After a beautiful, if overcast, drive from Empire, we
approached the Mackinac Bridge. It’s a good thing I didn’t know about it
earlier – I may have taken a cab around to the Wisconsin side! Thank God it was
good weather otherwise I hate to think about it. In case you didn’t know, I
really don’t like bridges or heights, and this bridge is five miles long, 190
feet above the water, at mid-span the water depth is 295 feet and the main
towers 552 feet above the water. There are 42 thousand miles of cable. The span
is four lanes, the inner two lanes are steel grate floor and the two outside
lanes, traditional solid pavement. At one place in the span, two lanes were
closed for maintenance. Of course, they were the outside lanes (good from my
standpoint), thus the steel grate, which grabs tires and seems to take on a
life of its own (bad from my standpoint) were the ones open for traffic. The view from the bridge was awesome and I
took some pictures, mainly to keep me busy, but it didn’t help and the photos
weren’t all that great. Suffice it to say, I really hate that bridge.
We had a reservation at another Passport America park – this
one in Kinross. It was another park that reminded me of a refitted drive-in
movie location. The folks were friendly, the place relatively clean but
tired-looking, and the restrooms so-so. We were only staying the night, so it
didn’t really matter. We arrived early, so got set up and set out to look
around. Took about a minute and a half (perhaps we didn’t know where to look?).
Sault Ste Marie was only about 15 miles
north of us, and is a port of entry for Canada, so we decided to explore. Once
there, we spent about four hours
watching ships go through the Soo Locks and reading the information in
the visitor’s center.
There are four locks, two of which - the MacArthur and the
Poe – were used while we were there. The Poe Lock is reserved for the largest
ships and is 1200 feet long, 110 feet wide, and 32 feet deep. The construction of
another lock the same size as the Poe has been approved but not funded, and
will be built where the other locks, the Davis and Sabin Locks, are today. It
is estimated that with uninterrupted construction, the new lock will take ten
years to complete. The locks are free to the ships that use them.
The locks are needed because the St. Mary’s River, which has
many rapids and connects lakes Huron and Superior, is not navigable to vessels larger
than canoes and kayaks. Prior to the locks, boats had to be carried past the
rapids. The locks move ships 21 feet up from the Lake Huron to Lake Superior
and the entire procedure takes about 45 minutes from entering the lock to
leaving it.
Shortly after we arrived, an announcement was made of the
arrival of a ship in the lock. We went outside to a two story viewing area,
right next to the lock – I could have tossed a ball into the water of the lock.
The Elwin H. Gott, a taconite ore hauler, was upbound (meaning from Lake Huron
to Lake Superior) was slowly maneuvering to enter the Poe lock, since it was
the widest and nearly the longest ship the lock system can accommodate.
(Taconite is iron ore that has been pelletized for ease of handling.) The Gott,
1004 feet long and 105 feet wide carries 74,000 tons of cargo. Remember, the
locks are 110 feet wide. While the photos may make this seem as exciting as
watching paint dry, I found it remarkable – especially watching those huge
ships moving in the small space of the locks. As a ship waits its turn to enter
the locks, two men from the ship move off the ship to land and tie off the
ship. Once it is time to move the ship inside the lock, the two men (one at the
bow and one at the stern) walk along the lock holding the rope and then they turn
the ropes over to workers at the lock. During the time in the lock, the employees
of the lock have control of the ship. Once the ship is ready to leave the lock,
control is then turned back to the deck hands.
I have a photo of Harvey’s Hammer, which has an interesting
story which I’ll try to recap here. In 1854, when the locks were being built,
they ran into a layer of hard sandstone up to 1,000 feet thick, which lies
beneath the St. Marys River. “At the end of the navigation season and with a
deadline for the lock’s completion approaching, they found a rock ledge that
on-site equipment could not move.
“Unable to bring in more machinery, Charles T. Harvey, project superintendent and a self-trained
engineer, decided to make a gravity steam punch from materials on-site. A bar
of tempered steel was used to make the one inch tip which was reinforced with
metal rings made from a melted down ship propeller.
“The tip was attached to an oak beam 30 feet long and 14
inches square with tramcar axels attached on the sides. Fully assembled, the
whole punch weighed three tons.
“Powered by a steam engine mounted on a barge, the hammer
hit the boulder on its first strike and the oak beam shattered. Crews fished
the punch from the bottom of the river, cleared boulders from the ledge, and
tried again. The punch quickly crumbled the ledge leaving pieces no larger than
a man’s hand.” [Taken from the information at the visitor’s center.]
We got back to camp about 6, and will head out first thing
in the morning for Bay Furnace, near Munising.
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