article_snippet: From there it's a 201-mile journey on land to reach Toronto.
article_snippet: But it's a headache for the Coast Guard, whose cutters open channels for vessels hauling vital cargo such as heating oil and road salt.
article_snippet: The Detroit-based tug Bristol Bay has struggled for days to free the Arthur M. Anderson, a freighter stranded about 70 miles east of Cleveland in ice up to 10 feet thick.
article_snippet: the Coast Guard has dispatched an icebreaker to assist.
article_snippet: The job has taken so much longer than expected that Bristol Bay crew ran low on food and had to receive a delivery by helicopter, which lowered supplies in the Bristol Bay's crew rescue basket.
article_snippet: Things will get even busier in mid-March, when the shipping season begins for the lakes' regular traffic of vessels carrying iron ore, coal, grain and other bulk cargo. '
article_snippet: We're probably going to be looking at situations like We had last year, where We had to put together convoys
article_snippet: — lots of vessels together to make it through,' the Coast Guard spokesman Lorne Thomas said.