Soo Locks Boat Tours

The weather has been nice, and we haven’t needed the A/C since we got into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The cool nights have allowed the trailer to cool down to the low 60s at night, we haven’t had that for about a month.  The Van has an appointment at the Ford Dealer to get the front heater working after the Rapid City, South Dakota McKie Ford Dealer fixed the A/C.  This should be the last of fixing stuff, by my count, this is the third time into the shop, and inconveniences usually happen in three’s.

Yesterday Anne-Marie and I took a tour of the Sault Ste Marie water way with the Soo Locks Boat Tours.  Sault is a French word, pronounced "Soo", and means a rapid in the river.

A wide picture of our Tour Boat, from the bow looking North to Canada.

This tub boat is in a floating dry dock, and the tall control tower is from a separate boat parked alongside.  A view of our RV Park from the water, our trailer is under the trees.

This is a Power Plant built in 1902 by the Edison Electric Company, and it is still in operation.  The cement tower is the Tower of History, and the large boat at dock is the Museum Ship, named Valley Camp, and we plan to visit both today.

Our tour boat entered the Sault Ste Marie Locks from downstream, and the upstream doors don’t have a completely tight seal.  After the lock is filled and the tour boat has risen.

A steel mill in this wide picture, and Anne-Marie on the right side of the picture.  The tour guide said that this large complex employ’s 4200 workers, and it is wide and expansive, with large piles of coal, Iron and limestone (I think).  This Industrial operation is at least 2 miles long, and the closer we got to it the dirtier it looked to us.  We could hear things banging, clacking and hissing, as the operations went on, and there was a tall chimney with a torch/fire on the top, and the flame varied from barely visible to about the size of our trailer.  It just looks like a dirty and hard job to work in a place such as that, I am fortunate that my career only had the occasional dirty task, and not an ongoing one in a plant such as this one.

Our tour boat first went upstream through the US locks, and then down stream through the Canadian Locks, with the Canadian downstream locks opening here.  A Museum about Bush Planes on the Canadian shore.  We are finding reasons to return again, and see places that we are missing during this visit.

A tug company next to the Bushplane Museum.  Think of a tug boat as a tow truck of the waterway, and they have small ones for the little jobs, and really big ones for helping the big ships.  Getting close to the home dock and the end of the trip.

The large Coast Guard Boat that I had pictured a few days ago had moved, and during our trip a large ocean going ship entered the locks, traveling upstream.

Today we have another hard day of touring, before we take the van to the Ford Dealer, and if the problem can be fixed today, we will be heading South tomorrow.