2019 RV/Boat: Day 2…Sault Ste Marie

Wednesday

We have a front row seat here to almost constant activity on the river. About the time we were looking to find the sheets last night, I noticed a freighter waiting to

Enter the locks.

The lights on the arched shape is the International Bridge to Canada. The freighter is right under those lights.

Then at daybreak, more ships were passing.

We cleaned up, ate breakfast and biked down to the Soo Locks Boat Tour dock to catch the 10:00 am tour boat.

We departed from tour dock #1 (because #2 gets last choice of seating...(it pays to do a little research). We passed the Soo canal power station. This building was completed in 1902 by Italian stone masons.

The pillars between the windows represent a lighthouse.

There are three power generating facilities here on the river. The one above, a similar facility in Soo, Canada, and a power house that supplies power to the Army Corp at the locks. The locks only use 7% of their output. The rest is sold to the local power company that operates the station on the Soo canal.

Continuing on, we passed the museum ship Valley Camp that sits next to the recreational boat harbor here.

We then entered the approach to the locks. We would be locking through in the MacArthur lock farthest to the left.

The larger Poe Lock is to the right. Two other locks farther to the right, are not operational. This is where a new lock is planned to be built if/when it receives funding.

We enter the MacArthur lock.

This lock can handle ships up to 730 feet long. The Poe lock is the only option for the 1000 foot ships that frequent the locks.

The upstream lock doors are at the Lake Huron level as we wait to raise 21’ to the level of Lake Superior.

The job is done and we are at the level of the upper St Marys River and Lake Superior.

The lock doors open, the safety gate rises and we are on our way.

Once out of the lock channel. We see another downbound freighter.

After touring the shoreline area of the Algoma Steel mill in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, we travel back downstream through the Canadian lock.

It was interesting to note the Canadian steel made at that mill, used taconite from Minnesota, Dolomite from Michigan and coal from West Virginia. It just gets assembled in Canada.

Anyway, this lock was rebuilt by the city of Soo, Ontario after it was damaged and became unusable.

A new lock was built within the old lock and therefore is much smaller.

This lock only handles a boat that is somewhere around 150 feet long. Therefore, it is primarily the lock used for recreational boats. The lines along the sides of the lock wall (where the yellow patches are) are to loop your mooring line around as you raise/lower in the lock. The commercial locks don’t have that feature.

I asked the tour boat skipper how they handled lines in the US locks for recreational boats. He said they handed down lines to use.

The lock doors open and we have completed the cycle and return to the tour boat dock.

There is no charge to use the locks. It is your tax dollars at work.

We biked back to the RV and had a bite to eat then rode toward downtown and the locks area after lunch.

We stopped and toured the museum ship.

That's the freighter "Tregurtha" passing behind the museum ship. The Tregurtha is the longest freighter on the Great Lakes. 1013 feet as I recall. More on that ship in a minute.

The museum ship "Valley Camp" an old freighter but is an interesting stop. The hold of the ship is filled with displays relating to Great Lakes shipping.