One Town, Two Countries

Tour du locke

With a 5-second blast signaling our tour start, Captain Clayton Hill steers Le Voyageur from the dock, muskrat no longer in sight. The sky is blue and cloudless, and the St. Marys River stretches out long and natural in one direction, toward an imposing set of manmade locks and bridges in the other. He hangs back, waiting for the 1,000-foot freighter, Paul R. Tregurtha, to pass. He playfully shouts “What’s for dinner?” and then skillfully negotiates his way around a particularly busy river channel, passing close enough so that you almost expect Tregurtha’s crew to pass over a dinner plate.

Shorelines are impressive, too, with the massive sandstone buildings constructed out of material dug up during lock construction dominating the American side, and a more recreationally-focused viewscape of sweeping pavilion tents and green space dotting the Sault Canadian side, as the ship’s narrator shares the short version of the region’s history.

Native Americans, the first to gather here, named it Bawating, or “place of the rapids.” The plentiful fish would draw tribes from around the Great Lakes during spawning, and they’d renew friendships and feast. Early fur traders renamed it Sault de Gaston (rapids of Gaston) after the brother of the French king, a fitting name, we decide, since furs made traders a kingly ransom. By the year 1800, the value of beaver skins carried through the Sault by the Northwest Fur Company was estimated at $1 million. Father Jacques Marquette tweaked the name a bit when, in 1668, he founded and christened Michigan’s first official settlement (and one of Ontario’s first), Sault Ste. Marie after the Virgin Mary, and the name stuck.

It was tricky to portage canoes around the rapids, and a short-lived Canadian canoe lock helped for a while. But it was an almost Herculean task to portage early steamers and paddlewheelers, vessels that had to be lifted atop greased timbers and pulled ever so slowly by oxen and mules. And the eventual solution — a lock system with more daily capacity than any other in the world — wasn’t easy to come by.

Political opponents claimed that a lock in the wild Upper Peninsula made as much sense as a lock on the moon, historians say. And while the charisma of a young salesman named Charles Harvey prevailed, it wasn’t without cost, as a cholera epidemic claimed the lives of many Irish laborers during construction.

The result, though, is the center of international commerce that we enter slowly to the clicking of cameras from every side of our tour boat. A deck hand tosses up a rope — way up — to a deck hand at the top of the wall. As if like magic, the Lake Superior water pouring in (it takes 10 million gallons of water to raise a boat in our MacArthur Lock, 22 million to raise the larger Poe Lock) noticeably lifts us out of what initially feels like a pit. Within 15 minutes, the gate is opening and we’re heading on our way.

We pass an impressive steel plant operation, again seemingly close enough to touch the machinery, before heading on to another lockage — this one on the Canadian side. These locks, used mostly by recreational traffic, feel more park than military complex, with the security gates of the larger Soo Locks replaced by bike trails and flower gardens. The park is a popular way to access the salmon bounty of the remaining rapids, fly rod in hand, notes Ian McMillan, executive director of Tourism Sault Ste. Marie. Ernest Hemingway wrote about this spot once, he points out, famously saying in an August 1920 piece in the Toronto Star Weekly: “The best rainbow fishing in the world is the Rapids at the Canadian Soo.”

The popularity of the city’s fishing packages today, McMillan notes, indicates the claim is likely still true.

The Canadian Soo

A slip in either municipal marina is the ideal spot around which to center a trip. City attractions have even been designed around them, or built in. Sault Ontario’s 45-slip Roberta Bondar Marina, named for Canada’s first woman in space and Sault resident, is carved out of a stunning waterfront park by the same name and bordered by both a museum ship, the former passenger ferry Norgoma, and the massive pavilion, recognizable from the water by its flowing white circus-tent-like top. Boaters have a front-row seat to events like regular Wednesday night concerts that alternate between folk, rock, country and jazz.

Walk the city’s 5-kilometer waterfront boardwalk about 200 yards, and you’re at one of Ontario’s largest shopping malls, a little further to reach the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Center — a must-visit former airplane hangar devoted to the history of floatplane flying and aerial firefighting, technology that was invented here. Don’t miss the chance to climb into an old vintage plane or fight a fire via the virtual flight simulator.

More virtual history awaits at the Ermatinger-Clergue National Historic site’s exhibits related to the War of 1812 and fur trade, shared by interpreters in period costume.

Right at the pavilion, find fresh and local produce for dinner; the Algoma Farmer’s Market is held here, or enjoy some chowder with your view at the View Restaurant & Bar, in the Delta Sault Ste. Marie Waterfront Hotel and Conference Centre at the marina. Follow the boardwalk west, past carved sculptures, to reach the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site at the Canadian locks, where a bikeable nature trail winds around South St. Marys Island. The area’s first lock was actually built here, completed in 1798 as a canoe lock, destroyed during the War of 1812, then eventually rebuilt.

On this side of the river, the culinary scene has a distinctive international bent. The region’s strong Italian heritage is likely to mean handmade pasta and slow-cooked sauces at Italian favorites like Cesira’s Italian Cuisine. Or vary the menu with traditional Indian, Japanese or Korean. Just leave a day open for a trip on the Agawa Canyon Train, a one-day, 114-mile journey into a canyon that leaves from a depot within walking distance, past three sets of waterfalls. It’s particularly striking in autumn.

The American twin

Like its Ontario counterpart, the George Kemp marina is bordered by a museum-in-a-ship — in this case, the world’s largest museum ship, the Valley Camp. Here, find an aquarium of Great Lakes fish, displays on ships and shipwrecks, and an eerie highlight in Cargo Hold 2: The battered lifeboat from the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Those three houses directly behind the marina are museums, too — homes staffed by docents in peak summer and highlighting the history of the original home owners, John Johnson, Henry Schoolcraft and the beloved Bishop Baraga, a sainthood candidate known as the “snowshoe priest” for the way he traveled among his flock.

The town’s most visible landmark, the 210-foot-tall Tower of History, built to honor early missionaries, doubles as a museum and view tower. From its top, see if the region doesn’t resemble a complicated model train set as you gaze out over those four parallel locks, the hydroelectric plant and both a railroad and international bridge in the distance.

The two-story platform at the Soo Locks Visitor Center, run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is not quite as tall, but you can’t get much closer than this to passing freighters. A watch board inside, regularly updated, also is a popular way to plan a day around spotting of some of the 7,500 cargo carriers and recreational vessels that lock through each year, bearing flags of countries from around the world.

Or watch from across Portage Avenue, perhaps while enjoying fresh whitefish and chips at the nautical-themed Lockview Restaurant. More serendipity may come as you’re using a wooden salt shaker replica of the Mesabi Miner and the real ship comes through the lock in front of you, hauling a load of iron ore from Duluth.

The town’s quirky personality is maybe best exemplified at Antler’s Restaurant, a so-called “taxidermy orphanage” in which 302 mounts of the likes of a wolverine, lion and polar bear decorate ceilings and walls. Burger buns are fresh baked and planked whitefish fresh caught, but you have to sample the American/Canadian fusion dish that aptly connects the city twins: A venison poutine made with handcut fries, Wisconsin cheese curds, homemade beef gravy and more.

Just get back to the center of town before sunset. Hit shops like Riverstone Gallery, where Yooper ingenuity has led to wall sculptures and clocks made from discarded motherboards and jewelry crafted from filmstrips and camera lenses, and toast to your trip with a Super Yooper IPA at the Soo Brewing Company. Then be sure to glance west as the sky turns its many evening shades of deep pink and purple, and a freighter in the lock approach is so close that it appears to be portaging straight down Portage Avenue.

As locals like to say, boat lovers are nothing but lucky here. Their ship is always about to come in.