Sault Ste. Marie

Sault Ste. Marie is a quaint town on the northeastern end of Michigan's UP on the Canada-US border and it is separated from its twin sister city, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario by the St Mary River but the two cities are joined by the International Bridge. The city is relatively isolated from other communities in Michigan,  it being so far north. Sault Ste. Marie was settled by Native Americans more than 12,000 years ago and was a crossroads of fishing and trading of tribes around the Great Lakes. We stayed right on the Ste. Mary River next to the Soo boat locks, so that is the first thing we did, caught a tour boat to experience the locks. The Soo locks are a set of parallel locks which enable bulk carriers to to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. They are located on the Ste. Mary River and they allow ships to bypass the rapids of the river, where the water races down the small channel, the locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year, despite being closed during the winter when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. 

The next day Pierre and set out on a adventure to see the city, we took the ferry over to Sugar Island. Sugar Island was named for the massive stands of sugar maples on the Island, the Native Americans and early settlers used to paddle over and tap the trees for their sugar and syrup. While there are a few residents here, Sugar Island is a wilderness area and the island is cloaked in deep forests. In the southern portion of the island, it’s not unusual to find moose browsing or wading through the marshes. Wolves inhabit the island too, and you can hear their howls in the early hours of the evening or the morning! We did not see a moose nor a wolf.. I was highly disappointed!  

We had lunch at a restaurant called The Antlers, now this restaurant has a storied history that is worth checking out, including legends of ghosts, that I can believe, all the poor animals probably haunt this place!  They have all the various animal antlers, ranging from deer, antelope, bears, big cats and they even have stuffed fish. They also have a mounted Polar Bear! They do offer a lot of game meat. I felt kinda uncomfortable with all the animals staring down on us.

After lunch we explored more of the city and found the Museum Ship "Valley Ship" housed inside her cargo holds is her museum. They have quite an assortment of different maritime lores and facts, but the best part was seeing parts of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the exhibit houses two lifeboats from the stricken vessel. These lifeboats were torn away durning the sinking and they were two of the very few artifacts recovered after the tragic sinking. 29 men lost their lives.