Duluth Canal & Harbor - Minnesota, USA

From the roof of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center in Duluth, Minnesota, this camera looks out along the Duluth Ship Canal to the open water of Lake Superior, with lighthouses at the ends of the two piers.

Giant lake freighters and ocean-going ships glide through the canal on their way in and out of the port, passing beneath the Aerial Lift Bridge, which rises 135 feet (41 m) in about a minute and lifts around 5,000 times a year.

The canal was cut through Minnesota Point in 1870 and 1871, and the bridge began life in 1905 as the first transporter bridge in the US, carrying people and streetcars across in a gondola, before it was rebuilt as a lift bridge in 1929 and 1930.

Did You Know? Ships and the bridge often greet each other with a "Captain's Salute" of two long blasts and one short.

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