VACATION AT MACKINAC PART II

Mackinac Island is the place to go when you visit the Straits of Mackinac, but the hubs and I prefer to head across the Big Mac Bridge to Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks. Guess I am just a Boatnerd at heart and watching a 1000 ft. freighter, that's 104 ft wide inch its way through the 110 ft wide Poe Lock, fascinates me. This year we planned our visit for the annual Engineers Day on June 28th when the locks were open to the public. It was a great time and I took hundreds of photos, but these two videos give the best impression of the Locks. Go full screen. 

American Spirit entering the Soo Locks

Edwin H Gott vs The Alpena

The footprints of the early French and the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, are all over the Straits of Mackinac and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. One of their most famous is Fr. Jacques Marquette, missionary, explorer, and mapmaker. He founded missions to the native Americans at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668 and another at St. Ignace in 1671. That was before he decided to make the 3000 mile canoe trip to explore Wisconsin, Illinois and the Mississippi River as far south as Arkansas. He died on the return trip in 1675. His grave is in St. Ignace. Wish I'd known that. Will have to visit his grave on my next trip to the Straits. I did visit the Fr. Marquette Memorial though. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Marquette

Thanks to Bobak Ha'Eri for this photo of Fr. Marquette's grave.

A map of Fr. Marquette's journeys is embedded in the floor of the memorial.

To learn more about the good Father here's a great bio link. 

Fr. Jacques Marquette, Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Sketch from Wikimedia Commons

We headed home the next day. Will post photos of the Forty Mile Point Lighthouse near Rogers City, (a pleasant surprise) next time. But I can't end any post about Mackinac without a mention of its most famous product, Mackinac Island Fudge.

It wouldn't be Mackinac without a little something from The Mackinac Fudge Shop

I bought a block of the Mint Chocolate chip, just to take a photo of it for this blogpost. But by the time I found my camera the entire block had disappeared, nothing left but the wrapper??? Honestly... I have no idea where that delicious fudge might have disappeared to. So I posted the link above for you Fudgies.

Vivian : )

GREAT LAKES WEBCAMS

I didn't have to leave the comfort of my home to get these great photos. Recently discovered webcams located at my favorite places around Michigan and thought I'd share them with any Great Lakes and Boat Nerds out there. I grabbed these from the Dossin Great Lakes Museum webcam on Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River. 

Captured this freighter as it passed Belle Isle

The photo below came from the Soo Locks webcam in Sault Ste. Marie, located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

https://webcam.crrel.usace.army.mil/soo/

Then there's the Mackinac Bridge Webcam.

MDOT gave us this great shot of the Mackinac Bridge 

And we can thank http://ais.boatnerd.com/ for this Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping Online and Vessel Passage Map.

Enjoy,

Vivian :)

WHY DO YOU THINK THEY'RE CALLED "GREAT" LAKES? Part One, Superior

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes

These images of the five Great Lakes—(left to right) Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario—show ice beginning to build up around the shores of each of the lakes, with snow on the ground across virtually the entire scene. This image is made from observations by the Terra MODIS instrument on January 27, 2005.  

The Oxford American Dictionaries defines the word "lake" as a large body of water surrounded by land. Obviously the Oxfords have never been to Michigan. I mean there's large bodies of water surrounded by land ... and then there's sweet water seas, as the early French called the Great Lakes. 

The two peninsulas of Michigan, surrounded on three sides by Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, give the state more coastline than any other in the US, except Alaska.

The Great Lakes system begins with Lake Superior in the far North. Fifty three rivers feed its 31,700 sq. miles of surface water, the combined area of several small US states. Beginning in Duluth Minnesota, Superior ends 350 miles east, at the St. Mary's River, and the City of Sault Ste. Marie MI, where the Soo Locks control more than a twenty foot drop into Lake Huron.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/superior/superiorfacts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tributaries_of_the_Great_Lakes
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/area.shtml

Split Rock Lighthouse, Silver Bay, Minnesota

Duluth Minnesota, photo by Jakes18

Ice on North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota taken by Jeff Gunderson http://epa.gov/greatlakes/image/vbig/495.jpg

December, 1999, the motor vessel Oglebay Norton passes safely through the St. Marys River after Coast Guard icebreakers did their job earlier on the river  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Marys_River_winter.jpg  

A one thousand foot freighter inches into one of the Soo Locks

Since the French sailing ship Le Griffon, vanished in Lake Michigan in 1679, to the seven hundred foot freighter, Edmond Fitzgerald, lost during a storm on Superior in 1975, there are almost five thousand shipwrecks lying at the bottom of the Great Lakes. Shipwreck tours and museums abound in Michigan. 

Just imagine taking on a lake the size of Superior in a canoe, as the early French explorers did.               

http://www.michmarkers.com/startup.asp?startpage=S0121.htm

Vivian