Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks (and a rant about Sue)

While we are camping at St. Ignace, we decided to take a road trip to the northeast corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. That's another point where Canada meets the United States, at the city of Sault Ste. Marie. Besides an international border crossing, most people visit this little city to see the big ships make their way through the Soo Locks.

Before we proceed with lots of pictures of ships, it's time for a rant. Traveling far and wide, we have to learn how to pronounce new town names all the time. We found out that this new-to-us city of Sault Ste. Marie is pronounced "Sue Saint Marie." We must point out that the famous Soo Locks found here are also pronounced "Sue." A couple months ago we were in South Dakota, where they decided to spell "Sue" as Sioux. Can you believe that words that are spelled so differently (Sault, Soo and Sioux) are all pronounced the same? Can't we all just agree on one spelling so it doesn't confuse the tourists?

A nice visitor center explains the significance of the Soo Locks. You should be prepared to learn that information too, as we include the pictures we took. From our vantage point at the viewing area, it's hard to understand what is actually happening here. So we include an aerial view that shows the four channels on the left where ships can enter a lock. On the far right, we see the rapids and rocks and steep incline of the St. Mary River that make this passage impossible without the locks.

Over 7,000 ships make passage through the locks each year during the ten months they are open. During the dead of winter, these waters will be ice, and ship transportation comes to a halt in the Great Lakes. We see one of those 7,000 ships arrive. Approaching from the left, it is coming off of Lake Superior. In order to continue on to Lake Huron, it must be lowered 21 feet.

So the nose of the ship is high above the viewing platform when it arrives.

But when the gates of the lock are closed and 22 million gallons of water are released, that ship will lower those 21 feet. The process uses only gravity to displace the water, and works the same way today as it did 163 years ago when the locks were built. Incidentally, these very durable locks were designed by a guy with a third-grade education.

We saw the opposite happen when a tour boat entered from Lake Huron . . .

and was raised in order to continue on to Lake Superior.

Because we are easily entertained, we stayed around the locks for a couple hours. That allowed us to see a tug boat and barge also make their passage through the locks.

But the main reason we stayed so long was to see the arrival of the Paul R. Tregurtha. At 1,014 feet in length, this is the longest ship on the Great Lakes. As it pulled into the lock, we could get a sense of her size with that three-story building fitting easily between her bow and stern. The Soo Locks were built in 1855, when a ship this size was unimaginable. So it takes some very careful steering to drive a 1,000-foot boat into a narrow opening with only a few inches left on each side.

Once in the lock, she was too big to fit into one camera frame. It took a panorama photo to get all 1,014 feet of her. A ship this size can carry the equivalent of 700 railcars or 2,800 semi-trucks. It's by far the most fuel efficient method of moving cargo! In fact, this 1,000-footer can carry over five times as much as the two other 700+ foot ships we saw today.

All that ship-watching can work up an appetite, so we ate at the crepe shop across the street. For some reason a marimba was on the sidewalk. We've been traveling so fast that Denisa hasn't played her piano in a long time, so she had fun tinkering with this instrument.

This is our last stop in the Upper Peninsula, as we're heading south into the Lower Peninsula tomorrow. In addition to finding out there are so many different ways to spell "Sue," we have also learned that the people of this state divide themselves into peninsulas. We are ready to wander into the Lower Peninsula to find more wonders.