Great Lakes Waterway River between Huron and Erie. Usually, one or more U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers help keep the water passage open for part of the fall and early winter, although shipping usually ceases for two to three months thereafter. The Great Lakes Waterway is co-administered by the governments of Canada and the United States of America. The waterway allows passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the inland port of Duluth on Lake Superior, a distance of and to Chicago, on Lake Michigan, at . Together with the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the Waterway allows both ocean-going vessels and the ore, grain and coal-bearing
Lake Superior during the 17th century referred to their discovery as "le lac supérieur". Properly translated, the expression means "Upper Lake," that is, the lake above Lake Huron. The lake was also called "Lac Tracy" (named for Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy) by 17th century Jesuit missionaries. The British, upon taking control of the region from the French in the 1760s following the French and Indian War, anglicized the lake's name to "Superior", "on account of its being superior in magnitude to any of the lakes on that vast continent." Lake Superior empties into Lake Huron via the St. Marys River and