River Queens
Bulk freighters are not rare in the world.
But only a few of them have the privilege of steaming across the North American Great Lakes.
Of those, some are river-class vessels, designed to navigate tight and shallow rivers like the Saginaw.
Their hulls are tired, some seeing the better part of a century of port calls.
They have traded owners countless times.
Some have been decommissioned and reborn as a barge-and-tug pair.
Others have received new engines and equipment.
Generations of sailors and maintainers have kept them underway as they continue to deliver iron ore, stone and salt to various docks along the Saginaw River and elsewhere.