Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
There's a huge difference between being hours from the open ocean, on a wide open deep-channel river, vs. being days from it.
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of course there is. i was never attempting to argue otherwise. i was merely pointing out that the presence of a seaport does not automatically make a place "coastal" in the conventional sense.
i agree that great lakes ports are not "coastal" in the conventional sense. i also agree that portland, while not being directly on the coast of the ocean, is in the "close enough" range to be considered coastal in the conventional, if not literal, sense. i don't know where that line is exactly, though. i mean, is montreal coastal? it's a straight shot to the north atlantic down the st. lawrence. no locks or canals or anything like that, just a deep channel river for a hundred miles or so until you get to the gulf of st. lawrence. very gray. our universe often doesn't work in strict black and whites.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
The shipping industry treats Portland as coastal. One definition for that is "where do shipments trade modes for the ocean trip." Like from ship to train, or in reverse from barge to ship.
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well, if the shipping industry defines coastal as
"where do shipments trade modes for the ocean trip", then all of the sea ports on the great lakes would have to be considered coastal as well, because cargo is loaded onto ocean-going ships for the ocean trip at those ports.
however, "coastal" is more than just an obscure shipping industry definition in the minds of most people in america, and if one were to survey the nation, i would wager that the vast majority of americans would not consider any of the port cities on the great lakes to be "coastal". here are just a couple of reasons why:
1. geography. this one is the most obvious. the great lakes reach deep into the heart of the continent, so it just goes against all conventional wisdom to consider a place that's 1,000 miles from the nearest drop of salt water as "coastal".
2. freshwater. despite the great lakes being large enough to not be able to "see the other side", and thus can be expanded as large as one's imagination allows, there is something fundamentally different about the feeling and atmosphere of being on the shore of a great lake vs. the ocean. it must be the lack of salty air. whenever you get close to the ocean, you can always smell it. it's unmistakable. the great lakes are typically odorless (save for the occasional algal bloom or alewife die-off) and no matter how similar a great lake shoreline might resemble the coast of the ocean, i can always instantly tell the difference: no sea smell.
3. the nature of great lakes shipping. while the st. lawrence seaway and welland canal allow ocean-going cargo ships to visit great lakes ports, the locks and canals of the seaway limit the size of vessels to ~750' in length, considerably smaller than the standard size of today's mammoth ocean-going cargo ships. while smaller ocean-going ships do regularly visit great lakes ports, it's an extremely tiny proportion of the nation's international shipping, which mostly goes through traditional seaports on the ocean - places like LA, houston, new jersey, etc. the vast majority (>90%) of the commercial shipping on the great lakes is bulk goods (taconite, grain, coal, potash, stone, cement, liquid fuels, etc.) shipped from one great lakes port to another, often times on ships that are too big to fit through the seaway locks and thus are forever restricted to the waters of the great lakes. this sets up an interesting relationship where most of the lakers are actually bigger than the salties.
a great lake "laker" (a 1,000-footer restricted to the waters of the great lakes):
source:
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/spe...ardgallery/08/
a great lake "salty" (an ocean-going ship small enough to fit through the locks of the seaway):
source:
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/salty/Default.htm