Day 40 - Saturday, August 3 - Canada

 Today we headed to Canada to experience the Saturday Farmers Market in Sault Ste Marie Ontario and to visit the Bushplane Museum. From the Bay Mills Casino Campground it is about a 20 mile, 25 minute, drive to get to the bridge into Canada.

The channel on the right goes to the Poe & MacArthur locks, both of which are active. The channel on the left goes to the construction site for the new lock that is supposed to open in 2030.

The MacArthur lock, opened in 1943, is on the right. it is 800' long, 80' wide and 29.5' deep. A freighter is exiting the Poe lock, on the left. The Poe lock, rebuilt in 1968, is 1,200' long, 110' wide and 32' deep. 

On the left is the "hole" for the new lock.

Thirteen bulk freighters that operate on the Great Lakes are 1,000' long, or slightly longer. At 1013.5' long the Paul R Tregurtha is the longest of them. All of them are 105' wide. The Poe lock can handle freighters carrying 70,000 tons of cargo. During the 2001 shipping season the Paul R Tregurtha carried over 3 million tons of cargo through the Soo Locks.

It took us maybe 15 minutes to get through the line for paying the $4.20 toll to cross the bridge and another 20 minutes in line at the Canadian check point. We showed our passports and said we were going to the Market and the Bush Plane Museum. On the way back the wait at the US checkpoint and toll station were about the same.

Just past the Canadian customs checkpoint, on the way in, there is a currency exchange place. We treaded $60 (US) for $76.70 (Canadian).

The Market was disappointing. I took the photo below from a mezzanine area that had some tables on it, maybe an eating area. There just wasn't much there.

There were some food stands just outside the main entrance. This seemed like an odd combination of offerings.

Then it was on to the Bushplane Museum.

The back side, facing the river. I was sure that there used to be a ramp that allowed planes to taxi up out of the water onto this concrete parking area, but it isn't there now.

Looking across the river to the US.

Below is a blow up of a section of the above photo. This is the Soo Locks campground where we love to stay.

Just inside the door is this "campsite".

There were lots of float planes on display. This is one of the few that was set up for landing on snow.

I guess it was worth the $16 ticket price for a senior, and I'm glad I finally went, but I sure didn't find it interesting enough to ever go back.

We looked for restaurants on the Google Maps app and didn't see anything appealing, so once we were back in the US we stopped for lunch at the Chinese buffet where we had eaten earlier this week. We left the campground around 10AM and were back by 2PM.

Back at the campground I did a walkabout.

Some creative "tent work" added a lot of usable space around this camper.

A matching pair of Dot cars, at a non-matching set of Class C campers.

We did manage to fit in getting a pizza from the ice cream & pizza place down the street. It was as good as we remembered.

Tomorrow we head west.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.