A bygone era: Oil tankers on the Great Lakes

From 1951 to 1953, the Imperial Redwater and Imperial Leduc crossed the Great Lakes as the world’s largest inland tankers. These tankers carried oil transported by Interprovincial Pipe Line Co.’s inaugural line (now Enbridge’s Line 1) from the Lakehead at Superior, WI to refineries at Sarnia, ON. This tanker traffic was taken off the Great Lakes in 1953 with the completion of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, which travels from Superior to Sarnia via Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.