PRESCOTT – The Canadian Coast Guard wishes to inform people living in the areas between the Welland Canal and Prescott, using those sectors along the connecting waterways between the two locations, that spring icebreaking operations will begin along the normal shipping route commencing the week of March 19th, 2007.

CCGS Griffon is scheduled to transit through ice covered sections of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River Main Channel from the Welland Canal to Prescott, Lake St. Francis and the Beauharnois Canal of the St. Lawrence Seaway. CCGS Martha L. Black, from the Coast Guard’s Quebec Region, will also be conducting icebreaking operations in ice covered sections of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario.

Owners of facilities on the ice should move them safely onshore or sufficiently away from the commercial channels. The Canadian Coast Guard strongly advises that pedestrians, fishers and snowmobilers leave the ice when they see the icebreaker in the immediate vicinity. Although all precautions are being taken, fractured ice may become hazardous and unstable, and may create a danger for anyone in the area.

The Canadian Coast Guard’s icebreaking operations take place annually in the Great Lakes in order to facilitate maritime trade, to assist in the prevention of flooding due to ice jams, and to ensure the safety of vessel traffic along commercial shipping channels.

Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers have a red hull with a transverse white band and a white funnel bearing a maple leaf.