Lake Superior's Northern Rim, The Soo Locks, and Mackinaw City

We left Grand Portage and crossed the border. We were slightly over our allowance on beer, wine, and liquor, but the immigration officer really made a big deal about us having a firearm on board. We assured

Lake Superior shot

him that we knew we couldn’t bring firearms into Canada, and he let us cross. We drove along the shore of Lake Superior eventually arriving at Nipigon, Ont. Nipigon is really a small community (pop. 1631), but it is at the crossroads of two major Canadian highways, so we had 5 or 6 local motels to choose from. We chose the Beaver Motel and were able (we were the first ones in) to get a recently updated room with a kitchenette and all the amenities.

We watched a couple of Canadian movies and turned into bed for the night.

Another Superior view

Panorama near the Michigan border

Really chilly at Old Sister Bay

We arose the next morning, filled the car with gas and purchased a couple of coffees and a bran muffin for breakfast. We took off along Queen’s Highway 17 which would take us along the northern rim of Lake Superior. The first part of our trip was great and offered very scenic views of the lake and the numerous near-shore islands. But after the first 50 miles or so the route shifted more inland and we got few glimpses of the lake shore. The scenery was still beautiful, but just not what we had imagined. The route took us through some interesting places and small communities including White River, Ont. where Whinnie the Pooh got his start. We came upon a large park system with many branches that could be accessed. We had lunch at Old Sister Bay in the park and went out to

A rest stop with a waterfall (?)

view the beaches of Lake Superior. The only problem was we were the only people on this beach and the temperatures were in the 50’s. We arrived at Sault Ste. Marie and decided to visit the Soo Locks.

Ore ship locking into Superior

After passing the security check, we got to view the locks just as an ore ship was locking through. We watched the ore ship and another lock tour ship lock into Lake Superior, then we headed out to our motel for the night.

We left Sault Ste. Marie the next morning and headed for Mackinaw City, only 48 miles away along I-75.We encountered a detour about midway and decided to take a back

Goin' up!

road down to Lake Huron and then over to Mackinaw City. We arrived at Cedarville in Michigan’s U.P. and traveled Route 134 east towards Drummond Island to see what this route had to offer. Just a few miles from Cedarville we exited the highway and took a road that led us to some magnificent resort properties on the Lake Huron lakeshore. It was fabulous. We followed the highway all the way to DeTour, MI where the road ended at a ferry terminal that would take you over to Drummond Island. It was raining by now so we chose not to extend our drive to the island. We toured DeTour (we took de tour!) and felt that this area would be a great place to return to for a future summer visit as it seemed to have an awful lot to offer. We returned to St. Ignace because Jane wanted to see the historic district. It was still raining and we considered staying there for the night, but decided to cross the big bridge to Mackinaw City. The plan was to go over to Mackinac Island the next day. We found a motel within walking distance of the shopping area so Jane could do her shopping. We walked the shopping district, made a few purchases, and headed back to our motel for the evening.

USACE office and lock

We arose to a blanket of fog the next morning that was so thick and soupy, we predicted that it wouldn’t burn off until very late in the morning. Although we had very much wanted to go to Mackinac Island, we decided that the conditions and the time frame weren’t going to let us have a good visit. We had been there before, so we decided to skip the island and put in a day’s driving toward our Arkansas destination. We made it to Kalamazoo, MI, driving back roads we hadn’t been on before just to see some different scenery. After spending the night in Kalamazoo, we headed out the next morning and made it through Indiana and Illinois and called it a day just across the Missouri border in Sikeston.