Michigan - Day 25 - Mackinaw City to Sault Ste. Marie

Aune Osborne Campground, Sault Ste. Marie
Thursday, 25 July 2019

today's route

Mackinac Bridge
As I mentioned a while back, there was no way I could drive across this bridge, given the extreme difficulty I had driving across the shorter Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake in northern Maryland.  The Michigan DOT has online instructions for how to get one of their employees to drive you across, and I followed them.  I waited in a parking area not far from the bridge for less than 10 minutes for a nice young man named Tim to come help me out.

The biggest problem I had with that drive was trying to explain to Dexter that, not only was I going to sit in his usual seat, but also I didn't want him to join me there.  Otherwise, Tim turned out to be very chatty and I learned a lot in a fairly short drive over the nearly 5 miles of bridge.  Built in 1957, it was the first connection, other than ferries, between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas and helped unite the state in more ways than one.

It's a toll bridge, with cars being charged $4 one way and RVs like mine were $5/axle - $10 for me.  Since the only alternative was not visiting the Upper Peninsula, I was happy to pay it especially since, unlike in Maryland, I wasn't having to pay for the DOT driver.

Peregrine Falcon

We passed a Peregrine Falcon sitting on a bridge support, and Tim told me that they nest under the bridge.  He said the highway dept. had noticed that there were several of them there, living on the pigeons that were willing to fly as far out as that, and decided to help them out by building nesting boxes for them.  Now there are many raising their young there.  They're one of the world's fastest birds and pigeons are no match for them.

I'd seen signs saying the bridge would close for the morning of Labor Day and asked about it.  Tim said there's an annual walk for charity that day, with as many as 35,000 doing part or all the walk.  He said in the past, they only closed half the bridge but, because of concerns about terrorists, they now closed the whole bridge to vehicles.  The good part about that is that it allows people to walk only part-way over, not the whole 5 miles, and this opens up the event to disabled folks as well as regular folks that want to check out the view but don't want to go the distance.

St. Ignace
A mile on the other side of the bridge is the exit for the small town of St. Ignace, which also has ferry service over to Mackinac Island.  I stopped there for the grocery store a quarter mile off the highway and 4 other RVs pulled in to the parking lot right after me.  Other people thought it was a handy spot like I did.

I didn't take the time to run around the town, though I'm guessing it's much like Mackinaw City - plenty of local life but inundated with tourists in the summer.

On the road
I passed a large bison herd in a field.

I've been passing signs off and on along the Lake Huron coast that noted it was part of the Lake Huron Circle Tour.  Turns out there are 4 of these tour routes in Michigan (which abuts 4 of the 5 Great Lakes), and the Lake Huron tour is the only one that includes only 2 districts: Michigan and Ontario (Canada).  A look at the map showed me the reason: Lake Huron is entirely bounded by Michigan and Ontario.  It's also the only tour that includes both of Michigan's peninsulas, and one of the 2 that includes the Mackinac Bridge.

As I drove north I found far more radio stations for the CBC (Canada) and that were French-speaking than regular American ones.

Sault Ste. Marie
Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced SOO-saint-mah-REE) is smack on the border between the two countries, or it would be if not for the St. Mary's River, part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.  The town's connected by a toll bridge to the twin city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.  Not really twins, though, because the Canadian version has 73,000 residents while the Michigan version has 14,000.  Cousins, maybe.

Soo Locks
I particularly wanted to visit the Soo Locks, justly famous in the boating world as one of the world's busiest locks.  The facility is now guarded by Homeland Security folks who insisted on searching my purse; when I asked, the guard said they'd had no specific threats but an international shipping facility like this was considered a top area for terrorist protection.

The locks are needed because the St. Mary's River, which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, drops 21' in less than a mile right here.  The resulting rapids meant every cargo ship (originally canoes) had to be portaged - not efficient shipping.  Now the locks not only allow enormous cargo ships through, they also generate hydroelectric power at one plant in Canada, two plants at the locks, and one more farther downstream.

They have a large glassed-in viewing stand that lets visitors watch lock traffic.  The lock nearest the view stand is the Macarthur Lock, built in 1943, 800' x 80' (I saw a sailboat and a locks tour boat coming through going uphill); the larger lock just beyond it is the Poe Lock, built 1969, 1200' x 110' (I saw the Erie Trader take up the whole space going downhill).  There's a 3rd even larger lock planned to be built in the next decade.

half the Erie Trader, before

on its way down

This ship is so large, I could only get half of it at a time.  The half you don't see is just as big as this half, if not bigger.

evolution of unloading

evolution of loading

evolution of ship size

not a year-round location

Most of Lake Superior's southern coast (the Upper Peninsula) is sandstone, which is 1000' thick here at the Soo Locks area, making building the locks an engineering feat requiring special equipment.  They're currently planning a third, larger lock, and the building processes they'll use now should be very interesting.

our Great Lakes: world's largest freshwater body

Plenty of sturgeon and salmon use the river, too, but in general they prefer to fight the rapids, rather than use the locks.

Previously, the power of the outgoing water flushed fish eggs and fry out of the protected areas they needed to grow.  These days, engineers have learned to automate the gate positions to reduce the impact on fish needs.

how Duluth, Minn., becomes an Atlantic seaport

The locks use gravity, not pumps, to move millions of gallons of water through, allowing ships to rise or fall by the magic of natural forces to the level needed.

comparing the various water levels

To the campground
Tonight's campground is owned by the city and isn't far from the center of town.

I passed the dock for the Soo Locks Boat Tours, a company that also offers lighthouse tours.  I'd love to have the time to take both but don't see how I'll be able to take either.

I also passed the Aquatic Research Lab, with a sign saying they offer hatchery tours.  Clearly, Sault Ste. Marie has a lot to offer someone with my interests and I wish the end of the month wasn't so near.  I still have the entire Upper Peninsula to go.