The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the entire complex at the Soo Locks; they maintain and operate the locks, run the hydropower plant and navigation channels. The Visitor Center in downtown Sault Ste. Marie where it gives the history of the locks as well as a viewing center where you can watch ships and the Soo Locks Tour Boat go through. There are more than 7,000 vessel passages every year moving up to 75 million tons of cargo. The primary cargoes carried through the locks are iron ore, coat, grain and stone.
On the left is the Observation Platform at the Visitor Center. The first lock from the left is the MacArthur Lock - opened in 1943, accommodates vessels up to 730 feet long and 76 feet wide. The administration building sits on the island. The next lock is the Poe Lock - the largest of the four locks. opened in 1969 to accommodate 1,000-foot-long vessels. Built between two functioning locks, its construction presented special challenges. The next lock is the Davis Lock - opened in 1914; closed in 2018. The next lock is the Sabin Lock - opened in 1919, closed in 1989, will be replaced by a new Poe-sized lock. They are currently in the process of blasting this lock in preparation for the new lock.
The hydropower plant, just north of the locks, generates more than 150 million kilowatt hours of electrical power each year. Operating the Soo Locks uses about 5% of the power and the remainder is distributed through the local utility company to homes and businesses in the Eastern Upper Peninsula.
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| St. Marys Falls Hydropower Plant |
History of the Locks: The St. Marys River has always been a critical waterway. For thousands of years, Native American people encamped on its banks each year to harvest whitefish and relied on the river, as a vital connection to the larger Great Lakes trade network. As Europeans settled in the region and engaged in the fur trade, voyageurs adopted larger canoes, each carrying up to five tons. At the rapids in the St. Marys men had to unload and carry (portage) everything around the rapids.
In 1798, the British North West Company built a lock on the Canadian side of the river to eliminate the need to portage large trade canoes. In 1814, during the War of 1812, a party of American soldiers destroyed this lock. After this, the practice of portaging cargoes around the rapids resumed and expanded with docks and warehouses at each end of the rapids in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and a strap railway on Water Street for moving freight. It took days to unload and reload a ship.
A mining boom of copper and iron ore along the western end of Lake Superior in the 1840s fueled the drive to build a new navigation lock in Sault Ste. Marie. In 1853, the State of Michigan, with funding from a federal land grant, began building a set of tandem locks. Built one behind the other each was 350-feet long with a left of about 10 feet. Known as "The State Locks" these locks began operating in 1855 and vessels could pass through in a matter of hours rather than days.
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| Building America's First Soo Lock 1852-1855 |
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| The St. Marys Falls Ship Canal |
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| Great Lakes Commerce |
In just over 30 years, the State Lock moved more than 12 million tons of cargo through its chambers. Unable to keep up with the growing traffic, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a second lock just south of it in 1881. Soon after, demand for Lake Superior's iron ore and ships themselves had outgrown the original lock and in 1887, Congress provided funds to replace it with a larger lock.
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| December 26, 1889 |
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| Harvey's Hammer |
Who is Harvey? Charles T. Harvey was a 22-year old salesman and found himself in the right place at the right time in 1852. While recovering from typhoid in Sault Ste. Marie, he saw a business opportunity in building a lock bypassing the rapids in the St. Marys River. Using his skills as a salesman, he convinced his employer and other investors to take on the project and served as its general superintendent. In this role, he took up residence in Saulte Ste. Marie and oversaw engineers, tradesmen and hundreds of laborers as they raced the clock to finish the project in the required two years.
Why did he need a hammer? To build the canal, workers had to remove several feet of bedrock from the riverbed. After the shipping season had closed in 1854, workers discovered a 30,000 square foot ledge they could not remove with available tools. Waiting for spring and additional equipment would mean missing the May 1855 deadline, losing the contract and the company's entire investment.
Harvey's workmen built this punch in their blacksmith shop with materials on hand. A bar of tempered steel formed the tip and rings made from a ship's propeller reinforced it. Attached to an oak beam, the whole punch weighed three tons. To shatter the ledge, a barge secured to the piers used a steam engine to lift and drop the "hammer" in a grid over the entire ledge leaving pieces no larger than a man's hand. With the ledge removed, work continued and the company met their deadline.
What happened next? The lock Charles Harvey built, called simply "The State Lock" operated just over 30 years, but opened the floodgates of raw materials that fueled the industrial growth of the upper Midwest. Locks have operated here on the river ever since the opening of that First American Soo Lock in 1855.
As for Charles Harvey, in his lifetime, he founded the town of Harvey, Michigan and took on several railroad projects, including developing the first prototype of an elevated railway system for New York City.
Here in Sault Ste. Marie, the largest of the Soo's crane barges is named for him and the Chippewa County Historical Society generously shares "Harvey's Hammer," helping keep this piece of history alive.
Since 1855 people have come to Sault Ste. Marie to watch boats pass through the locks. In the early days people stood on the shore to watch, later a balcony was added to an office to provide a better view. In 1967 the Visitor Center was built and expanded in 1995. More recently a larger observation platform was built in 2011. We visited the Observation Platform after our boat tour, and I wanted to get pictures of the height of the water -- the water system is the St. Marys River; heading out on the low end goes through a number of river systems, finally hitting Lake Huron. On the upper end St. Marys River takes you out into Lake Huron. There is a 21-foot difference in water height between the two.
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| Lock before filling |
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| Lock filled up before passing through |
Now, let's go on a tour of the locks ~~
We opted for the "Original" Soo Locks boat tour as I could buy our tickets without having to pick a day or time to go; we could just show up when we wanted to go. The water of St. Marys River is clean and a deep blue; it was beautiful.
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| Barge/tug waiting to go through the locks |
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| Heading toward the locks |
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| Inside the lock |
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| Lock filling up |
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| Locks opening up |
It took a while for the water to fill up so we could go through to Lake Michigan. It goes up 21 feet; it took longer for us because we had to wait for another tour boat to join us before they started filling it up. Look straight ahead and you will see that barge/tug way out into Lake Michigan on their way to somewhere.
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| Water level up and on we go |
We are now going to head out into Lake Michigan and head toward Canada before going into the Canadian lock and heading back to the dock.
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| Design on the ship |
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| Canadian Steel Mill |
This is the Canadian steel mill Algoma Steel. Algoma currently has a capacity of 4 million tons per year. Primary steel making facilities include two blast furnaces, three coke batteries, two, 260 short ton basic oxygen furnaces, with two ladle metallurgy stations for refining and alloying. Algoma has a direct strip production complex manufactured by Danieli of Italy, which casts strip directly and then rolls it to finished strip in the range of 0.047 inches to 0.625 inches in thickness, and widths to 64 inches.
Algoma also operates a hot strip mill, a plate mill, and a cold strip mill. Algoma also manufactures welded structural beams. Algoma currently is the second largest steel producer in Canada. It is the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie and currently has 2800 employees at the main plant. Algoma now produces hot and cold rolled steel (i.e. sheet and plate). Algoma currently is the second largest steel producer in Canada. It is the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie and currently has 2800 employees at the main plant. Algoma now produces hot and cold rolled steel (i.e. sheet and plate). Algoma's products are used in the automotive, construction, energy, manufacturing, pipe and tube, and steel distribution industries.
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| Heading toward the Canadian Lock |
The Canadian Lock is only used by the tourist boats; all Canadian ships, barges, etc. use the American locks.
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| Another view of the International Bridge |
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| Canadian Lock |
We are now heading into the Canadian Lock. Look at how high the water is in comparison to the rock wall. The building with the pictures in the windows is not used any more, so pictures were put on the windows to tell a story about the locks.
There is a walking trail next to the docks where we saw people walking their dogs and getting some exercise. Also, look at the lock in this picture -- it has a walking bridge over the top so people can park on one side and walk to the park. It's hard to tell, but the water where we are sitting is 21 feet higher than the water on the other side of the lock.
We are now through the locks and heading back into U.S. territory. Between the locks the St. Marys River still runs. I tried to get a picture of the rapids that still run between the locks that people used to forge to get from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron.
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| Tug Boats |
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Rock Island depicting the border between
Canada and the U.S. |
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| Dry Docks |
Do you know what dry docks are? A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, and repair of ships, boats, and other watercraft.
This ended our boat tour and we headed back into the dock. From there we drove to the Visitor Center, which I covered first. We had a good time, but unfortunately sat on the wrong side the boat; we should have sat on the left side because that was where everything was that the tour guide talked about. But even though we were on the other side, I was still able to get some good pictures. I hope you enjoyed learning about the Soo Locks.
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