Vigorous and vivacious as only a great world seaport can be, the big-city lights of Montreal welcome 6,000 ships a year to its bustling, well-equipped harbour. From Europe, the Americas, the Orient, Africa and the farthest reaches of the earth come proud passenger liners of ponderous displacement, sturdy coastal craft of independent mien, massive deep-sea freighters laded with fortunes in goods. A thousand miles from heaving ocean swells to the east and as far from the head of the Great Lakes in the west, Canada's largest port moves 23,000,000 tons of cargo through its portals each year. Grain, petroleum, sugar, iron and steel, chemicals, motor vehicles, timber, machinery, minerals, foodstuffs and thousands of other goods big and small that a massive nation imports and exports pass through this world-renowned harbour. Strategic as an interchange centre for ocean, lake, river, road and rail transport, Montreal is a vital pressure point of Canadian trade.