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Our brother in law Ron arrives late Saturday night after a long journey from Guelph, Ontario- almost 800 kms! We surprise him on Sunday morning with a ticket to the Green Bay Packers football game including a bus ticket which picks him up just down the road. We know he’s a big fan and has never been to one of their games. Its the Packers home opener and with attendance upwards of 80,000, its a big day.
The next morning we head off in the mist following Lake Michigan, we head north and cross over into the state of Michigan. Our first night we stop at Manistique (B) right on the lake and the next morning, we wake up to ‘pea soup’ – lots of fog!
We head toward Whitefish Point at the northeastern tip of Michigan (D) to visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck museum. Whitefish Point sits on Lake Superior, the largest, deepest and coldest of the Great Lakes with its shoreline still mainly uninhabited. Lake Superior has haunted sailors from the beginning of time, and with more than 200 shipwrecks lying in the immediate vicinity, the area is known as the ‘Graveyard of the Great Lakes’. Of course, one of the most well known shipwrecks was made famous by Gordon Lightfoot with his song ‘the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’.
‘The legend lives on from the Chippewa (Chippewa is an American Indian tribe found in Northern States) on down, of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee (from the Ojibwe Indians as a reference to the ‘big sea’ or ‘huge water’ referring to Lake Superior). The lake it is said never gives up her dead, when the skies of November turn gloomy’
Our next stop is Sault Ste Marie, Michigan (E) to visit the Soo Locks. The campsite at Soo Locks is pretty cool as it sits right on the channel and you can watch the ships coming and going.
The Soo Locks form part of the Great Lakes waterway and was an engineering marvel of the mid 1800’s. Before the canals and locks were built, rapids dropping 7 meters in less than a mile stopped all traffic. The build enabled navigation between the North American Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and beyond.
The locks use gravity to raise or lower boats between the different elevations of the lakes with over 22 million gallons of water moving each time a boat is raised or lowered. At Soo Lock, in the 10 month season, there are over 7000 passages allowing vessels to quickly pass between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. With approximately 80 million tons of cargo each year, it is the busiest lock system in the world with iron ore being the most valuable cargo followed by coal. Its a fascinating sight as we were able watch a big cargo ship being raised up in the lock allowing passage from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan.
We continue our slow journey back to Guelph and stop the night at Spanish, Ontario (F). Our campsite is right on the lake and so, ‘master’ fisherman Ron catches our dinner!
A lunch stop at Penetanguishene in the Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron brings us close to our final destination. With our stop that night in the small town of Meaford (H), with its lovely marina and in town, the colourful autumn decorations.
We now have a week back in Guelph with family. Watch this space for a blog on our bikes, the gear we carried and how we packed everything on the bike – only for those that are interested!