Sault Ste. Marie Locks

As we came back from the north shore of Lake Superior, we stopped at Sault Ste. Marie (the "Soo") on the US side to watch the locks between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Superior is 21' higher than Lake Huron. There are rapids between the two lakes and in the past cargo had to be off-loaded and portaged around the falls and reloaded. There are five locks at the Soo (1 Canadian and 4 US, though 1 isn't in operation). One of the locks was rebuilt in 1968 to handle 1,000' ships. This lock handles 79% of all traffic through the locks. The locks are operated by the Corps of Engineers and it costs nothing for a ship to go through them. The locks are filled and emptied without any pumping of water. There is a hydroelectric plant which provides the electricity for the doors of the locks. While we were there we saw both locks operating simultaneously, though in an opposite way; one was for ships going upstream and the other downstream. It was fascinating. In the above photo you see the front lock filled for boats going down to Lake Huron while the back lock, MacArthur Lock, is empty and there is a large ship entering the lock. The drawbridge arm in the center left of the picture is lowered after the ship enters the lock. As far as we could figure this was to prevent a boat from getting in the way of the opening of the doors. This boat was 784' long.

This photo is looking up towards Lake Superior where there are three boats waiting to enter the filled lock. The bridge is the international crossing.

Here, the large boat has risen up and the private sailboat has only the tops of its masts visible. Each boat is tied up to the wharf on one side before the gates are closed. The water rises and falls very quickly.

Here you see two boats heading out of the closer lock into Lake Huron. There were two men who were tieing up the boats on the wharf below. Since it is after 9/11, there was only one entrance to the locks and our handbags were searched and there were many areas blocked off from public access.