Day 16 -- All day in Sault Ste. Marie -- No land miles

Today was our cruise day on the Saint Mary river between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. We almost went yesterday late afternoon, but in the end the forbidding skies decided us against going out on the water. It was a good thing, as almost immediately after we told the ticket agent we'd go in the morning, the skies opened up and rain began to fall.

But today was different. When we got up and looked outside, we saw what we normally see in Nevada: blue skies and fluffy clouds and not a hint of bad weather. Okay, we thought, but will the good weather hold while we had breakfast, broke camp, then drove a mile down to the embarkation point? Amazingly it did! Not only was the sun still shining when we finished breakfast, it was still shining when we arrived to buy our tickets. There was only one problem: we pulled up almost simultaneously with two buses full of the senior citizens. Oh my God, I thought, as we hustled to lock up the rig and practically run to the ticket office. Those walker-bound folks will buy up every single ticket and we'll be stuck waiting for the next voyage.

Fate intervened, thank goodness, and the semi-ambulatory seniors were all signed up on a different company's boat. The ticket agent had lots of tickets for our intended voyage. Once our purchase was accomplished, we found a shortish line for OUR boat which would turned out to be only lightly loaded. In fact, the boat was so lightly loaded that we could have sat on the top deck, on the bottom deck, or anywhere in between and would not have excited any comment. Only when we got ready to enter the locks and lots of people crowded toward the bow were places to stand at a premium.

Our tiny tour boat's intended voyage was down to the American Locks of Saint Mary's River that connects, as I said, Lakes Superior and Huron. Keeping in mind that two of the four locks are not used, as they are slated for a revamp soon, we soon discovered that ship traffic occupied the other two locks, which made it impossible for us to proceed. So, the captain took us on a small voyage downriver to see what we could see.

It was a fine morning, so just about anything looked interesting from the rock-steady deck of the Nokomis as we first motored down the Canadian side of the river, then returned on the American side. I was especially interested in a Canadian museum I could see from the boat that proclaimed to be devoted to "Bush Planes." Now that would be a museum I'd get a kick out of and made a metal note to revisit Canada one day and see it. We also saw a small fleet of tugboats owned by the Purvis Company that works extensively in the Saint Mary River shipping channel

On the American side, as we wheeled about and came back upriver, we saw a fantastic display of "floating dry-dock equipment" A floating dry dock, basically a large barge, has the ability to submerge in the river shallows much as a submarine would submerge, then allow a boat to enter above it. Once the boat to be dry-docked is in place atop the barge, the floating dry dock blows it's ballast tanks and pops to the surface, thus cradling the dry-docked boat and raising it out of the water.

The most awesome historical building we saw on our small voyage downriver was the Edison Sault Ste. Marie Electric generating plant. The plant was built in 1902 using materials originally dredged from the American Locks. The absolutely magnificent stonework was done, according to our Captain, by none other than Italian stone masons. If memory serves, there is a canal that feeds the generating station, water from which drives twenty-seven turbines. Local fishermen, several of whom we saw, propel their boats right up to the generating station's outflow arches and do their fishing. I guess it must be pretty good there.

One of the boats we saw as we beat back upriver was a supply boat which spends it life ferrying food and other supplies to passing freighters so they don't have to stop. The freighters keep steaming up and down-river and the supply boat just pulls alongside and transfers everything the crew is going to need for the next couple of weeks.

By this time the skipper expected the locks to be free of shipping, but such was not the case. Since we could not get through the American locks, the Captain took us slightly north to enter the Canadian locks. Though we didn't realize it at the time, this was actually a bonus. The Canadian locks are smaller and more intimate. We pulled into the lock and an additional tour boat pulled in behind us. Once the two boats were firmly tied to the bollards above us on the lock side, water began to pour into the lock cavity and slowly raise the two boats. Almost before we knew it, the two tour boats had risen twenty-one fee and were now set to enter Lake Superior.

Our destination once we had cleared the Canadian lock was Algoma Steel, though none of us knew it. Soon we were approaching a gigantic industrial operation that occupied the entire horizon. Only then did the cruise ship Captain begin to tell us a little about what we were seeing off the starboard bow. I've used Wikipedia to share a little of what we heard over the intercom: "Construction of the Algoma Steelworks started in February, 1901. On February 18, 1902 the first Bessemer converter was put in operation using pig iron made from the Helen mine, owned by Algoma. The first rails were produced by the complex in May 1902. However, blast furnaces for pig iron manufacture were not completed at the site until 1904. Unlike most other steel producers, Algoma had no access to local coal, forcing it to import coal and coke from the United States. The Bessemer process was felt to produce steel that was well-suited to manufacture of rails, which was the Algoma complex's primary product for the first two decades of its existence."

During the First World War, Algoma made steel for artillery shells but after the war continued to rely on rail production. The necessity of importing ore and coal from the United States because of the low quality of Canadian iron ore, as well as the absentee owners' greater interest in annual dividends than building a viable industrial complex, held back Algoma during the 1920s. At the height of the Great Depression, the company was insolvent and in receivership until Sir James Dunn gained control in 1935 and restored it to profitability. Dunn's policy of never paying a dividend to stockholders, coupled with extensive modernization and expansion during the Second World War, and an extended period of steel demand up until the mid-1950s, allowed Algoma to expand and become a more balanced steel producer.

Our Captain on the tour boat told us over the intercom that 90% of the steel produced for the war effort in World War II came through the "Soo Locks" on the Saint Mary River. I can tell you that I don't think I've ever been as close to a steel-producing plant as we came today. We were able to see the various components for the process, which are coal, Taconite, and two types of limestone.

From Quora I learned that: "Taconite is a very low-grade iron ore, containing only about 15% Fe. However, assuming that you wanted to use it to make steel, here’s how I would do it. A mix of high-volatile, medium volatile and low-volatile coal (volatile meaning the relative content of xylene, toluene, butadiene and other aromatic hydrocarbons) is coked (meaning heated without air) for 17 or 18 hours to drive off the volatiles. The result is called “coke” and it consists of carbon and about 9% to 12% ash."

"The coke is dumped into a blast furnace, together with iron ore pellets – in this case, Taconite pellets – and some limestone as flux (flux to form slag, containing the impurities), and hot air is blown in to burn the coke and also to use it to reduce the iron ore pellets to Fe plus CO and CO2. The result is liquid iron, tapped from the blast furnace at approximately 1400C. This iron contains 4.2 wt% carbon, because that’s the saturation level for carbon in iron."

"This molten iron is taken to a steelmaking furnace, where it is dumped into a furnace containing 15% to 25% ferrous scrap (meaning 15% to 25% of the total metallic charge is ferrous scrap). Oxygen is then blown into the liquid iron at high velocity, to reduce the carbon content from 4.2% to 0.10% -- 1.0% (sometimes slightly higher) by removing carbon as CO (90%) and CO2 (10%). The result is now called steel. Manganese Mn and other alloying elements such as Mo, Cr, Si, Ni, etc., are added, according to the grade of steel being produced."

"Once the steel is cast from the furnace, it is then hot rolled to the desired shape – flat rolled or shapes (beams, bars, etc.). Tempering, annealing, and other heat-treating processes are applied after the steel is hot rolled."

To emphasis the weight of the steel the Algoma plant was producing, we passed a barge loaded with 30 rolls of steel, each one weighing in at roughly 32,000 lbs. The steel was so heavy that should the company want to send the steel rolls by 18-wheeler, only TWO rolls could be carried at one time. Obviously, the barge was a more effective way to send the product.

As the Captain ordered our little tour boat to come about and we left the steel plant behind us, I couldn't help but marvel at the strength and complexity of the world's industry. This particular company was Canadian, but I'm sure that American plants, many of which are enjoying a resurgence in business because of our Government's efforts to re-balance tariffs on imported steel, are using much the same process to produce their product.

As our last part of our cruise was drawing to a close, we could see that the huge freighter that had been transiting the American lock had now cleared, and we were free (along with our sister tour boat trailing behind us) to enter the lock and go back downriver toward our embarkation point. Although everything seems like it's happening in slow motion when you transit a lock, it is nevertheless a breathtaking and moving experience to see the effortless change in elevation of your craft.

For me, the morning was all about the wonderful blue skies, the billowing clouds, and the simply stunning views of the many and various points of interest that we passed. There's seldom anything you can shoot with a camera that comes close to the thrill of photographing boats upon the water. So often they are painted brilliant colors of red, white, orange, green, and blue that stand out marvelously against the blue of the sky and the deep blue of the water.

In addition, a special thanks goes out to a special Ms Henderson of 100 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, a fellow photographer, who spent many minutes in photographic banter with me, and later agreed to photograph Concetta and me to memorialize our cruise in Sault Ste. Marie. Most times, if you can engage the locals or even other tourists as you travel the highways and byways of this country, you will enjoy your experience all the more.

And so our two-day visit to Sault Ste. Marie is coming to an end. Tomorrow we hope to visit a couple of small local attractions since we can't check into our next camp, which is a mere sixty some odd miles from here, until after lunch. Hopefully we can wile away the morning right here, then head south on Interstate 75, have lunch somewhere in the country, then roll into our next camp in the early afternoon.

So that's it for now. The Happy Wanderers were REALLY happy today with our seagoing adventure. And when you venture out on the two-lanes in search of great destinations of your own, we wish you happy travels and exciting adventures.

Just a note on our camp here on the edge of the Saint Mary River which connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. We chose this camp because it advertised riverside RV spaces. Now that we've been here two days, we can see that lots of people come here for extended periods just to sit and watch the passing ships. If the light is just right, I suspect that the ship-watching can become rather addictive. Personally, I'd probably grow tired rather quickly of watching freighters glide slowly by. Now if they were warships, that might be different. But just to show you what's possible when shooting boats, at right is the two rather derelict craft that are sitting just fifty feet out our RV door. They haven't moved an inch, but they're still fun to enjoy!