ROCKLAND — After nearly four months of clearing the frozen Great Lakes, the Coast Guard Cutter Thunder Bay is due back at its home port in Maine.

The 140-foot ice-breaking tug and its crew are expected to return to Rockland today

The Thunder Bay was temporarily assigned to the Great Lakes to join eight other icebreakers during Operation Taconite, a major Great Lakes ice-breaking operation to open channels for commercial freighters.

The Thunder Bay arrived in Cleveland in mid-December. It spent the ice-breaking season operating in the northern Great Lakes due to diminished ice conditions in other regions.