Sault Ste. Marie Adventure, 2014

Yesterday I saw the largest boat that I might ever see, and then I dragged my in-laws into my fascination with old buildings and old neighborhoods.

We made our annual trip to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to watch the freighters in the Soo Locks. Boat traffic travelling between Lake Superior and Lake Huron utilize the locks to bypass the rapids on the St. Mary’s River. (See my prior blog entry here about Sault Ste. Marie.) We had a pleasant surprise at the locks. The Paul R. Tregurtha, the largest ship on the Great Lakes, came through on its way to Lake Superior. Afterward, we left the locks to pick up hamburgers from Clyde’s Drive-In and watch the neighboring ferry boat transport cars and heavy construction equipment across the St. Mary’s River to Sugar Island.

All fun, pretty much like last year and the year before that. Freighters, burgers, ferry boat viewing.

Then I asked Jonathan’s parents if they knew of any historic neighborhoods in Sault Ste. Marie. (My in-laws lived on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as newlyweds, and they vacationed here for years before I met Jonathan.) I just wanted to change up our trip a little bit, and right now I have old buildings on my mind.

We ended up on Water Street, along the St. Mary’s River. Signs identified four houses at the end of this street as the four oldest in the city. These now operate as a museum with re-enactors, including a man in colonial dress using his cell phone in front of one of the houses. We walked down the street to Brady Park, the former site of French, British, and United States forts, and read all of the monuments. We stood outside the gates of a fenced-in cemetery identified on the marker in front as an “Ancient Anishinaabeg Burial Ground.” (I wince even typing the words “Ancient Burial Ground,” with all of its ghost story clichés, but we really did see this.)

The park included a map of the old U.S. fort, so we decided to look for other landmarks listed on this map but not included in Brady Park. We drove around the neighborhood, past blocks of Victorian homes, and came to the Chippewa County Courthouse. My in-laws didn’t remember any of this from their time in Michigan.  Sometimes it’s fun to turn off of the streets that you know and look at a familiar city with fresh eyes.

Here is the official history that I found for the Soo Locks, Fort Brady, the old houses, the Native American burial ground, and everything else that Ste. Sault Marie has to offer.