The Cuyahoga River, a sharply winding waterway that divides Cleveland, Ohio, is believed to partly derive its name from the Mohawk term for "
."
The descriptor is easily understood from the pilothouse of the articulated tug & barge, the Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder, a 711-foot long, 70-foot wide vessel combo that makes regular runs through the busy Great Lakes river.
On Sunday, Jan. 3, the 14-crew member vessel shuttled iron ore between the bulk terminal at the river mouth and ArcellorMittal steel mill in the city's Flats area as it has done many times before. But this time, Capt. Jeremy Mock had a camera going.
The 25-second timelapse video above, shot with a GoPro that Mock received for Christmas, demonstrates the hairpin turns and tight squeezes that Great Lakes shippers must navigate in order to move cargo through the river -- which has cleaned up significantly in the decades since a 1969 fire caught national attention and helped spark the modern environmental movement.
"It can be challenging," said Mock, who has been piloting the Dorothy Ann/Pathfinder on the Cuyahoga for seven years, the last four as captain.
"Some of the turns are better than 90 degrees," he said. "They are tight. If we did not continue forward motion, we wouldn't continue through the turn."
The vessel combo, owned by Interlake Steamship Co., spends a lot of time in Cleveland although it's not an unfamiliar sight elsewhere on the lakes. The barge, formerly the steamship J.L. Mauthe, carries bulk cargos like ore and limestone between the lake and the various industrial sites along the lower river banks.
It's a six-mile trip between the Cleveland Bulk Terminal on Whiskey Island in the harbor -- where ships too large to navigate the river discharge cargo -- and the steel mill at the river's navigation head, the farthest upstream shippers travel.
Along the way, ships must pass under more than 15 bridges.
Although he's made the trip often (daily during peak shipping season), Mock said the river manages to keep he and the crew on their toes.
"The river is dynamic," he said. "The current changes. When it rains, you have to watch the current. It starts to flow heavy. There's a time to sit and wait for the current to flow out and there's a time to go."
Garret Ellison covers business, environment & the Great Lakes for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram