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Hunts' Guide to Michigan's UPPER PENINSULA
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JUST OUT!
A new edition of Hunts' Mapguide to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Over 300 entries, all conveniently located on maps and chosen because we think they are the coolest things to do in the U.P. (No ad tie-ins!) Great choices for restaurants, hikes, shops, adventures, museums, boat trips, waterfalls, vistas, road trips, and much more!
To learn more click UP MAP GUIDE
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SAULT STE. MARIE CANADA
POINTS
OF
INTEREST
Agawa Canyon Tour Train and Snow Train. 114 miles up into the wilderness, with panoramas viewed from the comfort of a passenger train ...
more
Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site. A close-up look, with historical and technological perspective, at the 1895 Canadian canal, built next to but well after the American locks ...
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Lock Tours Canada. A 2-hour boat tour past not just the locks but eerily looming Algoma Steel Works ...
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St. Mary's River Boardwalk. A beautiful mile-long downtown riverfront boardwalk, dotted with fishing platforms and interpretive markers about key events in area history ...
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Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre. In a 1940s hanger, see the planes that pioneered fighting forest fires from the air ...
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Ermatinger/Clergue Heritage Site. An 1814 stone house, once a fur trading post, has been brought back to life with period furnishings and costumed interpreters ...
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Art Gallery of Algoma. Stimulating art (24 shows/year) and a cool museum shop and sculpture garden in a beautiful riverfront setting. ...
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Sault Ste. Marie Museum. In an unusual and interesting 1906 post office, tour a museum that illuminates local Indian, maritime, military, and industrial history ...
more
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Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site
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 | | Home of the superintendent of the Canadian Soo locks. | The canal here, opened in 1895, was the last link in an all-Canadian water route from Lake Superior (source of Canadian iron and steel) to the Atlantic. Prime Minister Sir John MacDonald "believed that Canadians must not rely on U.S. transportation systems," according to The Border at Sault Ste. Marie, an interesting little book by Canadian history professors Graeme S. Mount and John Abbott, most conveniently available through Amazon. (The Canadian Pacific Railroad, memorialized in Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," was part of the same dream.)
The canal and island it's on are interesting to visit today for many reasons. The interpretive Attikamek Trail ("attikamek" means "whitefish") goes around the perimeter of the island for 1.37 miles, affording an outstanding up-close view of the St. Mary's Rapids. The rapids attracts many anglers. today. For information on fishing and guide services on the Canadian side, contact Sport Fishing Development (800) 361-1522.
The canal's technology, advanced for its day, remains unchanged, so it's like a museum of bygone technologies, which guides explain. The locks are used by pleasure boats and operate more frequently. The handsome sandstone administration building, power house, and stores building have a quaint look today. The Friends of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal sell gifts and snacks here.
When built, the locks were deeper than the American locks. In 1910 they were busier, in terms of tonnage shipped, because large carriers of iron and coal locked through here. But they were never expanded. Later, Great Lakes passenger ships preferred the less busy Canadian locks. Eventually the locks languished. Damaged by an accident, they were reconstructed within the original locks and reopened in 1997.
Why did Canada build this canal when the American locks were already there? As a colony and later a dominion allied with British interests, Canada felt vulnerable to attack, from potentially discontented elements within Canada (the French and Métis minorities and others) and from without. In the Fenian movement in the 1850s, Irish-American famine refugees in the U.S. "regarded British North American border communities as legitimate targets," according to Mount and Abbott. A quick read-through Canadian history uncovers a lot of relevant events most Americans are completely unaware of, beginning with the Mackenzie and Papineau rebellions of 1837, loosely comparable to a delayed version of the American War of Independence. The rebellions failed, but many of their supporters fled to the U.S. (A fair number settled in Michigan's Thumb, where Canadian-style Gothic Revival farmhouses dot the countryside today.) During the Red River Rebellion in Manitoba, the U.S. threatened not to let the Canadian militia pass through the Soo Locks, but relented after Canada countered with talk of denying access to the Welland Ship Canal around Niagara Falls.
From the International Bridge, take a right onto Huron (toward the river), go straight, cross tracks, turn left onto Canal Drive. (705) 941-6262. TTY: (705) 941-6205. The outdoor site and island is always open. The visitor center is open year-round. The canal operates from May 15 to early June from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Early June-early Sept. 9-9. Visitor center summer hours from early June thru Labor Day: 8:30-4:30 daily. Early Sept-3rd week in June Mon-Fri. Guided tours $.2.95/person. telescope $.50/use. Parking $1.95. Handicap accessible: visitor center, perimeter trail, picnic area. Not historic buildings.
Return to Sault Ste. Marie Canada
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