Trip Report: Soo Locks

We have one more article to publish about last week's trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan and our one night journey into Ontario, Canada. During our visit to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, we took a 2-hr boat tour of the Soo Locks that connect Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes. 

Lake Superior is the highest of the Great Lakes at 600ft above sea level. Both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are 577ft above sea level, a drop of 23ft. The St. Marys River connects Superior to Michigan/Huron and it's full of very visible rapids. To allow for ship movements, the Soo Locks were constructed.

There is this single lock on the Canadian side and two locks on the American side with one more under construction.

 

This Canadian lock is relatively small so the large lake freighters use the American locks in both directions. Our tour boat entered the lock on the lower Huron side of the lock.

Once inside, the doors on both ends close and water is pumped into the lock to raise the boat.

Once the level of Lake Superior is reached, the door opens and you can sail out. Our tour boat is the only one originating from the Canadian side. There are two Soo Locks tours originating from the American side and we encountered one coming in the opposite direction.

We passed under the International Bridge which connects Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan on the left with Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario on the right. (Sault is pronounced Soo.)

We then made a U-turn and headed towards the American locks, followed by lake freighter MV Indiana Harbor. At 1000ft in length, she's one of the largest boats on the Great Lakes and typically carries a cargo of taconite from Duluth to steel mills along the Great Lakes.

Our tour ended shortly after we entered one of the American locks and were lowered back to Lake Huron level. Hundreds of miles away, the Welland Canal has 8 locks and lowers boats from Lake Erie down to the lowest lake, Lake Ontario. The locks lower ships gradually while the nearby Niagara River has a rather steep drop called Niagara Falls.