Sault Ste Marie Travel Guide

Strategically situated beside St Mary's River, the tortuous link between lakes Superior and Huron, industrial SAULT STE MARIE - more popularly the SOO - sits opposite the Michigan town of the same name and sees constant two-way traffic, with two sets of tourists keen to see how the other lot lives. The Soo is northern Ontario's oldest community, originally settled by Ojibwa fishing parties who gathered here beside what was then - before the river was canalized - a set of rapids. The French called these Ojibwa Saulteux - "people of the falls" - and the Jesuit missionaries who followed added the Christian sobriquet to give the town its present name. Initially, the Soo flourished as a gateway to the fur-rich regions inland, but it was the construction of a lock and canal in the nineteenth century that launched its career as a Great Lakes port and industrial centre, churning out pulp, paper and steel. Actually, the American locks were always bigger and better - and indeed the Canadian locks have only just been reopened after overcoming a catalogue of engineering difficulties.

Too industrial to be pretty, the Soo rustles up a reasonable range of attractions and motels, but its real appeal is as the starting point for a splendid wilderness train ride on the Algoma Central Railway .