Michipicoten (1952 ship)
self discharging lake freighter

Michipicoten (named Elton Hoyt 2nd when she entered service in 1952) is a self-discharging lake freighter owned and operated by Canadian shipping firm Lower Lakes Towing of Port Dover, Ontario. Michipicoten primarily hauls taconite from Marquette, Michigan, to the Algoma Steel Mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She has a capacity of 22,300 tons, a speed of 12 knots (14 mph), and a length of 689 feet 6 inches (210.2 m).
Construction
Michipicoten was built in 1952 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. in Sparrows Point, Maryland. She was one of three vessels built to similar plans for the Interlake Steamship Company. It was launched as Elton Hoyt 2nd. The other two vessels, Johnstown and Sparrows Point, were also built by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
All three ships were brought to the Great Lakes via the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, restricting their size.
The public source identifies “Michipicoten (1952 ship)” as self discharging lake freighter. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michipicoten, ship and self.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65066875. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michipicoten (1952 ship)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.