Icebreaking underway in Thunder Bay harbour with first ships of the season set to arrive

In a sure sign of spring, icebreaking has begun in Thunder Bay's harbour in preparation for the 2023 shipping season.

The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Samuel Risley arrived in the area on Thursday, Capt. Stacey Trombley said, saying the ship began work that night, and resumed breaking ice in the harbour at about 7:30 a.m. Friday.

And while the water beyond the breakwall is largely open, the ice in the harbour itself is about two feet thick.

"We'll be in Thunder Bay for as long as we're needed," Trombley said. "Right now there's still quite a bit of work to do."

"We are still getting some cold temperatures at night," she said Friday. "So until the ice clears out of the harbour, we expect a little bit of refreeze at night, but not a ton. So could be another week."

"It all depends on how the wind and the temperature affects the the as we're breaking it."

Trombley said she's been in the Coast Guard for more than 20 years, with the last two of those spent on the Risley.

She said overall, ice on the Great Lakes was light this winter.

"We were down in the Windsor-Sarnia area for for a good chunk of it, and because of the lack of ice there wasn't a whole lot of work for us to do," Trombley said. "So we took that time to do a lot of crew training as well as get caught up on some maintenance."

The Risley came up through the Soo Locks prior to their official opening, which is scheduled for Saturday, to clear things out for ships that travel the Great Lakes, Port of Thunder Bay CEO Tim Heney said.

As such, Heney said the port won't have to wait long to see the first ship of the season arrive; in fact, that's expected to happen either Saturday or Sunday.

And as for the 2023 shipping season, Heney said "it looks pretty strong."

"We've got a good lineup of ships coming in right off the bat, and it was a good harvest last year on the prairies, so there's lots to ship and things are looking pretty positive at this point in time," he said. "We have a lot of projects lined up for Keefer [Terminal] in wind turbines, pipe rail, and it'll kick off pretty early in the season, probably the first week of April or thereabouts, and away we go from there."

Potash shipments, too, are expected to be high again this year, Heney said; potash shipments through Thunder Bay hit a 30-year high in 2022, at more than one million tonnes.