Badger Fires Up for 71st Season; Kaye E. Barker Heads into Yard

Chris Izworski, reporting from Bay City for the Great Lakes Gazette, turns attention to the Lake Michigan carferry *Badger*, which lit her boilers Tuesday and is set to depart Ludington for Manitowoc this Friday, May 15th, marking the official start of her 71st sailing season. The 410-foot coal-fired steamship—the last of her kind in America and the largest carferry operating on the Great Lakes—will carry 600 passengers and 180 vehicles on the crossing. Manitowoc is preparing a homecoming celebration at the Car Ferry dock on Lakeview Drive, complete with the Lincoln High School marching band and local festivities beginning at 11:30 a.m. On the repair front, the self-unloader *Kaye E. Barker* arrived at Fraser Shipyards in Superior on Monday for thruster work and her five-year survey—a job expected to wrap in ten days. Meanwhile, Lake Michigan is riding gusty northwest winds this morning as a 29.6-inch low pressure system moves east; mariners should expect a few gale-force gusts before conditions ease Thursday. Lake Michigan's water level sits 2.15 feet above Low Water Datum at Chicago, well-positioned for the season ahead. Across the lakes, superior sits 1.57 feet above datum, while Erie reaches 2.92 feet and Ontario 3.64 feet—all healthy margins as the navigation season unfolds. The timing of the *Badger's* restart comes as Great Lakes environmental initiatives gain momentum. Toledo's National Museum of the Great Lakes has opened a new exhibit, *Lake Erie Starts Here: Northwest Ohio*, highlighting how local actions—from stormwater management to native plantings—ripple downstream to the lake's health. As freight and ferry traffic resume this spring, the interconnection between vessel operations and lake stewardship remains central to the region's maritime identity.