FreighterLog The record of Great Lakes shipping

Archive: January 2024 to December 2025, 28,207 passages. Seaway transits checked hourly. Last checked 2026-09-23 18:00 UTC — 14:00 EDT. NOAA publishes in quarterly batches, and the archive currently runs nine months behind.

Archive to December 2025 · Seaway checked 2026-09-23 18:00 UTC — 14:00 EDT

Season in numbers

2025 season

13,961 recorded chokepoint passages by 148 distinct vessels across 7 chokepoints. That is down 2.0% on 2024.

What this count is and is not. A "passage" is one crossing of one of the 7 monitored gate lines, not a cargo, a voyage, or a lockage. A single round trip from Duluth to Detroit generates several. These totals describe traffic across the monitored lines and should not be read as tonnage, revenue, or the total number of ships working the lakes.

First and last through the Soo

Season opening (observed): Clyde S van Enkevort, upbound at Soo Locks (St. Marys River) — 21 Mar 2025, 07:51 EDT.

Season close (observed): American Integrity, downbound at Soo Locks (St. Marys River) — 31 Dec 2025, 17:32 EST.

Season boundaries are inferred from the winter gap in the passage record, a fortnight or more with nothing through the Soo, rather than from the Corps' published opening and closing dates. The two do not always agree. The archive ends at 31 Dec 2025, so this season's close is cut off by the record rather than by the ice.

Traffic by chokepoint

Traffic by fleet

  • No fleet match 81 vessels 4,240 passages
  • Algoma Central 26 vessels · Canada 3,180 passages
  • The Interlake Steamship Company 9 vessels · United States 1,755 passages
  • Canada Steamship Lines 14 vessels · Canada 1,555 passages
  • American Steamship Company 6 vessels · United States 1,251 passages
  • Great Lakes Fleet 4 vessels · United States 728 passages
  • VanEnkevort Tug & Barge 3 vessels · United States 626 passages
  • Central Marine Logistics 2 vessels · United States 308 passages
  • Andrie LLC 2 vessels · United States 263 passages
  • Interlake Logistics Solutions 1 vessels · United States 55 passages

Fleet totals group by the operator on the FreighterLog roster. Hulls with no fleet match, salties and unaffiliated boats among them, are counted together rather than dropped.

Busiest vessels

# Vessel Operator Passages
1 Paul R Tregurtha The Interlake Steamship Company 260
2 American Century American Steamship Company 257
3 Lee A Tregurtha The Interlake Steamship Company 246
4 Kaye E Barker The Interlake Steamship Company 241
5 Joyce L Vanenkevort VanEnkevort Tug & Barge 225
6 H Lee White No fleet match 224
7 Edwin H Gott Great Lakes Fleet 220
8 James R Barker The Interlake Steamship Company 220
9 American Mariner No fleet match 217
10 Indiana Harbor American Steamship Company 215