calls for clear skies this afternoon, with high temperatures mainly in the 40s. Right now in Duluth, it's sunny and 42, cloudy in Rochester and 43. In the Twin Cities, sunshine and 48. That's the news update. I'm Greta Cunningham.

RACHEL REABE: Welcome back to our Main Street special, live from the Maritime Visitor Center on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth. I'm Rachel Reabe.

From where we are sitting on the second floor of the Marine Museum, we can see it all. We see the ship channel with the breakwater lights that really look like miniature lighthouses at the opening to the channel. And the Aerial Bridge overlooks all of it here in the Duluth Harbor. Lake Superior is light winds, would you say, Captain? Give us a captain's report.

DENNIS AHO: Well, I guess they're light winds. You have whitecaps, so it's probably 15 to 18 knots right now.

RACHEL REABE: A little bit of a chop, but not a bad day to sail.

DENNIS AHO: Not too bad, no.

RACHEL REABE: Blue skies and fall leaves still on the trees. Watching boats is a popular pastime in Duluth. With 1,100 ships arriving and departing during the 10-month shipping season, it could be almost a full-time occupation. There's a boat watchers' hotline here and a newspaper devoted entirely to ship comings and goings.

Minnesota Public Radio reporter Amy Radil is on a bridge overlooking the Duluth Harbor this morning with a professional boat watcher. Good morning, Amy. While we're waiting to get Amy set up, why don't we take a phone call this morning. Let's go to Phil, who is in Minneapolis. Good morning, Phil. Go ahead with your question, please.

PHIL: Thank you for taking my call.

RACHEL REABE: Yes.

PHIL: I just had a question regarding the number of ships that go into the port. You said there were 1,100 ships that go into the port annually. How does this compare in volume to other similar ports, perhaps along the Eastern Seaboard?

DAVIS HELBERG: The volume that we move is so huge. We move about 40 million tons of cargo a year. So our average ship is carrying-- our average laker, for example, is carrying somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000, 38,000 tons, because we have some that can carry 65,000 tons.

The Eastern and say the East Gulf and West coasts, what we call the Tidewater ports, will usually handle more ships in numbers because the average cargo with so many smaller ships is going to require more ships to move it. Notwithstanding that, though, we can't handle the world's biggest ships either. We're restricted by the size of the Saint Lawrence Seaway to ships of 740 feet long by 78 feet wide ocean. And then the lakers are maximum about 1,000 feet long, about 100 feet wide.

And those ships, by the way, are prisoners to Lake Erie and West. They can't go through the Welland canal, these biggest of the bombers, as we call them, that you see on the lakes. It's hard to-- it's not really accurate to measure numbers of ships. If we measure tonnage, though, maybe to get more to Phil's question, we're about 17th or 18th nationally in total volume. In terms of bulk cargo, we're about fifth or sixth, but that's given that we have a limited season that we do have to close in the winter time as well.

So all things considered, I think we're doing-- respectably, we're certainly by far the largest port in the Great Lakes and have been for most of this century. We're far ahead of places like Chicago and Detroit, Milwaukee, Toledo, Cleveland, Toronto, other cities that have much greater population.

RACHEL REABE: Busiest port on the Great Lakes.

DAVIS HELBERG: By far.

DENNIS AHO: By far.

RACHEL REABE: We have a live audience here at the Maritime Visitor Center. Our reporter Bob Kelleher is in the audience with somebody who has a question or comment this morning.

BOB KELLEHER: One of our members of the audience noticed some construction outdoors, which affect shipping. Rosemary's from Duluth.

ROSEMARY: Everybody from Duluth loves the aerial lift bridge as well as all of our visitors do, too. And there's a big renovation that is going on, going to start, in fact, has begun. Its 5.5 million project-- $5.5 million project. Maybe some of the-- our guests would like to speak about it, since it's going to mean some-- it's going to cause some problems for people here in Duluth.

RACHEL REABE: Now, the historic aerial bridge built in 1905, a historic structure, it's on the National Register. Davis what's going on with it?

DAVIS HELBERG: The city of Duluth owns and operates the aerial bridge. As the Chamber of Commerce likes to say, the world famous aerial bridge. We say it's world famous, at least from Big Farc to Park-- Big Fork to Park Falls, I'm not sure, but it is our symbol. December 15th, it's going to be shut down to ship traffic.

And as Rosemary mentioned, the renovation work has already begun. It's a major rehab and rehabilitation and renovation project should be completed, though, by the end of March. So when the navigation season opens again in the year 2000, we'll have it available. Meantime then, ships will be using the natural mouth of the Saint Louis River, and that is the superior entry, which is 7 miles East of here. In other words, at the end of Minnesota point or park point, as locals call it.

RACHEL REABE: So our front row seat, that show will be suspended for a period of time.

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, boat watching is an active sport in this community, but after December 15th, it's a little more rigorous than it would be in, say, this time of the year or in mid-summer. So there's not quite as much boat watching in late December.

RACHEL REABE: Amy Radil is now ready to go. We have her out on a bridge in the brisk weather today in the Duluth harbor. Good morning, Amy.

AMY RADIL: Good morning, Rachel. Hi, I'm here with Ken Newhams. He came to Duluth. He didn't grow up here originally, became so fascinated with the port that he started his own newspaper. It's called the Duluth Shipping News, and it chronicles the comings and goings here. Ken, is this a busy time in the port?

KEN NEWHAMS: Well, it is. Today, it's a little bit slow, but that's kind of unusual. You got a big series of Great Lakes, and you can't always predict when ships are going to arrive at the right, right time.

AMY RADIL: Give us a visual tour of where they're loading and unloading today and what's changing hands.

KEN NEWHAMS: Well, we're on the St. Louis river looking across the superior Midwest energy coal dock, which is empty today, but they've been setting records every month for loading coal. Last week, I saw a boat loading coal and there was one right beside it, ready to move in, as soon as the first one, left. But there's-- I don't think any ships coming in today for that.

Further down on the Duluth side of the river down in West Duluth, the Capitonis Dhammika, a Lithuanian ship, came in early this morning in his loading bentonite. And then up from there, I don't think there's a ship over to DMNIR dock where they discharge limestone and load taconite from the Iron Range. But right across the river from us at Harvest States, there's two ships over there, a Canadian Laker or the Algotsson is loading soybeans and the Kinsman Independent is over there loading wheat, which is going to take to Buffalo.

AMY RADIL: I was curious to ask you, we look out and we see the ships outside the harbor anchored all lit up at night. Why are they out there and what's it like on board for them?

KEN NEWHAMS: Well, there's a lot of reasons. I think, first of all, it's free parking out there. If they came in, they may have to pay some dock fees. And they're there because-- for a variety of reasons, perhaps most usually a ship is at the berth where they're supposed to go to. So they have to wait for that ship to end. Last-- a couple of weeks ago, about a month ago, the ship came that didn't have anything to do and sat out there for about a week until they found something for it to do.

I always assume it's boring when I talk to people out there. If you're on a ship, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean or in the harbor of Duluth. You still have the same place to go to bed and where you eat. And so you kind of follow the same routine no matter where you are. There's a lot of painting that goes on. And there's a lot of regular maintenance to a ship no matter where you are.

They also, a number of times-- and I sit in the harbor, I think, a lot of people look out and feel sorry for them stuck out there, but they have some fantastic meals. A couple-- I think on the 4th of July weekend, there was a ship out there through the whole weekend. And they had lobster and they had steak and a variety of kinds of fishes and meat. And they just sat out on the deck and enjoyed themselves.

AMY RADIL: It sounds very idyllic. Talk about how often do they get to communicate with home and what are some ways that that's changing a little bit.

KEN NEWHAMS: Well, it's not real easy to communicate on a ship to the rest of the world, and very few have direct phone connections. So quite often when a salty arrives, you will see the gangway come down and people will come down and go right to the phone booth to call home. Of course, depending on what time it is at home. Another active thing that people on salty are carrying and looking for always is phone cards. That seems to be the coinage around the world where you connect with phone cards.

I have a web page called Duluth Shipping News. And I take a lot of pictures of the people on ships. And several times I've taken pictures of them, put them on the web page. In one case, it was an Indian ship. And when I came back and told them they were on the web page, they went down the gangway and called home in India and said, go down the street to so-and-so's house that has the connection to the web and you can see us in Duluth. And they did. It's kind of fun. And I suspect things like that with the internet are going to increase communication.

AMY RADIL: You mentioned you've been an email go between for people at sea, as well.

KEN NEWHAMS: Yeah, once in a while. When you're on a ship, you have a lot of needs and some-- whether it's to get groceries or underwear or whatever. You also have girlfriends and boyfriends on the other side of the world. And several times, I have been given messages, sometimes on a disk to take home and email to a girlfriend in a foreign language, in this case, Dutch. I'm not sure what I was sending. And a couple of days later, I get a message back in Dutch, which I translate-- which I gave back to him. And it's kind of interesting. I kind of wonder what they were saying, but that wasn't my business.

AMY RADIL: That's a nice favor, though. Great. Thanks for your time today.

KEN NEWHAMS: Thank you.

AMY RADIL: Back to you, Rachel.

RACHEL REABE: Thank you, Amy. Captain Aho, one of the ships that he talked about, you came in on it last night.

DENNIS AHO: Yes, I did. Actually, this morning at 1:15, We dropped the anchor and waited until daylight. And then the harbor pilot came on board to take it up to the berth.

RACHEL REABE: And that was a Russian ship, a Russian crew.

DENNIS AHO: Well, Lithuanian, but the Russian crew, yes. The captain was from Kursk, Russia.

RACHEL REABE: Now, you've sailed on the Great Lakes for almost 40 years. You're actually third generation. You told me your grandparents were on boats. What was your grandmother doing on a boat?

DENNIS AHO: Well, she was second cook, and they loved her because she raised 10 kids on a farm. And she knew just about every recipe. And the crew-- when she finally had to get off, I think it was either 1949 or 1950, I was quite small, and she was getting varicose veins, and it was hard for her to stand in the galley. But grandpa was a night Porter, my dad was wheelsman and Uncle Toivo was a chief engineer on the same ship. So it was kind of fun.

My sister for my 50th birthday a few years ago, she gave me a picture, and I'm sitting on my grandfather's knee on the fantail of this old freighter. And he's got his white suit and there's a big pot of potatoes down there. And I was 18 months old. And that was in 1946. So that's a few years ago.

RACHEL REABE: So it was inevitable that you would go to sea.

DENNIS AHO: Yes. I have-- I had uncles that were captains and pilots. My mother's three brothers, Aino, Toivo and Waino, were all chief engineers. My brother-in-law married to my sister as a chief engineer, and now he works for US Steel. So it's just-- it was either farm or go on the boats. Actually, I went on the boats thinking I'd finish art school. And in between, I worked for two architects, went to Vietnam, and then decided, I'll come back here.

RACHEL REABE: Is it a good life as a ship captain?

DENNIS AHO: It's a lonely life. And I was a bachelor for 41 years. I finally took a bride 14 years ago. It'll be in January. Now it's a little tougher because you have somebody at home. But when I was single, I kind of enjoyed it. Wherever I hung my hat, that was home.

RACHEL REABE: And so what kind of a schedule do you have? How long are you on, and then when do you get time off?

DENNIS AHO: Well, we work beginning of the season, early April until December 15th to the 19th. When I get off the ship down in Port Huron, we usually lease a few company cars. And then we drive them back to Duluth. So I get home around the 19th or 20th, depending on driving conditions.

DAVIS HELBERG: I should point out too that Captain Aho works exclusively with oceangoing ships. So the reference, even though he was a Great Lakes sailor and became a Great Lakes ship master, for these-- last many years now he has been a ship pilot. The lakers, US and Canadian, do not employ shore-based pilots, as do the ocean ships.

RACHEL REABE: They just come in with their carrying crew, with their standing crew. But with the foreign boat that comes in, they cannot let that captain bring the boat across. That's where you get on.

DENNIS AHO: That's right.

RACHEL REABE: And you get on at Port Huron.

DENNIS AHO: Yes, that's the end of District 3. And we have, what I believe, is the largest pilotage in the world. We have Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron. Anywhere that vessel goes, that's where I have to take it. So I'm sometimes gone from my wife, well, it depends, 30 to 32 days at a time. And they try to give us 9 or 10 days. And the 21st of this month, hopefully I'll be home for nine days, and we can catch up.

RACHEL REABE: Because you got home at what time this morning?

DENNIS AHO: Well, I got home about 7 o'clock.

RACHEL REABE: This morning. And you leave again?

DENNIS AHO: At 17:00, 5 o'clock.

RACHEL REABE: 5 o'clock tonight on what kind of a boat?

DENNIS AHO: I think it's Polish crew, the Lake Superior. It's over at AGP loading right now. And I assume the last time I was on it in June, it had a Polish crew.

RACHEL REABE: You told me when we spoke on the phone-- well, first of all, when I talked to you three weeks ago, you did not have a clue where you would be today. You didn't have any idea. Do they just tell you day by day where you're going and when you're coming back and when you're going again?

DENNIS AHO: Well, I'm on call 24/7 hours a day, and it does go day by day. But if somebody's sick or somebody's wife is sick and they can't be on, then they'll say, quick, jump in the plane or drive a car or catch Amtrak to Chicago. So I literally-- until I'm on that vessel and I have a cell phone in my hand, I can't give anybody any ETAs until I know where I'm at and where I'm going.

RACHEL REABE: You told me the life of a ship captain is 90% boredom, 10% sheer terror.

DENNIS AHO: Yeah, that about sums it up, and especially this time of year with the wind. You're sitting there having coffee, and then the ship is rolling, and so what. But then when you get to port and it's still blowing about 35 knots, that's when you start the pucker factory.

RACHEL REABE: What's been the most difficult conditions you've been on Lake Superior? Tell me what was the worst storm you ever sailed in.

DENNIS AHO: I really-- there's been a few I've been in. I guess in 1982 or '83, I was on a Greek ship. And there was about 25 ships anchored behind Whitefish. And they had a supercargo on board. And he wondered why we couldn't get going to Duluth.

But it was an old ship and 8-knots ship in a calm day. So I said, OK, I'll show you a cap and super cargo. We lifted anchor, went around the corner. It took us two hours to go 8 miles. And we got caught in the trough. All the coffee cups, everything dumped. We rolled.

I finally had to back at full astern into the wind, come back, limp around and anchor again. And their eyes were like that. The Greek captain told me, Mr. Pilot, why do you call these lakes? These are seas. And I made a believer. When the 25 vessels pulled anchor the next day, we were the last one to go. And we had ballast that time too.

RACHEL REABE: What about the news story that has now gone across the country about the Great Lakes sailor that fell off his boat Sunday night into Lake Superior and apparently swam almost five miles to shore? When you're hearing that report, are you thinking that doesn't happen or does it sometimes happen? Do people fall off boats?

DENNIS AHO: Well, I've only heard of it happen one other time off Copper Harbor. And that was a prearranged deal where the father actually waited on the shore, and it was in the summertime. And the fella dove off and the dad got him at Eagle or Copper Harbor. But I just heard about that coming in on the pilot boat, so I had no knowledge of that.

RACHEL REABE: Is it hard to picture?

DENNIS AHO: Yes, it is, especially that distance in this cold water.

DAVIS HELBERG: Hypothermia is a significant issue in this lake. And I've always been told that you have about a half an hour to survive in that water. So this is absolutely phenomenal, remarkable, if the news accounts are as accurate as I hope they are. But they'll be an investigation. I'm sure one's already underway by both the Coast Guard and by the ship owners. And we'll see what ultimately develops here.

RACHEL REABE: And some of the concern that you could fall off. Could you picture this on one of your boats, somebody dropping overboard and you not knowing about it for a couple of hours, and then spending another couple of hours looking around the boat for him? I mean, is it-- does everyone kind of just going about their own jobs? There's certainly not a lot of crew members on these boats.

DENNIS AHO: No, there's usually 22 to 24 crew, at least on the foreign ships that I'm on. But without a survival suit and with no marking and perhaps with dark clothing, I don't think there'd be much of a chance of finding somebody. I many years ago, one time on a foreign ship that the captain disappeared.

And I know that was kind of unusual. And they looked for him. They found his sandals by the rail. And I wasn't the pilot on there, Captain Soderquist was. And he told me it was quite a deal. He went up the next morning, got up, and where's the captain? We haven't seen him.

RACHEL REABE: There is flip-flops.

DENNIS AHO: Then the flip-flops are all they had in memories. He was gone.

DAVIS HELBERG: That continues to be an issue. In fact, Ed, I think you've been involved to some degree with that, have you not? That ship was bound for Duluth that occurred in Lake Michigan.

EDWARD RUISI: I don't believe it was solved, what happened.

RACHEL REABE: So you don't know if that was suicide or an accident.

EDWARD RUISI: We don't know. An accident or he was thrown overboard, we don't know. The Coast Guard investigated, the FBI investigated.

RACHEL REABE: And you handle a lot of very sticky problems. Sometimes when these foreign ships come into port, it all gets sort of dumped in your lap, doesn't it?

EDWARD RUISI: That's correct. That's correct.

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, we had one just a year ago this summer.

EDWARD RUISI: A sad one.

DAVIS HELBERG: A very sad one with-- that Ed was deeply involved in a ship carrying ammonium nitrate, which was controversial to begin with. And there were a lot of folks in town who were very ill at ease with ammonium nitrate in that quantity. It was almost 10,000 tons in super bags, as they're called, at the public marine terminal. And deeply regrettably, the captain committed suicide aboard the ship while it was here in port.

RACHEL REABE: So then what do you do?

EDWARD RUISI: Well, first thing happens, so you get a hold of the Coast Guard and the police. They came down. And of course, they bring the ambulance with them, and they investigate. We have to notify the owner right away, what happened. And they're constantly on the phone with us, what to do. The family has to be notified. We have to find out what the family wants to do. Do they want the body shipped home or buried in Duluth or cremated? Then when you get all that business solved, then the coroner is there.

RACHEL REABE: And you're handling all this from a half a world away, as the ship agents.

EDWARD RUISI: Right. And thank God for the cell phone because you could contact all these people in one spot.

RACHEL REABE: We're seeing shipping boats are getting bigger, crews are getting smaller. Is that the direction it's going to continue to go?

DAVIS HELBERG: Well, as a matter of fact, we have a ship in right now, one of the Wagenborg new Dutch ships with a crew of 9 plus 2 apprentices. One of the things we've been saying lately is that if this goes to the ultimate, we'll someday see ships with crews composed of a captain and a dog. And the dog will be there to bite the captain if he touches anything.

RACHEL REABE: We're halfway through this Main Street broadcast from the Duluth harbor. Our guest, Davis Helberg, Edward Ruisi, and ship captain, Dennis Aho. I'm Rachel Reabe.

Next hour, we're going to turn our attention to the boats on the bottom of Lake Superior. We'll talk to the people who've discovered some of them and others who explore and photograph shipwrecks. Efforts are underway to preserve and protect these underwater historic sites. It's all ahead as this Main Street special from the Maritime Visitors Center in Duluth continues after the news.