September 18, 2009

Today has been a day of rest….sort of. We did sleep in until 7:30 and only drove 19 miles, but we stayed busy most of the day. Our first stop of the day was at the SOO Locks to check the schedule of freighters headed to the locks. We were lucky. One was on the down arrival board and would be arriving at 11:20 a.m. The down arrival board lists any ship that will be moving from Lake Superior down-stream to Lake Huron. We had enough time before its arrival to walk around town and visit some of the shops and make a couple calls to family members.



We arrived back at the locks about 10 minutes before the Ojibway’s arrival (photo one). The Ojibway is 635 feet long and 65 feet wide and takes about 45 minutes to travel through the locks. The vertical drop while in the locks is 31 feet.

Our next stop of the day was Antlers Restaurant. A “local” suggested this place for lunch. The food was good and it proved to be an interesting place (photo two). If it can be shot, stuffed and displayed, Antlers has one.

After lunch we headed to the Tower of History (photo three) which was built in 1968 by the Catholic Church as a Shrine of the Missionaries. Due to the cost, the church cut the project in favor of other endeavors and donated the shrine to the Sault Historic Sites in 1980. The tower stands 210 feet high with a viewing platform near the top. It makes a wonderful vantage point for viewing the city, the Soo Locks and Sault Ste Marie, Ontario which lies directly across the river.

Since we were so close to Canada, we decided to drive over the International Bridge (photo four shows backed up traffic) for a short visit to Ontario. The international bridge is the only land access to Canada for several hundred miles in both directions. For this reason it can sometimes take an hour to cross due to the border crossings on each side. We were lucky and only had to wait in line about 5 minutes on the Canadian side. On our return trip we did have to wait a little longer due to a person trying to enter the US that could not satisfy the border guards. His vehicle was removed from the line to a holding area for further processing and we were able to proceed through the check point.

Dinner was at a local VFW that has a weekly Friday fish fry. We talked with a shop owner that had moved to the area from North Carolina and she recommended it. It was a good choice. All you could eat white fish.

And our last adventure of the day was a return to the Soo Locks to watch the freighter Edwin H. Gott (1004 feet long and 105 feet wide) pass through the locks (photo five). This is the largest size freighter that the locks can accommodate.

We did not find a sign for today but we will try again tomorrow. We will be traveling to Whitefish Point to spend two nights in the lighthouse crew quarters. Check us out tomorrow.

T&C