Report from the Mackinaw skipper at the Soo Locks, scheduled to open Saturday for the 2007 shipping season... Cutter slices through thick fields of ice

The pod technology available on the new Mack is allowing the ship to actually back though the ice instead of ramming into it forward...a first on the Great Lakes.

The Michipicoten will be the first upbound ship through the Locks Saturday.

USCG Cutters Neah Bay and Mobile Bay are assisting in the Lower St. Mary's River at this time along with the Canadian icebreaker Samuel B. Risley.

The Mackinaw will be in Whitefish Bay through part of next week.

Judy