St. Lawrence Seaway opens 2026 shipping season with Top Hat Ceremony

The St. Lawrence Seaway is set to celebrate the start of a new shipping season Tuesday morning after the Welland Canal officially opened Sunday.

In a tradition that dates back to the 18th century, the Welland Canal officially opened Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. with the first vessel passing through.

There will be movement along the canal all morning long, leading up to the ceremony at the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre at 10 a.m.

The City of Port Colborne held a long standing ceremony in which a top hat is presented to the captain of the first downbound vessel of the season.

This year, Mayor of Port Colborne William Steele greeted the captain of the Radcliffe R. Latimer.

The St. Catharines ceremony will honour the captain of the first upbound vessel.

The seaway is a vital part of the North American supply chain and supports over $66 billion in economic activity in Canada along with over 350,000 jobs.

Despite a challenging year of economic uncertainty with the U.S. trade war, the president of the seaway system Jim Athanasiou says trade did well with nearly 37 million tonnes of goods shipped via the seaway.

“That’s an economic engine that joins the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes,” said Athanasiou. “The trade that goes on with bulk commodities project cargo is incredible — think about one ship, basically the equivalent of a thousand trucks on the road.”

“This is a huge impact both economically, all the communities that we go through, that the ships go through and all the economic growth along the communities,” said Athanasiou.

The Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA) is gearing up for another season following a challenging year under shifting trade conditions as 592 vessels moved through the port.

Hamilton saw a sharp decline in steel cargo due to tariffs, but an increase in agri-food cargo volumes including fertilizer, grain and sugar.

“We saw steel shipments dramatically reduce the import for finished steel, but also some of the raw materials too to make steel,” said HOPA President and CEO Ian Hamilton. “Luckily, we were able to mitigate that somewhat, with the increase in agricultural shipments and some of the other key commodities that we carry.”

The Top Hat ceremony is open to the public and starts at 10 a.m.

READ MORE: Welland Canal opens for 2026 season with top hat tradition