Driving across the bridge from the US side of Sault Ste Marie, you can see the lock system on both sides of the bridge. The "Soo" locks enables large ships to travel between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes. Lake Superior or as the Chippewa call it, Lake Gitche Gumee (meaning "big water") is not only the largest of the Great Lakes, but it is the largest lake in the world containing an eighth of the world's fresh water. In fact when driving along the shores of the lake it appears to be an ocean as you cannot see from one side to the other. Superior is 160 miles wide and 350 miles long and as Ray says, you can fit two Vancouver Islands in the space of Superior. At its deepest point, it measures 1,333 feet with an average water temperature of 34 degrees F. Approximately 200 rivers and thousands of streams feet into it. The only outlet is Saint Mary's River which connect it to Lake Huron. Lake Superior rests in a cradle of ancient precambrian rock on the southern tip of the Canadian Sheild. The weather can change in an instant from calm to stormy. There have been many lives lost on this lake with the sinking of ships. The most famous one is probably the SS Edmund Fitzgerald which sank during a storm on November 10th 1975 taking all 29 crew members. Gordon Lightfoot made this so popular with his "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" song which he recorded in December 1975 and released it in August 1976.
A bit of history of the Soo. Sault Ste Marie is one of the oldest settlements in North America. At the turn of the 20th century an American business man, Francis H. Clergue came to Sault Ste Marie. Among things like making a deal with the government to fix the locks in 1895, he also established a dam to bring water to community. He founded St Mary's Paper Mill (which ran until closing in 2011). He founded Algoma Steel as well as portions of the Algoma Central Railway. Clerguue also discovered iron ore in Wawa Ontario, which was transported via Algoma Centrail Railway to Sault Ste Marie and used in the steel plant. Algoma Steel in its heyday employed 16,000. Algoma is now called Essar Steel and currently employs 4000 people, 1000 of which are office workers. Essar is the main source of employment for a city of about 75,000 people. Essar is the 3rd largest steel plant in Canada were they make steel coils and armoured plates for the military. Catipillar and General Motors are two of their biggest customers. Francis H. Clergue was clearly a visionary, but one might wonder what vision he had when he kept bears chained up in his yard? His house is still standing today. on Moffley Hill but thankfully no bears can be seen in the yard.
We parked our truck and 5th wheel at Danny's house for the next couple of days. We met Danny two years ago on the ferry from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia. He was travelling on his own, having ridden his Harley from Sault Ste Marie to Newfondland. Last summer he road his bike out to our place and then he, Ray and another guy rode down to Sturgis. They should have written a blog on that trip!!! The day after arriving in the Soo Danny took Ray out fishing in his boat onto Lake Superior near the locks. Ray caught a white fish which Danny cooked up as an appetizer for dinner.
Danny chillin in the captain chair
You are probably wondering what I was doing with they were out fishing? Well I caught up on our laundry and then using the trusty GPS, I made my way to the local mall. The mall was not large but had the usual handful of stores. Sears, Bootlegger, Le Chateau, Aldo etc. The mall reminded me of the Cottonwood Mall in Chilliwack. I didn't spend a scent. I was secretly hoping that a Starbucks would appear from nowhere but no such luck. Have to wait until we get to Guelph for that. After the guys came back from fishing the three of us washed the truck and trailer. It took three of us to get the mud off of everything! Even after that it still could use some more soap and water. On our 2nd day in the Soo Danny took us around to see some of the sights. We saw a small local zoo that had two african lions, lynx, coyote, some goats, llamas, ducks, geese and a very sleepy tired bear. He was so tired that he barely opened his eyes to look at us. The whole place was sort of sad looking and looked like it could use some tender loving care. We then went to a lake with a beautiful waterfall called Crystal Falls
We left Danny's place at 0530 on Saturday morning and had decided that we were going to Manitolin Island and take the ferry from South Baymouth to Tobermorey, which is near Owen Sound. The ferry which was called the MS Chi-Cheemaun was small in comparison to BC Ferries but on the outside deck there was a couple of rows of colourful Muskoa Chairs. Looked very pretty but was way to windy to sit in them. Well for us it was, instead we head to the "lounge" where I had a glass of wine and we talked with a couple of recent retirees from Terrace who have sold their house and taken to the road for 5-6 months of travelling. The ferry ride across Lake Huron was about 2 hours and was very beautiful.
We arrived in Guleph around 6:00 PM very tired. We found our camping spot for the next two weeks at the Conservation Park in Guelph Lake which is about 5 minutes from Riki's house. After setting up our site, we decided to have an early night and catch up with the kids in the morning. Sunday morning Riki brought Alisha over and dropped her off to have breakfast with us as she had to pick up Madison from the other Grandparents.
No comments:
Post a Comment