The Peter R. Cresswell arrived in port on July 28, 2009, going under the Lift Bridge and here she is moving up the Duluth harbor at 1:30 in the afternoon. She is here to load iron ore pellets at the CN dock in West Duluth. She has been here only 11 times since 1996, two of those trips came last year. On one of those visits, she loaded iron ore pellets; on the other, coal. This is the Canadian-flagged vessel’s first trip here this season. She was launched in 1982 as the Algowest and her first duties were to load wheat from Western Canada in Thunder Bay and bring it to the mouth of the St. Lawrence Seaway for transfer to ocean going boats and then out to the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the world.
With the grain trade out of North American decreasing, the boat was sent to the shipyard in 1998 to get a self-unloader system added to her deck and below her four cargo holds so she would be able to load other bulk cargos such as coal, limestone and iron ore pellets and then discharge them more efficiently.
Late in the season of 2001, she went through the Welland Canal for the last time as the Algowest. That name had been removed from the side of the boat for the trip, a very unusual event. When she arrived in Port Weller, she was rechristened the Peter R. Cresswell. That was the same day that Peter R. Cresswell retired from his position as President and Chief Executive Officer of Algoma Central Corporation.
