The oldest freighter currently sailing on the Great Lakes. This is the SS Alpena. #alpena #freighter #saultstemarie #boatnerd | MI Playground

• The 1942 SS Alpena - the ship that outlasted its entire fleet. Built before the first atomic bomb test (1945) or the invention of the transistor (1947), its steam system relies on purely mechanical engineering from the pre-digital era—no electronics, just boilers and turbines that have boiled billions of gallons of water over decades. This ship was sailing when “computers” meant human calculators, and it’s still operational in an age of AI and electric vehicles. Still running on steam power in

Classic Great Lakes steamship SS Alpena heading up the St. Clair River. St. Clair, Michigan, January 04, 2026. #greatlakesfreighter #greatlakesshipping #classiclakefreighter #shipwatching #shipspotting | Aircraft and Marine Machines

SS ALPENA | 1.8.26 She has an interesting history. Especially the part about being shortened by 130 feet. The SS Alpena (formerly the SS Leon Fraser) is a lake freighter. She was built in 1942 by the Great Lakes Engineering Works in Ecorse, Michigan, to carry iron ore. She was originally owned by the Pittsburgh Steamship Company, a subsidiary of United States Steel. After also hauling grain in addition to ore in the 1960s and 1970s, the ship was put into storage in 1982. In 1989, the ship was pu