Soo Locks, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

In mid-July Dan's brother and his wife stopped in Hillman for a brief visit with us during a cross country trip of their own. Although Dan and I have been to Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Sue" Saint Marie) on a couple of occasions, Larry and Mary Ann had not, and we decided to take a day and drive the 150 miles to this border town between the US and Canada. Of great interest in this small town are the Soo Locks, a set of parallel locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes.

The locks are located on the St. Mary's River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the state of Michigan and Canadian province of Ontario. They bypass the rapids of the river, where the water falls 21 feet. The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year, despite being closed during the winter from January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. The winter closure period is used to inspect and maintain the locks. The locks share a name (usually shortened and anglicized as Soo) with the two cities named Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario and Michigan, located on either side of the St. Mary's river. The Sault Ste.Marie InternationalBridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks.