Third Stop, Sault Ste. Marie

Aerial view of Soo Locks. Soult Ste. Marie, Michigan is on the right.
Soult Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada is on the left.
photo by Army Corps of Engineers

After nature's display overnight, we arrived at Soult Ste. Marie early in the morning. The Great Lakes tour group promised that we would travel to all five Great Lakes. So, when we got to Soult Ste. Marie, we traversed the Soo Locks, entered Lake Superior, made a wide circle for 15 minutes, and then returned to the Lake Huron side of Soo Locks. Mission accomplished, I guess. I think I slept through it.

The sister cities are located on each side of the St. Marys River which flows from Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The recent history of Soult Ste. Marie closely relates to the mining of iron. A quick review of ancient history is in order. Let's go back 3 billion years.

Although the human species has been correctly credited with altering the world environment, our impact is puny compared to that of cyanobacteria. These bacteria were the first capable of photosynthesis, and are responsible for flooding the earth's atmosphere with oxygen for the first time. This changed everything. 

About 1 billion years ago when land and seas were in far different locations than today, and event referred to as the Midcontinent Rift occurred creating a new ocean basin where the Great Lakes sit today.  Underwater volcanic activity poured huge amounts of iron into the ancient oceans. Iron cannot rust without oxygen. When oxygen became plentiful, it reacted with iron dissolved in the ocean which sank to the seafloor as iron oxide. This created iron ore deposits. The region around Lake Superior is particularly rich in iron ore.

The first iron ore deposit discovered in this region was at the Marquette Range along the south shore of Lake Superior in 1844 by William Burt, a surveyor who noticed that a magnetic compass was disturbed by a force later identified as the presence of iron ore. Thus began the mining of vast amounts of iron ore from the shores of Lake Superior.

Transportation of the ore from Lake Superior to the steel mills and blast furnace facilities along the lower Great Lakes posed a seemingly unsurmountable problem. Rapids in the Saint Marys River was an obstacle which totally prevented water transport. Various actions were taken, including unloading the ore and reloading it on ships below the rapids. The ore was loaded on to animal drawn sleds. Long distance railroad was attempted, but was a logistical and economic failure.

The solution was created when the first Soo lock was constructed in 1855. The first ship to pass through the lock in 1855 did so in less than one hour. This changed everything. In 1881, the U.S. Army took over the lock. Today, there are five locks on the U.S. side, maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

For me, the highlight of this stop was visiting the Museum Ship. The ship was built in 1917 in Lorain, Ohio by the American Shipbuilding Company. She was originally named the Louis W. Hill. The name was changed the Valley Camp in 1955 after it was sold. It was sold again in 1966 to Le Soult de Sainte Marie Historical Sites, Inc. for $10,000 to become a museum.

Deck of the Valley Camp
from the Sault Historic Sites Photo Gallery

A comparison to the biggest freighters on the Great Lakes.
The Valley Camp is on the left. (puny, but nearly 2 football fields in length)

The biggest item on display of course is the ship itself. At 550 feet in length, it is half as long as the longest freighters on the Great Lakes. Although there are innumerable displays on the ship, the outstanding collection relates to the Edmund Fitzgerald which went down in Lake Superior in 1975.

Artist's rendering of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Recovered life boat, torn in half by the storm

In summary, you may listen to the recording, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

When Gordon Lightfoot died, the Mariners' Church bell in Detroit tolled 30 times, 29 times for each crew member lost on the Edmond Fitzgerald, plus one additional time to honor Gordon Lightfoot.