Yes, I had a lot of pride watching the 1000-foot freighter American Spirit moving through the Soo Locks just downstream from Lake Superior on its way back to Duluth, Minnesota, to pick up more taconite for markets at the bottom of Lake Huron for the steel industry. On average, the Soo Locks move 500 billion dollars of economic value through the locks along the St. Marys River, which borders the United States with Canada across from the rapids that drain from Lake Superior into Lake Huron. From the vantage point of the American side of the river in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, where Interstate I-75 simply ends at the border, there is an observation platform that allows viewers to watch the big ships come in and out of the locks in unique ways. There are similar lock systems worldwide on most of the major rivers, but this one at the bottom of Lake Superior was special. There is an economy on the Great Lakes in America that few understand the sheer magnitude of. Most countries would love to have the economy of such a freshwater system of travel, such vast inland seas, but they don’t. In America, the economy of the Great Lakes barely gets noticed because there are so many other things to pay attention to, and most people don’t ever get up to that part of the world. The little town of Sault Ste. Marie gets overlooked because it’s an hour north on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where the speed limit is 75 MPH. After all, there is the kind of remoteness that you only find out west. And most people never make the journey which they should. I felt privileged to be there and to watch such a large ship move through the locks. It was amazing to see such an engineering achievement and to study the history of Great Lake travel as economies were developed over the years, the sheer magnitude of human achievement. But then it was also sad because much of that economic vitality had been targeted by globalists in competing markets, and in the lower part of Michigan, Chicago, and down into Pennsylvania and Buffalo, those effects were obvious.
Five hundred billion dollars of commerce is a lot, but in all honesty, there should be many more ships like the American Spirit I saw moving through the Soo Locks that day participating in commerce. And there would be if the steel towns of Pittsburg and Detroit had not been eviscerated by globalism the way they had, with many of those jobs now moved to China as part of the Desecrators of Davos plan to redistribute wealth around the world to plans of their design. In most cases, they have captured our political class in America and convinced them that globalism was to American benefit. Only now, at the start of a new century, do we see the scam for what it has always been. It was theft, and there is a lot more that America could do regarding the economy of the Great Lakes. But we had been suckered into thinking that environmentalism was the new priority. That the ambitions which built the Soo Locks in the first place were no longer relevant in the world. That fresh water and calm commerce were values Americans must have to ship away all those nasty, dirty jobs to China.
Meanwhile, markets in Duluth and all along Michigan were dried up and re-established in communist China to the disadvantage of America, and it was all done while we clapped at the endeavor. When the Soo Locks were built, Detroit was the world’s car capital. Most people around the globe bought a car from Detroit if they wanted one. But not anymore. If people buy a car, it’s likely coming out of Asia or Europe. While America played nice and shared its wealth created by American capitalism, that wealth was confiscated by global thieves and given to the undeserving through legislative force.
America has the mines along Lake Superior to build a steel industry that the rest of the world would never be able to keep up with. And in the early days of travel along the St. Marys River, before there were locks, but simply rapids, the effort it took to ship goods from Lake Superior down into the rest of the country was enormous. Yet people did it for the chance to profit from the experience, and great industries were built in hopes of building that wealth and their lives along with it. The sheer ambition and the many shipwrecks that occurred just north of the Soo Locks navigating those challenging waters for the opportunity at a good life fueled by a thriving economy justified the massive amount of wreckage that lay at the bottom of the lakes and the many lives lost, in the hundreds of thousands. You didn’t see people crying over the deaths, they simply dusted themselves off, built more ships, and worked harder, and the result is the Soo Locks and massive vessels like the American Spirit shown in the included video. But the condition of travel today is a ghost of its former self. The economy along the Soo Locks should be in the trillions, and the steal produced from the Duluth taconite should be the best and most coveted in the world. It could be again if only we could recapture our political class into an America-first platform, which has been gaining steam lately now that we see that we’ve all been suckered by globalism. It’s a sad story that doesn’t need to be because the opportunity is literally staring us right in the face.
Part of my journey to that region was to measure something I had been thinking about, travel along the vastness of the Great Lakes in the summer of 2022 to measure just such a thing ahead of the upcoming elections. It’s one thing to read about these economically depraved conditions; its another to see it for yourself while traveling specifically through Toledo, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Flint, Michigan, all communities that directly benefited from Great Lakes shipping but have seen their cities decline accordingly due to the designs of globalism, which at this point can only be considered an invasion of the wealth and resources of the United States gained not by war, but by deceit. And if anybody were to take a journey like the one I described, they would see it for themselves. Lower Michigan has been deprived of opportunity, and the people have suffered noticeably. What has been going on becomes very clear as you travel up into the Upper Peninsula and watch the amount of traffic moving through the Soo Locks headed for southern markets. It’s impressive to see, but sad that there isn’t much more of it. The opportunity cost has been enormous. What is happening is something to be proud of, but when you realize how much lost opportunity has been shipped away to build up the wealth of other countries due to political tampering of global looters, a quiet rage begins to set in. It’s not something they show you on the nightly news, and most of America has no idea what has been happening because they haven’t seen it for themselves. But suppose you do make the trip, which I highly recommend doing. You will see a robbery, stolen wealth from America, and distributed to undeserving destinations worldwide. And it will certainly put things in perspective.
Rich Hoffman
The Overmanwarrior 