The "Soo" Locks
Here are a few shots of the famous locks in St. Mary's River in Sault Saint Marie (Michigan/Ontario). A tour boat and a small vessel from the Coast Guard are seen here close to the viewing platform.
This near lock here is named for Douglas MacArthur, General of the Army, served in WWI and II; the second is named for Orlando Poe, a United States Army officer and engineer who served in the American Civil War. I hung around long enough to see the outbound CSL St. Laurent move into the Poe. [I later looked up that this ship was headed for Montreal; it's 739 feet 10 inches in length.]
The big news around here is that long-sought funding has been procured to build a new lock. The MacArthur Lock is rather short, by today's standards, while the Poe is longer at 1,200 feet. It's long enough for the largest ships that ply the Great Lakes, but it is the only one. If something goes wrong with the Poe, shipping in the Great Lakes would be majorly impaired (more here).
Three images by Richard Koenig; taken July 27th 2023.
