A steel, 670-foot-long, 80-foot-wide handymax bulk carrier painted fire-engine-red proves once again that Canada is a good neighbor.

The arrival of the Federal Satsuki on Wednesday morning at the Port of Cleveland brought tidings of comfort and joy to the whole Great Lakes region -- and to Ohio manufacturers and exporters, in particular.

"There is no more important international transportation connection for our state," said Will Friedman, CEO of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority. "It's the most direct, cost-effective, fuel-efficient link to Europe."

Better yet, the $25 million "salty" is the first of nine similar vessels commissioned by the Montreal-based Fednav Group, the busiest international shipper on the St. Lawrence Seaway, in anticipation of a manufacturing boom in Ohio and the Midwest.

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Craig Middlebrook, the acting administrator of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corp., which runs the American side of that liquid highway, has never seen such investment. "This kind of fleet renewal has not occurred in at least a generation," he said.

The new freighters are being built in a way intended to mitigate the risk that they will introduce invasive species into the Great Lakes -- a sign that their owners foresee many years of productive service shipping Midwestern steel and other goods across the pond.