IOCC History - Shipment

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The rallying cry of "Ore in '54" was realized on June 29th when the first rail car was ramp loaded with Ruth Lake direct shipping ore and left Schefferville for Sept-Iles the same day. In July, the first shipment left the dock in Sept-Iles on The Hawaiian. In 1982, Brian Mulroney, IOCC's president and future Prime Minister of Canada, announced that Knob Lake Iron Ore Facility would be permanently closed. The closure date was November 2, 1982. Unlike the town of Gagnon, Quebec, which was demolished when the mines closed, the town of Schefferville still exists and the housing located there was turned over to the Native American population.

Until the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed, large ore boats could not traverse further upstream then Contrecoeur, Quebec. To circumvent the problem, an ore transfer terminal was started in 1954. The following year the terminal was completed and The Verchamian carried the first shipment of ore to be transshipped into smaller canallers for transport to the lower Great Lake ports. The Tritonica became the first vessel with a shipment of iron ore to sail the St. Lawrence Seaway which was completed in 1959.