Ice-breaking starts today in Thunder Bay harbour

The Coast Guard is warning Thunder Bay residents to stay off the harbour ice, as two ice-breaking vessels from the United States are scheduled to start clearing shipping channels today.

Thunder Bay harbour master Guy Jarvis said the 42-meter-long Katmai Bay and Morro Bay will open some "tracks" in the harbour.

What we want to try to do is break some straight lines into the five main entrances into Thunder Bay the north entrance and the south entrance and the Kam River entrance ... basically trying to make everything straight, he said.[We want to] break big ice into little ice and then into ice cubes, finally.

But this weekend help will arrive in the form of the larger American ice-breaking cutter, the Alder, Jarvis said.

She just works faster. She's got more horsepower so that, if we are coming into difficulty with these smaller vessels, we've got more horsepower to get things done.

The minister of Fisheries and Oceans said on Wednesday that the Canadian Coast Guard will re-assign additional ice-breaking vessels to the region to get shipping started as soon as possible.

This year's frigid temperatures have led to ice conditions that have not been seen in the Great Lakes or Eastern Canada in decades, which are having a direct adverse impact on Canadian products reaching domestic and international markets, the department stated in a press release issued Wednesday.

The Government and the Canadian Coast Guard have made an important decision to re-assign additional Coast Guard resources to the Great Lakes, to ensure that Canadian products, resources and agricultural goods get shipped to market.

Jarvis estimated the first cargo vessel into Thunder Bay will get into port around April 4.

That's roughly a week behind the usual opening of navigation.