A strike by about 350 members of UNIFOR, Canada’s largest private sector union, could cripple thousands of businesses and cause the loss of billions in economic activity if it continues, according to shipping officials.

“Every day is a critical time,” said Jayson Hron, communications director for Port of Duluth-Superior, the U.S.’ furthest inland seaport.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Eat Your Heartland Out is a Taste Awards nominated  program about the intersection of food and culture in the American Midwest. The show is produced by the Heritage Radio Network, a leader in culinary audio storytelling and distributed on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), which provides content to public radio affiliates across the United States.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Freighters are mysterious creatures, grazing the horizon at what seems a glacier’s pace, laden with commodities like coal or iron ore.  We accept them as part of the Great Lakes’ landscape, but we don’t often think about what it takes to run them. 

It turns out, it takes a sizable team.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Love staring at a map and discovering something interesting? Then “Mapping the Great Lakes” is for you. It’s a monthly Great Lakes Now feature created by Alex B. Hill, a self-described “data nerd and anthropologist” who combines cartography, data, and analytics with storytelling and human experience.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

TORONTO (AP) — Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.

Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

By Kathleen Foody, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — Michigan researchers have found the wreckage of two ships that disappeared into Lake Superior in 1914 and hope the discovery will lead them to a third that sank at the same time, killing nearly 30 people aboard the trio of lumber-shipping vessels.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

DETROIT (AP) — Sailors who lost their lives in shipwrecks on the Great Lakes and Michigan waterways will be remembered at a historic church in downtown Detroit.

The annual Great Lakes Memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday and will be livestreamed from Mariners’ Church along the Detroit River.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Broadcasting in our monthly PBS television program, The Catch is a Great Lakes Now series that brings you more news about the lakes you love. Go beyond the headlines with reporters from around the region who cover the lakes and drinking water issues. Find all the work HERE.

This month, The Catch features a new bulk freighter that is making waves in Great Lakes shipping.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

Great Lakes Now tries to make every episode interesting and educational.

In “Finders, Keepers,” join researchers as they uncover details about the bottom of the Great Lakes, head to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum to learn how scientists are using a natural history collection to understand changes to global biodiversity, and tune into The Catch for more news about the lakes you love.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.

For the first time in decades, a new bulk freighter has been built on and launched on the Great Lakes.

The Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding Company in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin unveiled the Mark W. Barker earlier this year after spending nearly three years constructing it. The vessel was commissioned by Cleveland-based Interlake Steamship Company which currently operates about a dozen ships.

Read Now at Great Lakes Now.