Opinion editor's note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here . ••• When a cargo ship disastrously struck a bridge in Baltimore harbor in March, my mind was swept back 50 years to the Duluth harbor and an incident in the shadow of the famed Aerial Lift Bridge.
I was a 19-year-old crewman on the Alva C. Dinkey, a handsome old Great Lakes ore carrier in the U.S.
Steel fleet. Like many working ships with a long history, the Dinkey had acquaintance with mayhem. A couple of years after its launch in 1909, a wheelsman was shot to death on board by a fellow crew member.
Two years after that, in the deadly "Big Blow" of 1913, only extraordinary seamanship — and luck — kept the vessel from catastrophe while sailing blind for 30 hours straight in blizzard conditions on Lake Superior. Two decades later the Dinkey collided with another laker in Michigan waters; it was patched up and continued sailing. Now, on a beautiful morning in July 1974, danger or even mishap seemed impossibly remote.
I was on deck with Gordy Montgomery who, at age 18, was a year younger than me. We were working to remove the ship's hatch covers in preparation for loading taconite at the West Duluth ore dock. Receiving the Aerial Bridge's welcoming horn signal, we entered the Duluth Ship Canal and had just sailed beneath the span.
The ship was about to begin its left haul to sail through the harbor and up the St. Louis.