We always looked forward to reaching Sault Ste Marie. It was the first overnight stop on our annual vacation trips via Schreiber to Portage la Prairie. We were free from the Hospital and well into the Canadian Shield and beside Lake Superior in just one day.
Furthermore, Sault Ste Marie was a place where 'real things happened'! There was a long history of heavy industry and the necessary railway infrastructure to support it. An added bonus was shipping. From the Holiday Inn or via lock tours, one could see all kinds of ships - particularly the big ones, which only plied the upper lakes with cargoes like taconite pellets.
A ride on the Algoma Central to Agawa Canyon was often planned to get things off to a great start.
While the railway was spun off, you can still invest in the Algoma Central Corporation. Today, it operates shipping and real estate assets - the remaining businesses of the historic Algoma Central conglomerate.
If you type Sault into the search box (above), you'll come up with a few pieces on the history and features of Sault Ste Marie. They'll elaborate on some aspects of the postcards below.
After the first three postcards, you'll find a nice 1965 topographic map showing some of the city's industrial history.
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Above: Via this single lock, these ships have descended from the level of Lake Superior to the level of Lakes Huron and Michigan.
As a result of the
Chicora Incident the building of this particular canal was seen as a necessity for the national security for Canada.
Considering this particular postcard, the sender is dispatching a curt message on an international journey of 1000 km by paying one penny (27 cents in 2024 money). Compared to the probable impossibility of a satisfactory long distance telephone call between Sault Ste Marie and Dresden, New York, or even a telegram ... this is a bargain.
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This view looks upriver from the Canadian side and shows the CPR lift spans raised over the large US Soo locks. The handwritten date on the card is 1940. In that era ... cheap, plentiful coal was usually the portable fuel of choice for space heating, shipping & railway transportation, thermal power generation and industrial applications such as steel making.
A loaded Canada Steamships Lines bulk carrier is shown eastbound as it leaves the city.
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Many of these old postcard dyes do not age well and they are extremely resistant to colour correction. Nonetheless, they add contrast to this nice sharp depiction of the features of the Canadian side ...
In the right foreground: the powerhouse and the paper mill (its towering piles of pulp logs are tinted green).
In the left foreground, the Canadian canal and the CPR swing span over it.
The steel mill is in the background.
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| from: Historical Topographic Map Digitization Project. https://ocul.on.ca/topomaps/collection/ |
On this 1965 map, the international highway bridge is a recent addition (completed: 1962) to the geography of the Canadian and American cities here. With only the railway bridge crossing until the 1960s, was there much international travel?
Until the 1950s, people often travelled between cities and towns by train and most could not afford automobiles. But you'll notice that a ferry still existed for a short while after the bridge was completed - to efficiently shuttle people and vehicles cross the river.
In northern Ontario, driving on the roads in winter would have been a challenging prospect before the rapid development of heavy vehicle engines during the Second World War. Without powerful equipment to plow streets and highways, the railways offered the best all-weather transportation.
Probably most of the significant international passenger travel was done by train over the CPR's bridge.
Notice the Algoma Steel Mill was co-located with the yard and shops of the Algoma Central Railway and that the ACR also served the waterfront.
In contrast, the CPR yard was more aligned with the city's downtown before the line swept over the river and canals to the United States.
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Looking down-river with the Canadian city on the left, this gritty card provides some detail of the steel mill's layout. Massive stockpiles of coal and ore can be seen on the docks and across the property of the mill. Cranes and commodity conveyor systems can also be seen.
Raw materials could be brought in by rail - when shipping was closed for the season and especially when iron ore was being transported from the Helen Mine to the north. This mine was another property of the original Sault-area industrial conglomerate developed by Francis H Clergue (1856-1939).
However, you can observe that water-borne transportation was probably the preferred - the more economical - option for most raw materials.
On the US side, two large bulk carriers are downbound. Once clear of these locks, there will be no more changes of water level requiring locks if the ships stay on Lakes Huron and Michigan.
Now land-locked and repurposed, this building can be seen at 289 Bay Street.
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On this card, the highway bridge is literally overshadowing the CPR's railway bridge to the United States.
The pulpwood stockpiles of the paper mill can be seen near the bridge.
The ACR to the waterfront passes under the CPR in the shadow of the highway bridge.
Wow, the Kiel Canal!
Please give my regards to the Kaiser.
I had a look on Google and the Bristol Motel building can still be seen in Wawa (2024 image).
Like free promotional motel postcards ... many things have vanished into history in the last 50 years.
