Most people will never stand on a frozen lake with a ship stuck in it. Icebreakers: The Frozen Inland Seas spends about three and a half minutes making that job visible. The narration says the Great Lakes still have to move iron ore, coal, fuel oil, grain, salt, and other cargo in winter, and that the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mackinac, called the Mack, is out breaking ice the video describes as thick as 10 feet. The 9th Coast Guard District, in Cleveland, is named as the office responsible for keeping the lanes open as long as they can.
The video is a short for a longer adventure, not a training tape. A crew member talks about escorting ships when the ice shifts. Someone on the boat calls the ice in one spot 18 to 20 inches and says the ship is wedged. A later voice gives ice-cover figures the video says are closing in on 90 percent, against a long-term average it puts at about 51 percent, with 1994 and 1979 named as heavy years. Those numbers are what the video says. The close invites the viewer onto the boat: a bone-jarring ride through a frozen place.
Another company hiring Beacon for this kind of video is buying a few minutes that make a specialized job legible. A district, a shipyard, an industrial operator, or a sponsor of a documentary can describe the work for pages and still not be understood. This video puts you next to the people doing it.
They did not need a lecture on Great Lakes shipping. They needed a short video that puts the viewer on the cutter. That is what this video is for.
Read transcript Video dialogue and narration
[00:00.000] The frozen inland seas are a treacherous and unforgiving place during the cold winter months on North America's Great Lakes. Yet the ships carrying iron ore, coal, fuel oil, grain, salt and other cargoes must reach their destination. The American and world economy depend on it. During the harsh winters, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mackinac patrols the frozen inland seas of the Great Lakes, breaking ice as thick as 10 feet. It's her job to keep the
[00:34.360] shipping lanes open. She liberates ships and freighters hauling valuable cargo trapped in the Great Lakes' icy grip. Keeping these waterways open for as long as possible is the responsibility of the 9th Coast Guard District located in Cleveland, Ohio and the crew of the mighty Mack. We do our best to keep those routes open and when we can't because of shifting ice, then what we'll do is we'll escort vessels as they make their transit
[01:04.600] through ice choked areas. I've got my thruster going now. As soon as you get up here maybe I can try to push that bottle over as I go ahead. All I gotta do is get an aim in that direction we should be all right. That's the plan. Yeah, it looks like it's working. They work out pretty well.
[01:28.320] The ice is probably 18-20 inches thick here and so I'm not gonna break it with the ship's side.
[01:37.600] So we're wedged in here. Oh yeah, we're wedged here good. It's always good to do things properly and we are properly stocked. Okay, go ahead again there Dan. Okay, she's just about
[02:06.560] put her soul above the water line. It's a good foot crack and she's fisting out. Water's coming out in one, two, three, four, one, five different spots.
[02:20.800] Good evening everybody. You know the long-term average of ice coverage on the Great Lakes is about 51 percent. I can tell you we're closing in on about 90 percent right now. The last time we had ice this much on the Great Lakes you'd have to go back to 1994 and don't forget one of the iciest years in recent history back in 1979 when we had almost 95 percent of the Great Lakes covered in ice.
[03:12.400] Join us for an adventure like no other through a frozen wasteland on a bone-jarring ride. Icebreaker. The frozen inland seas.
