Commander Little of the Mackinaw Began His Great Lakes Career at St. Ignace
Change of Command Ceremony Friday Will Give Ship's Leadership to Scott Smith
By Karen Gould

Staging buoys in St. Ignace Monday, May 5, the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw uses the local Coast Guard dock as a base. Commander John Little of the ship took advantage of the brief St. Ignace stopover to visit with friends at Station St. Ignace. Commander Little ends his two-year rotation on the buoy tending icebreaker Friday, May 16. His next assignment is in Washington, D.C.

During this winter, under the command of Commander John Little, the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw assisted 200 ships in ice and last summer, the ship and crew saved two lives during a rescue mission in the Straits. This Friday, May 16, Captain Little will say "goodbye" the boat he has called home for the last two years.

"I'm going to miss this like you wouldn't believe," he said, standing on the Coast Guard dock in St. Ignace Monday, May 5.

St. Ignace is a buoy staging site for the Mackinaw. The ship made a quick stop at the dock to drop off some buoys and pick up others.

Two years have passed since Captain Little took command of the cutter in April 2006, just two months before the 240-foot icebreaking buoy tender was commissioned into service. For those in the Coast Guard, Commander Little said, two years is a normal rotation period.

In a Change of Command Ceremony Friday, Commander Scott Smith will take over the top duties of the Mackinaw. (Photograph courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard)

His next assignment takes him to Washington, D.C., where he will be the regional director of international affairs. From his years aboard ships, he hopes to bring a level of experience and provide guidance to others who crew Coast Guard vessels.

In a Change of Command Ceremony this Friday, Commander Scott Smith will take over the top duties of the multimission Mackinaw, which tends buoys in the spring and fall and breaks ice in the winter. The largest U.S. cutter on the Great Lakes, the Mackinaw's capabilities allow her to free vessels frozen in Great Lakes' ice. Year around, the ship performs national security duties and with a crew of 60, also carries out search and rescue operations.

The Mackinaw, Commander Little said, helps keep commerce moving, by setting navigational buoys to cutting a path through ice for freighters.

Commander Little grew up in Southern Tennessee and before he joined the Coast Guard, he helped move commerce on the Western rivers in the commercial towing industry.

About a half million jobs, he said, depend on commerce moving in the Great Lakes.

"All those jobs are impacted by what we do," he said, "and that's what I love about this so much. I'm a ship guy."

Their work, he said, helps keep people employed.

"I just feel real proud about that."

He began his Great Lakes career 14 years ago in St. Ignace, where he spent two weeks training on the Biscayne Bay. Upon arriving in St. Ignace from Texas, he now recalls with laughter, he thought he was on the North Pole. With his training finished, he became commanding officer on the Katmai Bay in Sault Ste. Marie, and later commanded the Mobile Bay in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.

During the winter of 1995 and 1996, one of the worst he recalls, while he commanded the Katmai Bay, Commander Little worked alongside the Mackinaw cutting ice in the St. Marys River. The ice was three to four feet thick in the river. In Whitefish Bay and in the Straits, they encountered 12-foot windrows. In December, eight ships were beset in ice and the winter hung on for months. Ice remained in the Marquette Harbor into June that year, he recalls.

While cutting ice on the St. Marys, he met his mentor, the original Mackinaw's Captain Carl Swedberg.

"The first time I worked with that ship, I was a 140 captain [refers to the ship's length] and we had worked for hours and hours getting a track cleared with just tremendous difficulty. It was horrible weather, it was snowing sideways up in the St. Marys," Commander Little told The St. Ignace News in 2006 of the Mackinaw. "The Mackinaw showed up and the sky broke and the ice just went away and the captain said, 'Is there anything else you'd like us to do, Lieutenant Little?' and I said right then, 'That's what I want to do.'"

"You just can't believe what a phenomenal icebreaker that was," he said of the original Mackinaw.

Captain Swedberg took Commander Little, then considered a junior cutter man, under his wing. The two men communicated by phone and over their ships' radios.

"He mentored me," said Commander Little, "and showed me what being a senior cutter man met."

Since those early career days, Commander Little has logged more than 5,000 icebreaking hours.

As commander of the Mackinaw, Commander Little has tried over the last two years to follow those lessons he learned from Captain Swedberg and to teach the Mackinaw's young men and women the importance of Great Lakes lore. That tradition, he said, is unique to the Great Lakes and different from any other environment in which the Coast Guard works. He has taught his crew the importance of being able to identify a ship on the horizon and to know its history.

He considers the traditions "priceless" and keeps it in the forefront of his crew, in addition to carrying out the Mackinaw's mission.

The Mackinaw's next leader, Commander Smith, is a U.S. coast Guard Academy graduate with a Bachelors of Science degree in electrical engineering.

He has served four cutters, three of them on the Great Lakes, including being the operations officer on the Bramble of Port Huron, the executive officer of the Sundew of Duluth, Minnesota, and as Commander of the Bristol Bay of Detroit. He also has commanded the Anacapa of Petersburg, Alaska.

Last June, the Mackinaw and her crew had their first search and rescue case, saving two children's lives.

Unfamiliar with the power of the wind and current in the Straits, two kids got pulled out into Lake Huron in their canoe, which then flipped over. Fortunately, the children were wearing life jackets.

The family, a University of Louisville professor, his wife, and their 11 special needs children, were vacationing in the Straits.

The crew from the Mackinaw worked with Station St. Ignace to rescue the children. Commander Little visited with the family in the hospital and when the children recovered, he invited them aboard the ship. During the visit, he said, the crew learned firsthand the importance of their work.

"That was a great day," said Commander Little, "in the life of this new ship."

Over his 14 years on the Great Lakes, Commander Little has gotten to know many officers and crew members from freighters to ships simply by the sound of their voices over the radio. Now those friends are radioing their goodbyes.

"It's been a wonderful ride," he said.