(Aerial photo of Soo Locks seen in the Visitor Center)
Our son Ward drove up to Mackinaw City from Chicago and stayed almost a week. It was great to spend time with him. We primarily stayed around the campground, but did take a day trip to Sault Ste. Marie, MI to tour the Soo Locks.
It was just over an hour’s drive across the Mackinaw Bridge and up through the Upper Peninsula. This is a sparsely populated area of forests and some farmland until you reach Sault Ste. Marie, which is pronounce “Soo Saint Marie” and comes from a French translation that means “the falls of St Mary’s (river)".
We had a very enjoyable stay two years ago at Aune Osborne campground which sits right on the bank of the St Mary’s river just south of the Soo Locks. Our campsite was next to the river, and I was frequently stepping out to take close-up pictures of the Great Lakes freighters (“Lakers”) as they passed. Here is one of those photos:
Looking at the Soo Locks visitor center web site I learned that freighters passed through the locks on average every 1 1/2 hours. So based upon that information and our prior experience, we assumed we would be able to watch a ship pass through. Well we were wrong. Six ships had passed through that morning, but none were in the St Mary’s river channel from the south or in Lake Superior from the north. The visitor center has a computer display that shows the location of ships in those areas, but no incoming ships were visible. We learned that traffic had been way down in 2009 due to the economy, but had picked back up so far this year. However a recent visitor came in from Duluth, Minnesota who works at the huge grain elevators on Lake Superior. He said their elevators were empty because there had been too much rain and the crops had failed (I assume winter wheat.) So he said no international ships nor “Lakers” would be coming through the locks with grain anytime soon. I imagine that is a key reason we did not see any ships.
We did watch a tour boat go through the locks.
And just enjoyed looking at the locks and entrance way.
