Port Gypsum - April 6, 2026: Calumet

Calumet arrived off Port Gypsum in Tawas, Monday morning, and waited offshore for the tug Kimberly Joy to arrive from Cheboygan and set the channel buoys for the season.  Once Kimberly Joy arrived a short time after Calumet, her crew made quick work of setting the aids to navigation and Calumet was able to tie up before 10:00, marking the first arrival of the season to load at Port Gypsum.

While not the Saginaw River, it was a nice alternative while waiting for the first boat to visit the Saginaw River for the season.

Saginaw River Passage - April 2, 2026: North Dakota

North Dakota, starting her fourth season on the Saginaw River, heading upbound for her home dock in Carrollton, Thursday afternoon. She had traveled down the river to the Consumers Energy Dock in Essexville early this morning to assist Iver Bright up to and into the Port Fisher slip to unload at Bit-Mat, but Iver Bright ended up going to anchor in Saginaw Bay near Light 1, waiting for the Saginaw River outflow/current to subside and North Dakota was not needed today.

First photos of the 2026 season!

Saginaw River Rear Range Lighthouse

As we patiently wait for the start of the 2026 shipping season, here are a few shots of the Saginaw River Rear Range Lighthouse that I took on 3/2/26.  The snow is gone, but there is still ice on the Saginaw River. 

Saginaw River Year End Report - 2025 Season - Part 6

     Arriving on the Saginaw River in June of 2023, the Great Lakes Towing tug, North Dakota, kept herself busy during the 2025 season, assisting vessels on 32 different occasions, including much icebreaking during the month of December.  

-        The saltwater vessel BBC Ukraine became the first and only saltwater vessel to visit the Saginaw River in 2025 from overseas, calling on the Port Fisher Terminals Dock in Bay City to unload industrial equipment for a local business project.  BBC Ukraine arrived on December 1^st.

-        On September 10^th, Defiance/Ashtabula arrived on the Saginaw River and was assisted to the Port Fisher Terminals Dock by the tug North Dakota.  The pair arrived for repairs to their bow thruster and departed early morning on 9/12/25, again assisted by North Dakota.  They did not deliver a cargo on this trip.

     As always, the shipping industry continues to change, evolve, adapt and move forward.   It is always my hope that commercial traffic on the Saginaw River will remain stable and even more so continue grow as the products and materials handled here continue to evolve and expand.  Hopefully 2026 will continue to build on the successes of the 2025 season and will be a safe and profitable one for everyone. 

I wish you all a safe and prosperous shipping season in 2026.  Thank you for following me during the year, supporting my social media pages, attending my presentations, and commenting on my photos!  Your support means more than you know.

Saginaw River Year End Report - 2025 Season - Part 5

In addition to all the commercial vessel product deliveries to the Saginaw River in 2025, there was also one commercial vessel that loaded here, taking a product from the Saginaw River to unload in Green Bay, WI.  On June 1^st, the Interlake Marine Logistics tug, Undaunted, and her self-unloading barge, Pere Marquette 41, arrived on the Saginaw River, in ballast, traveling upriver to the Sargent Docks and Terminal in Zilwaukee.  There they loaded a cargo of Gypsum, that was mined at the Keyterra Mine in Turner, MI.  This is a big development with more loads planned to be loaded here in 2026 and taken out of the Saginaw River.  Since the end of Grain exports in the 1990’s, you can count on one hand the number of vessels that have loaded a product on the Saginaw River to be taken for delivery, so this is an encouraging sign for the future.

Some other notable stories from the 2025 season:

      I finally have an update on Wilkinson Minerals.  In February 2020, it was announced that Wilkinson Minerals would be opening a facility on the Saginaw River, east of the Independence Bridge in Bay City, and begin pumping salt brine from a large deposit known as the Sylvania Sandstone Formation.  In April 2021, they announced they would be “tripling their investment” of $50 million to $150 million in Bay City.  Wilkinson Minerals stated that “the company would produce both liquid and dry salt products, with the liquid products primarily shipped out on the river”.  In the April 2021 report, plans were to have the plant up and running late 2023 or early 2024.  At a January 25, 2025, meeting of the Bay City Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, there was a vote to begin the process to abolish Wilkinson Minerals Brownfield Plan for the redevelopment of the property.  The Wilkinson Minerals project as originally presented will not be moving forward, a new developer is interested in the project but is not ready to move forward at this time and cannot utilize the current brownfield plan. A new plan could be put in place if the project moves forward in the future.

-        In August, Ryba Marine began an emergency dredging project at the Sixth Street Turning Basin in Saginaw, depositing the spoils in the Saginaw Dredged Material Disposal Facility on the Bay Saginaw County Line.

-        Ryba Marine, with their tug Thomas R. Morrish also began a project in July to construct a fish habitat reef approximately .5 miles east of the Confined Disposal Island in Saginaw Bay.  The project lasted all summer with limestone being loaded at the Wirt Sand & Stone Dock in Essexville and barged out to the reef location.  The project finished in October.

Saginaw River Year End Report - 2025 Season - Part 4

There were several vessels that made a delivery on the Saginaw River in 2024 that did not make a return visit here during the 2025 season.  These vessels included Houtmangracht, BBC Oregon, Happy Ranger, Karen Andrie/Endeavour, and tugs Leonard M. and Meredith Ashton.  There were three first time visitors to the Saginaw River in 2025:  BBC Ukraine, McAsphalt Advantage, and the tug Treasure Coast with her barge, Cement Transporter 7700.

Other vessels on the Saginaw River during the 2025 season were our local workhouse tug, North Dakota, tugs Kimberly Joy, Kathy Lynn, Thomas R. Morrish, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service vessel Spencer F. Baird, along with the R/V Wheeler, R/V Tanner, and R/V Channel Cat. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spar also visited at the beginning and end of the season to work Aids to Navigation.

During 2024, Rand Logistics, Inc. acquired Andrie, Inc., the company who operates the AmRize Cement vessels G.L Ostrander/Integrity and Samuel de Champlain/Innovation, as well as the Occidental Chemical tug/tank barge Spartan/Spartan II, all visitors to the Saginaw River.  At the end of the 2025 season, Rand announced that they were rebranding as Mainstay Maritime with American Steamship Company, Lower Lakes Towing, Grand River Navigation, and Andrie, Inc. all under their umbrella with 26 vessels.  I will be logging vessel passages with these changes for the 2026 season.

Saginaw River Year End Report - 2025 Season - Part 3

Saginaw River Year-End Report for 2025: Part 3

Tug-barge units were busy on the Saginaw River again during the 2025 season, with four of the top six spots for total number of visits held by tug-barge units. Once again, as has become the norm on the Saginaw River, the Rand Logistics, Inc./Grand River Navigation tug, Olive L. Moore, paired with the self-unloading barge Menominee, once again defended the title of “Workhorse of the Saginaw River”, making more trips to the river in 2025 than any other vessel. The pair logged 34 visits to the Saginaw River this season, 11 more than in 2024. Olive L. Moore/Menominee have held this title 19 out of the past 20 years, logging an incredible 711 visits to the Saginaw River during this time! The next closest was Interlake Steamship Company’s, tug Dorothy Ann, paired with the self-unloading barge Pathfinder who had 17 visits. Rounding out the list of most frequent visitors were American Courage with 15 visits, Samuel de Champlain/Innovation with 12 visits, then Robert S. Pierson and Defiance/Ashtabula both tied with 11 visits to the Saginaw River in 2025.

Tug and barge units accounted for almost half of the deliveries to the Saginaw River in 2025, logging 92 of the 190 commercial vessel passages or 48%.

The fleet leading the way with the most cargo deliveries to the Saginaw River during the 2025 season was far and away Rand Logistics, Inc. Their subsidiaries, Lower Lakes Towing and Grand River Navigation tallied 97 vessel passages, an increase of seven deliveries over 2024, accounting for 51% of all deliveries to the Saginaw River in 2025. They have now been leading the way on the Saginaw River for 18 of the past 19 years. The Interlake Steamship Company/Interlake Logistics Solutions logged the second most visits with 27 trips, two fewer visits than in 2024. Coming in third place was Algoma Central Corp. with 18 trips, Amrize Cement/Andrie, Inc. with 16 trips and McKeil Marine, Limited with 14 visits logged. These top companies accounted for 90% of all deliveries on the Saginaw River in 2025.

Since I started logging vessel passages with the 2005 season, there have been 3,744 commercial vessel deliveries to the Saginaw River during that time.

In a future post, I will be discussing Rand Logistics, the rebranding to Mainstay Maritime and the boats that operate under their umbrella. With tomorrow's post, we will start looking at some of the local stories from the season.