A day Trip to Soo Canada

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We had renewed our passports shortly before hitting the road, so we decided to take a day trip to the Canadian side of Sault Saint Marie. The border crossing in the morning was non-eventful but we were glad we here heading north because there was a LONG line coming into the States.

We made a quick stop at the visitor's center and then headed to the Canadian lock. Like I had mentioned, it was currently not in use because of a stuck railroad bridge just upstream of the lock, but it did have a nice little visitor's center and then a way to walk across the top of the lock gates to South St Mary's Island and another bridge onto Whitefish Island. Each island had a fairly extensive trail system with many viewing stations along the way overlooking various sights. Most of the geocaches were far enough off the main trails that they were passed over.

International Bridge from Canadian Lock

Section of St Mary's River Between Islands

Some of the Rapids

Ducks in Pond

We drove around town for a bit while looking for a lunch spot and finally settled on "North 82", a steak and seafood place but getting a burger and chicken - go figure. Being mid-afternoon, the place was not crowded, so we talked with our waitress a bit. Turns out she had been camping over at Brimley State Park just this weekend with her family. It doesn't sound like they do much travelling with their travel trailer but do like this park and other than the border crossing, it is close. She suggested we try Bellevue Park as a nice place to visit and see the waterfront.

Little Locomotive in Bellevue Park

After finding all the geocaches in the park, we continued our walk along the shore to a marina. It had turned out to be a very nice day after the cloudy start. As we started the long walk back to the car, we noticed another freighter heading upstream towards the locks.  We kept our eyes on it as it slowly made its way thru the shipping channel in the river. We finally decided we had tired ourselves out and started to head home. From the bridge, we could see the freighter had not quite made it to the locks and since there was hardly any traffic at customs, we made it back to Soo Michigan quickly and decided to head to the observation deck again. 

As luck would have it, the freighter (the Alpena) we had been watching was just pulling into the nearest lock and a second freighter (the Taaborg) was pulling into the other lock, heading downstream. This was the first time we got to see a freighter in the nearest lock. As the Alpena started out of the lock, I noticed it had about 4 mountain bikes hanging from the underside of the deck. I suppose this is how the crew gets around towns they stop at.

Bikes Hanging Under Deck on Alpena

The tour boat that was out at the time got the priviledge of riding in the same lock as the Taaborg. Now I know why the tour boat can be so late getting back to the dock. Their trip was likely delayed 25 minutes or so because it takes so long to bring the freighter in and tie it down. The other interesting thing about the Taaborg was that it appeared to be some sort of container ship with four big cranes on the deck. All the other freighters seemed to be ones that carried bulk - usually iron ore.

Alpena in Near Dock, Taaborg and Tour Boat Far Lock

A quick stop at the Walmart before heading to the campgrounds only to discover that they had really strong wi-fi way out in the parking lot so I could stream some youtube videos while Chris shopped. All in all, I nice first birthday on the road.