Kaliutik from Newfoundland to Port Hawksbury

1. Kaliutik clears the Canso lock.

The Labrador based tug Kaliutik arrived in Port Hawksbury while I was there on Saturday. I was not expecting to see it, but it arrived to pick up the barge Kaligak and load a digger and wheel loader in Mulgrave for return to Newfoundland. The barge had been on charter to CAI.

Kaliutik is a  unique tug built in 1998 at Nanticoke, ON by Dovercraft Marine and fitted out in Port Dover, ON. Its owners are the Labrador Inuit Development Corp  based in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. It is rated at 550 bhp, with twin screws and a bow thruster.

2. The tug looks like a miniature offshore supply vessel. 

3. With the barge Kaligak on the hip, the tug heads across the Strait of Canso to Mulgrave to load.

It was built to haul barges of specialty stone from quarries near Nain, Labrador. In recent years it has done charter work for the aforementioned CAI, possibly for one of its subsidiaries, CAI Logistics, also an Inuit owned company that works in summer supply for the Labrador coast.