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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA

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Back to Sault Ste. Marie

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
POINTS
OF INTEREST

Soo Locks Park & Visitor Center. This is the place to get really close-up views of giant freighters, plus see some interesting exhibits ... more

Soo Lock Train Tours. Great intro to Soo. Smart, funny 1-hour narrated tour of historic sites. From International Bridge, look down 135' on all 5 locks. ... more

Soo Locks Boat Tour. This 2-hour excursion provides a dramatic look at the big locks, the quaint Canadian locks, and the Twin Soo's waterfronts. ... more

River of History Museum. Compelling life-size dioramas bring to life scenes from Sault Ste. Marie's long history and prehistory. ... more

Riverfront walk along Water Street and Brady Park. See upbound boats waiting at the locks at beautiful Brady Park, site of the 19th c. fort. See interesting historic monuments from Sault Ste. Marie's aspiring years, including idiosyncratic Chase Osborn, the only U.P. governor. ... more

Bingham Avenue historic buildings. An avenue of grand 19th-century buildings, from a time when locals saw a grander future for the city than actually unfolded ... more

Tower of History. An oustanding geographical of the area from a 21-story tower. ... more

St. Mary's Pro-cathedral. This 1880s cathedral has a wonderful interior, with richly colored stained glass and striking wall accents ... more

Schoolcraft, Johnston and Baraga houses. Three of the earliest and most significant houses in Upper Peninsula history ... more

George Kemp Downtown Marina . A nice picnic area at a beautiful marina ... more

Museum Ship Valley Camp . A 1917 Great Lakes steamship is the vehicle for an interesting maritime museum ... more

St. Mary's River Lighthouse Cruise. A 4-hour journey past landmarks like the lighthouse at the entrance to the St. Marys River ... more

Edison Sault Power Plant & Alford Park. This 1902 quarter-mile-long landmark never attracted the industries it was built to serve, but still generates electricity ... more

Mission Point, Aune Osborn Park & Sugar Island Ferry. It's been called the #1 place anywhere to see Great Lakes freighters in motion ... more

Sugar Island. Once a favorite Chippewa sugaring spot, the island still has many maples and still is a popular stop for migrating birds ... more

New Fort Brady/Lake Superior State University. Begun in 1893 as an Army fort and barracks for 20,000 troops, this overlook now is the site of 3,300-student Lake Superior State University ... more

International Bridge. Connecting the 5,000-mile Trans-Canada Highway with 2,000-mile I-75 to Florida, this 1962 bridge does much more than connect the two Soos ... more

Region: Sault Ste. Marie

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN

Click to enlarge

Located on the south shore of the St. Marys River, across from its much larger Canadian sister-city of the same name, the Sault overlooks one of the most strategic links in Great Lakes shipping, the Soo Locks that make it possible for giant freighters to pass between Lake Huron and Lake Superior despite the rapids and 21-foot change in elevation here. ("Sault" means falls in French.) Sault

Dick Lund

Most of the huge vessels going through the Soo locks are confined by their size to the Great Lakes, but so-called "salties" like the Federal Weser can also be seen. Here it is headed to the ocean with a load of wheat loaded in Duluth. It sails under the flag of Cyprus. (Info thanks to N. Schultheiss found at http//Xwww.boatnerd.com/pictures/special/fedweser/)

Ste. Marie is Michigan's oldest continually occupied settlement and one of the oldest in the U.S., thanks to the ancient portage around the falls of the St. Marys River. The attractive Soo Locks Park and viewing stand are magnets for boat-watchers and tourists of all stripes. The 600' Valley Camp bulk carrier has now become the Museum Ship Valley Camp. Its many Great Lakes displays include two torn lifeboats from the Edmund Fitzgerald.

...continued below...

Photography Plus

Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan is to the left, next to the four American locks.

The one-hour tour and 2 1/2-hour international tour of the Soo Locks Tour Train, revived in 2004, give interesting overviews of Sault Ste. Marie's important history as reflected in visitor attractions, beginning with the homes of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and Bishop Frederick Baraga, dating from the city's role as the frontier administrative center of the Upper Peninsula.

For centuries the whitefish-filled rapids at the Sault were an important Indian fishing spot in the region. The area was first visited by a European in 1618, when Etienne Brulé, Champlain's scout, was on his search for the fabled Northwest Passage to the Orient. A French trading post developed here in the 1650s. Father Jacques Marquette established one of his Jesuit missions here in 1668. By the 1730s Sault Ste. Marie's importance in the fur trade had been eclipsed by Fort Michilimackinac at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.

Even though the city is located at such a strategic spot and over 100 million tons of cargo passes right by its downtown every year, Sault Ste. Marie has remained economically rather static over the decades. It reached a low point in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the state's economy was floundering and the Air Force closed its Kincheloe air base south of town. (Built during the Cold War to defend the strategic locks, it's pronounced "KIN-shul-OH.") A radar base closed as well.

But the economy has picked up since the late 1980s, due to the giant Kewadin casino outside Sault Ste. Marie, two smaller casinos in nearby Bay Mills, and the big new Kinross and Chippewa prisons at Kincheloe. Gambling is the linchpin for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians' multifaceted, long-range plan under longtime tribal chairman Bernard Bouschor to build a self-sufficient employment base, educational and social services, and health insurance for all tribal members.

Before gambling, many houses on the reservation had no indoor plumbing. Now the tribe has become a benefactor for the whole area. The tribe has developed its flagship Kewadin Casino in Sault Ste. Marie into a spectacular entertainment/lodging/cultural complex, complete with an art gallery and hotel. It sets a high standard for Midwestern casinos. Years ago the tribe, ever aware that the gaming industry is fast-changing and increasingly competitive, started to diversify with its gambling earnings. It now owns two construction companies, a charter air service, a manufacturer of driveshafts for the automotive aftermarket, several motels in and beyond Sault Ste. Marie, and a cleaning company.

The Kewadin Casino finished building the biggest convention center in the Upper Peninsula in 1997 with an eye to making the city a broad-based destination. It added a 16,000-square-foot bingo hall, three restaurants, a nightclub, a convention room seating 530, the 1,300-seat Dreammaker Theater, and an extra four stories on its Clarion Hotel, enlarging it to 300 rooms. The Bawating Gallery displays a large collection of contemporary Woodland native art, some of it for sale. Demonstrations of beadwork, basketmaking, and painting are usually on Saturdays. The casino is southeast of town on Shunk Road north of Three Mile Road. (See map.) For information, call (800) KEWADIN, (906) 635-4917, look in at www.kewadin.com , or contact Tickets Plus (800-585-3737) for headline entertainment that has included Kenny Rogers, Culture Club, Gordon Lightfoot, and Loretta Lynn.

Gambling earnings have provided the wherewithal to develop educational and social service programs that emphasize traditional Ojibwa spirituality, traditional culture, and youth sports as effective tools in fighting substance abuse. The tribe's well-written and substantive newspaper, The Sault Tribe News, and its web site, www.saulttribe.com , are worth seeking out. They give revealing glimpses of community life, including activities at the charter elementary school and the Big Bear Arena, which brought ice hockey facilities in the American Soo up to Canadian standards, with year-round ice and more.

Prisons, viewed in toto, are perhaps the largest industry of all in this region. The Kinross and Chippewa correctional facilities which house some 3,000 prisoners and pump $80 million a year into the local economy. The huge Kincheloe prison complex to the south handles another 4,000 prisoners and employs over 1,000.

In 2007 the Canadian dollar is worth about 85¢. Even though Canadian currency has appreciated against the American dollar, Canadians still boost the Michigan Soo's economy somewhat by crossing over the International Bridge to buy much cheaper gasoline and dairy products on the Michigan side. The bridge, over two miles long, once averaged 10,000 vehicle crossings a day because it is the only U.S.-Canadian bridge between Port Huron, 345 miles to the south, and the Ontario-Minnesota border, almost 600 miles to the northwest. But Americans going north to bargain-hunt in Loony-land now outnumber Canadians going south.

A conspicuous sight crossing the border into the U.S. are big logging trucks bringing cheaper timber from Canadian forests, where environmental restrictions are less stringent than in the U.S. Another common sight are trucks with big loads of steel from the giant Algoma plant, a looming sight across the river.

In the late 19th century, there were plans for Michigan's Sault Ste. Marie to become a major northern metropolis by using the St. Mary's River as a power source. Francis Clergue from Maine pursued this dream but went bankrupt in developing the impressive sandstone hydroelectric power plant, a quarter mile long, where the waterpower canal meets the river. Today it's known as the Edison Sault Power Plant. It's on East Portage two-thirds of a mile east of Ashmun.

The three-mile long power canal effectively created an island of downtown Sault Ste. Marie, which is connected to the rest of the city by five bridges. It's all too easy for visitors to miss seeing downtown's grand churches and public buildings from this exuberant turn-of-the-century era. Bingham Avenue historic buildings are on the street which parallels Ashmun two blocks to the east.

The new industries so eagerly anticipated by Clergue never came to the Michigan. Clergue went bust, and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, is today not another Minneapolis but a town of well under 20,000. Despite Clergue's ultimate financial failure, deals and alliances he had made earlier with Canadian investors did transform Sault Ste. Marie, Canada into the industrial center it is today. Clergue helped create the Algoma Central Railroad (the famous Agawa Canyon Tour Train and Snow Train), St. Mary's Paper, and Algoma Steel.

Back to Sault Ste. Marie

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
RESTAURANTS,
LODGINGS
& CAMPGROUNDS

These are our choices, not ads.

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
RESTAURANTS
A legendary drive-in, a good breakfast spot, a pizza stand-out, a coffehouse/deli, some local favorites, and a pleasant hotel dining room.

For full write-ups of our recommended restaurants, click here.

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
LODGINGS
Our picks of the best places to stay near the locks, an elegant hotel, out-of-the-way bargains, and other stand-outs.

For full write-ups of our recommended lodgings, click here.

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN
CAMPGROUNDS
See also: Bay Mills/Brimley, Raco, Paradise, Barbeau, DeTour.

AUNE-OSBORN CAMPGROUND
(906) 632-3268

Right on the St. Mary's River just east of the Edison Sault Power Plant, this modern city-owned campground has 100 sites, 74 with electric and water, 26 with just electric. It's mostly used by RVs, but tent campers are welcome. Rates are $20/night (electric only), or $22 (full hookup). Don't expect much in the way of shade. There's a playground, dump station, boat launch, and new restroom/shower/laundry. Sites open up daily. Checkout time is noon. Come then and you'll most likely get a site. The park is named after Cliff Aune (pronounced ON-ee), the area engineer for the Corps of Engineers, and for ex-Governor Chase Osborn. His adopted daughter and widow (!) Stella Osborn lobbied hard to have her husband's name included in a public facility.

1225 Riverside Dr. (the eastward extension of Portage). Open from May 15, probably earlier, to Oct. 15. Wheelchair-access: shower buildings ADA accessible. Family-friendly. Dogs permitted on leash.

SHERMAN PARK CAMPGROUND
(906) 635-5075, (906) 635-5341

This 25-site rustic campground is on the Upper St. Mary's River west of town and I-75. The campground is next to a park with a nice sandy swimming beach that stays shallow way out, a boat launch, horseshoe pits, bocce, volleyball, playground, and much more. The campsites themselves are shady, without water views or shrubby buffers between sites. The campground normally doesn't fill. $15/night. $300/season. No reservations.

West of I-75. Take Easterday west to Fourth Ave., turn north to campground. Open from May 15 to Oct. 15. Wheelchair-accessible: not really. Family-friendly. Dogs permitted on leash.