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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 ...
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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. ...
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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. ...
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River of History Museum. Compelling life-size dioramas bring to life scenes from Sault Ste. Marie's long history and prehistory. ...
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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. ...
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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 ...
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Tower of History. An oustanding geographical of the area from a 21-story tower. ...
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St. Mary's Pro-cathedral. This 1880s cathedral has a wonderful interior, with richly colored stained glass and striking wall accents ...
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Schoolcraft, Johnston and Baraga houses. Three of the earliest and most significant houses in Upper Peninsula history ...
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George Kemp Downtown Marina
. A nice picnic area at a beautiful marina ...
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Museum Ship Valley Camp . A 1917 Great Lakes steamship is the vehicle for an interesting maritime museum ...
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St. Mary's River Lighthouse Cruise. A 4-hour journey past landmarks like the lighthouse at the entrance to the St. Marys River ...
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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 ...
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Mission Point, Aune Osborn Park & Sugar Island Ferry. It's been called the #1 place anywhere to see Great Lakes freighters in motion ...
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Sugar Island. Once a favorite Chippewa sugaring spot, the island still has many maples and still is a popular stop for migrating birds ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Soo Lock Train Tours
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Of all the U.P.'s many narrated tours and cruises, this is the best, in our opinion - tied for tops with the Quincy Mine Tour in Copper Country. It's well researched and personal, not a wind-up tour, not corny, both informative and amusing. You see things you'd never notice otherwise, you don't get worn out, you don't have to park and repark, and you get a much better take on a place - two places, in fact, if you also take the 2-hour Canadian tour. It's like having a personal tour from a curious, savvy local resident. Take the tour first thing on a visit to Sault Ste. Marie, and you'll know enough to take longer visits to sights that interest you the most. A family with three lively boys took the one-hour tour with us. The 11-year-old and 8-year-old loved the tour. Only the 4-year-old was bored.
The one-hour tour links Sault Ste. Marie's spread-out sights, which need some interpretation for the big ideas and offbeat factoids to sink in. For instance, Sault Ste. Marie considers itself "the original hockey town." Its Pullar Stadium at 435 East Portage, easy to miss, had the first Zamboni, and possibly the first refrigerated ice. Gordie Howe has said it had the best ice he's ever skated on. It starts with the waterfront, mixing history (Father Marquette's first mission, the French fort, Astor's furs, the War of 1812 and last place the British flag flew over Michigan, how the ferry to Canada docked where the Valley Camp is today, the stories behind the power plant, the Japanese tori gate, and the Romulus and Remus statue by the courthouse - the Roman legend parallels an Ojibwa origin myth about twin babies) with the lives of today's Lake State college students.
If mechanical engineering student Pat Durham is your guide, he will point out things like how Locks Park and its fountain and romantic lights make an ideal place for a cheap date, how Lake State has been such a great deal for him because tuition has been only $2,700 a semester for 17 credits and he really got to know his professors. (His largest class has been 50 students.) Tracking down interesting stories and facts is a winter pastime for full-time driver-guides Lloyd Hartstuff, a retired downstate building contractor, and for Bud Collins, well known locally as a school principal.
A quick and bumpy sashay through the placid campus of Lake Superior State University reveals its previous life as the U.S. Army's Fort Brady from 1893 to 1946. The officers' quarters and parade ground are still visible today. The water tower was built in 1894 not only to store water but as a high vantage point to look out across the locks and the Canadian side of the river. In World War II 15,000 soldiers were stationed here to guard the locks and safeguard shipment of vital iron ore. Artillery guns pointed across the river. Sault Ste. Marie was said to be the "most protected city in the continental U.S."
Going across the International Bridge the train with its little glassed-in cars can slow down as it climbs 135' above the locks, letting visitors take in the sights without having to drive. There's lots of interest to see, straight down at the anglers at the rapids, the locks, and the pulp mill, and looking out 10 miles up the river to Lake Superior in one direction and across Sugar Island to the Algoma Highlands in the other. The mist being sprayed over huge piles of logs at St. Mary's Paper is to insure the necessary moisture content for papermaking. Two miles to the south the old NORAD radar base can be seen.
Francis Clergue got a 99-year tax break for his Algoma Steel, we learn. Today gases from its blast furnace are recycled and used in making paper. The guide points out the self-propelled snow plow for the railroad tracks and the jackknife railroad bridge. Its counterweights are so well balanced that it takes only a 5 horsepower motor to raise the bridge. "Sault Ste. Marie at one time was a very large rail head," Pat commented. "You could hop a train for anywhere. Now you can't even catch a Greyhound bus."
The 2 1/2 hour bus tour of the Canadian side, during July and August only, takes visitors to the Canadian locks and visitor center, where they get out and walk around. Then it takes them by various historic homes and neighborhoods and by visitor attractions including the Bushplane museum. Adults must bring their drivers' licenses and children's ID (passport, birth certificate, or photo ID).
LSSU grads Tim and Katy Ayres, from southern Michigan, have taken it upon themselves to revive the Tour Train, a memorable and most worthy part of the Soo tourist experience. Upon graduation they moved to the Flint area, and Tim got a job in outside sales in the auto industry. When they came back for a visit, they were shocked to learn that "there was no train," as Kathy recalls. "The whole way back to Fenton, Tim kept saying, 'I'm gonna bring the trains back. I'm gonna bring the trains back.'" Kathy quit her job, they moved their two young boys to Hessel, and they bought the Tour Train from previous owner Jerry Bell and sunk quite a bit into rebuilding the trains themselves. Now Kathy has been on the scene in season since the Tour Train started up again in 2003, and she has opened Katydids, a specialty store on M-134 in Hessel. Tim continues to work downstate during the week. The Ayres' enthusiasm is contagious. It shows in the intelligence and work their guides have put into their own versions of the tour.
(906) 632-4000; (866) 766-5625. The tour train's new depot is next to the Lockview Restaurant, directly opposite the entrance to Locks Park. Reservations are taken but probably not necessary. The season is from Memorial Day weekend to THRU October 17. In June the one-hour tour leaves at 9, 10:15, 11:30, 1:30, 4, and 5:30. In July and August the one-hour American Soo tour leaves daily at least every half hour from 9 a.m. to dark. The Canadian tour leaves at 10:30, 1:30 and 4. In September and October the one-hour tour leaves t 9, 10:15, 11:30, 1:30, 4, and 5:30. The Canadian tour leaves at 10:30 and 1:30. Cost for one-hour tour: $9/adult, $5 ages 2-17. Dogs free. Cost for Canadian tour: $24/adult, $19.50 ages 2-17. Handicap access: difficult for tour train.
Return to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
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