Cargo ship grinds to halt in Seaway 

A cargo ship carrying 10,000 metric tons of scrap metal made an unexpected stop near the Kahnawake Marina last week after it lost power, leading the captain to lose control of the vessel. Luckily, no one was injured. 

It took well over 24 hours before the ship could be hauled away by tugboats Saturday morning, resulting in a complete shutdown of traffic through the entirety of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the meantime.

“It lost its heading going down and grounded itself on the left side of the harbour,” said Jean Aubry-Morin, vice president, External Relations for the St. Lawrence Seaway. 

The crew threw the ship’s anchor overboard once it became apparent around 6:35 p.m. last Thursday evening they had lost power onboard. The captain also managed to wedge the vessel between the canal’s north wall and Tekakwitha Island at a 45-degree angle before it came to a full stop. 

“They threw the anchor to slow themselves down, to get the least speed and impact as possible,” Aubry-Morin. 

The blockage put a halt to the transportation of goods throughout the entire network, which extends from Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean. As of the following morning, August 23, Aubry-Morin said six cargo ships in other sections of the Seaway were forced to anchor as a result.

“For inbound and outbound ships, everything goes through the South Shore canal,” Aubry-Morin explained last Friday. “We anticipate that by the time we free the vessel there will have been a total of 14 vessels affected.”

Accidents of this nature are “extremely rare,” he said. Out of nearly 4,000 passages through the network last year there was only one other grounding. It happened last September near Cornwall, Ontario. 

The 138-metre cargo ship that stalled in Kahnawake last week goes by the name Heemskerkgracht. It originated from Amsterdam and had been destined for Spain.

“We had language barriers with the crew of the ship,” said Lloyd Phillips, commissioner of Public Safety, who was among the first to arrive on scene. “They're from the Netherlands and the crew is from other parts of the world, so it was very, very difficult to communicate.”

The authority for the seaway later informed them of the cause of the accident, Phillips said, assuring them there were no hazardous materials onboard that could pose a threat to the community.

A group from Public Safety in a boat also immediately rushed over to inspect the exterior of the ship to see what kind of damage it had sustained. 

“We did a whole 360 of the ship, and we were happy to see there were no signs of leakage,” Phillips said. 

Numerous Kahnawake Peacekeepers, the Canadian Coast Guard, and the authority for the Seaway also arrived in the area around this time. Workers with Environment Canada also came for a visit there the following morning. 

“The first concern of course is the spilling of hazardous material, or a fire, or an explosion,” Kyle Zachary said, speaking on behalf of the Peacekeepers. “Inspections were performed and nothing was observed to even hint that was a possibility.”

Peacekeepers got the call about the accident at 6:40 p.m. that night, Zachary said, after someone at the western point of the island witnessed the mayhem. 

“The witnesses that were there said they heard it hitting the side of the rocks,” Phillips added. 

This isn’t the first time cargo ships have got stuck in the canal bordering Kahnawake. Beating all odds, it happened twice in 2015. That October, a vessel carrying alcohol hit the north shore of the seaway after losing power. Then in December, another ship got itself wedged by St. Nicholas Island, resulting in a small oil leak. 

“Unfortunately, it's a reality that we have in our community. It happens every few years,” Phillips said. “It's something that we have to remain vigilant to.”

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