Lots of people brew just fine without a tight fitting lid. Some, like me just put tinfoil over the top of their buckets. The scratch in the bucket seems a lot scarier to me
I take it back, I was looking at the picture on my phone and it looked like the liquid was all the way up the neck. Just got on my laptop and could clearly see its not. You should be good. My bad
Beyond a few things that I'm sure the more experienced people will address in regards to your process, I can't help but think your Carboy is wayyyyyy too full and will definitely overflow. This is judging by your first picture
Because water freezes before alcohol so by partially freezing you know that it's only the water that is frozen. Rack the remaining liquid and you've removed a portion of water this increasing the alcohol to water ratio. I think
I just tried torontobrewing.ca but we don't really have anything that compares to the big us online retailers unfortunately. Toronto brewing seems to have the best shipping rates from all the sites i've looked at