Sault Ste Marie — “the Soo” to everyone who lives there — sits at the rapids where Lake Superior pours into the lower Great Lakes, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America. For thousands of years it was a gathering place for Indigenous peoples drawn by the whitefish in the rapids; today it is a friendly northern city best known as the departure point for one of Canada’s great scenic train journeys, into the Group of Seven country of the Agawa Canyon. It is a working town on the US border with a strong sense of its own history, and it makes an excellent base for the spectacular wilderness of the Algoma region.
We stayed in Sault Set Marie on a road trip from Boston to San Francisco. It sits on the border with the USA and was the end point in our trip around the northern rim of Lake Superior.
A Little Background
The place is Baawating — “the place of the rapids” — in Ojibwe, and it was one of the most important gathering grounds for the Anishinaabe and other Indigenous peoples of the upper Great Lakes, who fished the rapids for whitefish and met here to trade for countless generations. It remains a deeply significant Ojibwe place.
French missionaries and fur traders arrived in the seventeenth century — the name Sault Ste Marie, “the rapids of St Mary”, dates from that era, making it one of the oldest European place names in the interior of the continent. The rapids that gave the town its purpose also made it a bottleneck for shipping between the lakes, solved by the building of the Soo Locks on both the American and Canadian sides; the Canadian lock, completed in 1895, was the longest in the world at the time and the first to run on electricity. The twin cities of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario and Sault Ste Marie, Michigan still face each other across the river and the international border.
What to See and Do
The signature experience is the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, a full-day rail journey north from the city into a wilderness of forests, lakes, and waterfalls that can only be reached by rail. The train travels some 180 kilometres into the Agawa Canyon, where you have a couple of hours to walk the trails and lookouts before the return — the landscape that inspired the Group of Seven painters, and at its most spectacular during the autumn colours of late September and early October, when it is also busiest. It departs early from the city station; book ahead.
In the city itself, the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre occupies the historic hangar of the Ontario Provincial Air Service and houses more than two dozen restored bushplanes, telling the story of the aircraft that opened up and protected the north — an unexpectedly absorbing museum. The Sault Ste Marie Canal National Historic Site, with its historic lock, is worth a visit, and you can take a boat tour through the working locks alongside the giant lake freighters. The waterfront boardwalk and the wider Algoma region — Lake Superior’s wild northern shore — are the reason many people linger.
Getting There
Sault Ste Marie has a regional airport with flights to Toronto, but most visitors arrive by road — it is a long but scenic drive (around eight hours from Toronto), often combined with a wider northern Ontario trip. The city sits on the Trans-Canada Highway and at the international bridge to Michigan. A car is the practical way to reach it and to explore the Algoma country around it.
Weather
The Soo has a cold continental climate strongly influenced by Lake Superior, which keeps autumns mild and brings heavy winter snow. Summer (June–September) is warm and the main visiting season; late September into early October is prime time for the Agawa Canyon train, when the foliage peaks. Winters are long and very snowy. Aim for late summer and early autumn, especially if the train is your goal.
The Bottom Line
Mid-range hotels run roughly CAD$130–220 a night. A full day goes to the Agawa Canyon train; add a day for the Bushplane Centre, the locks, and the waterfront. Sault Ste Marie is a northern town with deep roots and one genuinely world-class experience on its doorstep — time your visit for the autumn colours if you possibly can.