The Soo Locks

One the great tourist "to do's" is a boat ride through the Soo Locks. For only $25 you travel up the St. Mary's River into the locks and then into the Lake Superior side of the river. You then go up river a bit get closer to the Canadian side of the river and back through the locks again. This point of the river has a 21 ft drop from the Lake Superior side to the Lake Huron side of the river. There are actually 4 parallel lock chambers but two have been shut down and only the Poe and MacArthur locks still in use. The largest of the two, the Poe, is over 1,000 ft long and 100+ ft wide thus allowing the largest of the cargo ships to pass. Of particular interest is that the ship's captain pilots these huge vessels into the locks without the use of a channel pilot or tug boat like would be used in coastal shipping. In about 15 minutes the water level rises or drops 21 feet all due to the power of gravity. No pumps are used or needed to fill or empty the lock chamber. Here are the photos.

 

Entering on lower side

 

Exiting after the "raise"

 

Water level at full

 

Leaving on the "high" side

 

Ore carrier Edgar Speer-painted in the colors of it's cargo. Rust for iron ore, black for coal and grey for grain (IIRC). This is one of the larger vessels on the Great Lakes.

 

Return through the lock at low side

 

View at low side

 

We did the Valley Camp and lock tour on the same day so we decided to head downtown to the local Irish pub where we met some locals, played bingo and had an enjoyable evening.

 

The next morning we crossed back into Canada headed toward the Parry Sound area which is a couple of hours north of Toronto. We then spent the weekend at my cousin's wedding having a great time visiting the family and meeting new people. The wedding was beautiful and was held at the summer camp where the couple met-fortunately the rain held off for the entire day.

Monday was time to move on again, this time into New York.

 

More to come...

 

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