The Seaway Channel

Gary Nicholson’s loving wife, Ruth, has begun a scholarship fund to honor her late husband’s memory designed to help deserving students gain an education Gary’s chosen fields of expertise: transportation and logistics. The G.W. Nicholson Scholarship Fund at the University of Wisconsin-Superior will provide financial aid to worthy students seeking to further their studies in transportation and logistics. The University of Wisconsin-Superior’s Department of Transportation and Logistics Management offers one of only a handful of degreed programs in transportation and logistics management in the nation and its close proximity to the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, the home of Lake Superior Warehousing, Inc. where Gary served as President until his passing, makes it a natural place to host a scholarship fund to honor Gary Nicholson’s leadership role in that industry.

Corporations and individuals wishing to contribute to the G.W. Nicholson Scholarship Fund can do so by sending their tax-deductible contribution to: G.W. Nicholson Scholarship Fund, University of Wisconsin-Superior Department of Transportation and Logistics c/o UW-Superior Advancement Office; Belknap and Caitlin, P.O. Box 2000, Superior, WI 54880.

Yesterday, July 1^st marked the first anniversary for The Seaway Channel. When this publication was first conceived we thought it would be an interesting experiment in publishing but we never dreamed that The Seaway Channel would grow into what it has now become—the most widely read daily publication about the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway maritime industry in the world.

We originally thought that The Seaway Channel would be read by a few hundred hearty Great Lakes maritime industry loyalists in the eight U. S. states and two Canadian provinces that border the Lakes might take the occasional peek at our site and if we kept publishing for a few years our readership might reach a thousand or so. Boy, did you ever prove us wrong!

We can now report that at the end of our first year of operations our little experiment boast tens of thousands of hits from 61 countries on six continents. Our readers span across Canada and the United States to be sure and also reach down to Chile and Argentina at the southern end of the Western Hemisphere. While our overseas readers are concentrated in Europe as one might expect, they also stretch from Turkey to Japan and Vietnam in Asia and from the Suez region of North Africa to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Let’s not leave out our friends in Oceana as our Ozzie and Kiwi readers might object to the oversight.

June 2008, our twelfth month of operations, was by far our most successful in terms of numbers as The Seaway Channel shattered our previous monthly records for total hits, page views and unique visitors. Last month the total number of hits on the site bested the previous record by more than 14.3 percent. June’s total number of page views beat the previous record by more than 15.3 percent. Topping the record month off, June’s total number of unique visitors to The Seaway Channel shattered the previous high water mark by a whopping 56.2 percent. That’s the good news. The bad news is…we don’t know why. We suppose that’s all part of the scientific process of experimentation. For the time being, we will content ourselves with our good fortune as we scratch our heads trying to come up with theories as to why June provoked such a sharp increase in readership.

All we know for sure is that we are grateful to you, our readers and to our advertising partners for making The Seaway Channel a success. We remain committed to do our best to bring you news and thoughtful commentary about the issues, events and people that make the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway maritime industry work.

July 1^st marks the observance of Canada Day. It is, in essence, Canada’s birthday as a nation and commemorates the founding of the Canadian Confederation. Canada Day is rather unlike the birthday celebrated by the United States later this week on July 4^th, which will mark the signing of a Declaration of Independence from England. Rather, Canada Day is the anniversary of the enactment of the British North America Act, signed into effect by Queen Victoria in 1867 creating the Dominion of Canada and cementing a bond between the Canada and the United Kingdom which thrives to this day.

So today people all across Canada will celebrate the birth of their nation and on Friday the people of the United States will celebrate the birth of theirs. Flags will be raised and saluted and hopefully Canadian troops in harms way overseas serving in Afghanistan and American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq will be given special thought and prayer by grateful citizens at home.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the day to day irritations and inconveniences of life. The daily annoyances of traffic tie-ups, high fuel prices, silly, spoiled celebrities and windy politicians can all fade into the background noise if we take a few moments this week to think about how grateful we are to live in the free society that has been created by the vision of our nations’ founders and the courage and sacrifice of those who have fought to defend our freedoms.

It’s important to celebrate the contributions that these nations have made and are making to cause of human freedom. The people of both nations have much for which to be thankful and much of which to be proud.

The Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway maritime industry lost one of its most admired and beloved leaders over the weekend with the passing of Gary W. Nicholson. Gary Nicholson was the President of Lake Superior Warehousing Company, Inc. of Duluth, MN and served as a leader of many professional organizations, committees and clubs organized to support and advance maritime commerce in the Great Lakes region.

His sharp business acumen and vast experience in the cargo handling industry made him a much sought-after contributor to a number of efforts to improve and modernize Seaway commerce. His no-nonsense honesty gave this soft-spoken man a strong and clear voice that both his industry colleagues and Washington policy makers strained to hear.

But it was his kind spirit and gentle demeanor that made him even more sought-after as a friend and companion by so many. His legendary generosity with his time and of his spirit made him one of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway System’s most beloved business leaders. It is not an overstatement to say that he was one of those rare people whose company was universally enjoyed. He would often stay up half the night talking with a friend who needed his counsel and then could be found the next morning at 6:00 a.m. with his ubiquitous cup of coffee and cigarette extending an open invitation to join him for breakfast. He was an abundant source of positive energy and good cheer. His broad smile and his easy and infectious laugh are unforgettable to those who had the good fortune to know him.

It is a little known fact that just a year ago Gary Nicholson served as an important catalyst and advisor during the process that led to the founding of The Seaway Channel. He was deeply involved in a set of discussions during a St. Lawrence Securite trade mission to Antwerp, Belgium that led to the decision to begin The Seaway Channel as an experiment in publishing. It was, in large part, Gary’s wise counsel and encouragement that has helped guide The Seaway Channel through its first year of operation. This publication would be failing to live up to Gary’s high standards for truthfulness if we failed to mention his instrumental role in this publication’s creation and success.

Gary is survived by his wonderful wife Ruth, his daughters Deb, Shari and Janeen, his step-daughter Jordan, his granddaughters, Paige, Amanda and Samantha and his brothers, Michael and Dennis. He is also survived by countless friends and admirers across the United States, Canada and Europe who came to know this exceptional man. Many of his close friends know how much Gary Wayne Nicholson enjoyed American cowboy aphorisms. So it is fitting for us to say, “Happy Trails, old friend, you will be missed.”

The flood-swollen Upper Mississippi River continues to be closed to commercial navigation today as three large thunderstorm cells moved across separate sections of the Mississippi River Valley from as far north as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa to Southern Illinois and Missouri to as far south as Arkansas and Louisiana. A nearly three hundred mile long section of the Upper Mississippi has been closed for nearly two weeks and it now appears that those closures will last at least into a third week before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can hope to reopen the system to barge traffic.

Four of the previously closed locks have now been reopened but still eight locks remain closed snarling barge traffic until possibly as late as the Fourth of July weekend. For a typical week in June, grain tonnage through Lock 25 at Winfield, MO is roughly 488,000 tons. Lock 25 might lose as much as 1.5 million tons of through-put during the course of this month’s three-week long closure. Overall barge grain movements through the Mississippi River system were down 47 percent last week compared to the previous four weeks and 54 percent compared to last year at the same time.

The floods devastating effects are not just felt by the transportation sector. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent out a reminder this week that it deems floodwaters to be inherently unsanitary and therefore views grains, oilseed, animal feed and feed ingredients that have been in contact with flood waters to be unfit for human consumption or animal feed unless reconditioned. This includes corn and soybeans destined for ethanol or bio-diesel production because the distiller’s by-products tend to be used in animal feed.