Soo Locks

This may be one of the coolest things Ice seen. Its just amazing watching the big ships move through the lock. There's a a nice viewing platform. A lovely park. And the visitor center is very interesting. Definitely want to come back, 2 hours just isn't enough to enjoy the area and I want to take the boat tour.

This was a great experience. The park does not allow any weapons! Leave your pocket knives in the car. Public restroom. The locks are very interesting. My family and 2 other families traveling had a great time. The ice-cream right across the street is amazing and very affordable. Walking strawberries are great but expensive.

The Soo Locks are a set of parallel locks, operated and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and they enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. The locks are located on the St. Marys River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan and the Canadian province of Ontario. They bypass the rapids of the river, where the water falls 21 ft (6.4 m). The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year. The Soo Locks has a nice visitor center, which provides historical information, as well as current workload and performance statistics. It's well worth spending 25 minutes visiting all the exhibits. A three-level observation deck allows visitors a close-up of the locks in operation.

Our first experience going through locks. The crew was so informative. I had no idea there were so many locks in the US even after seeing the Panama Canal earlier this year. This is smaller scale but equally vital to commerce and industry. Our Captain took us up the Canada side and back (down) on the US side. We'll visit again and do this tour again.

Fascinating experience. You float through a lock upstream, rising 22', tour the St Mary's River a bit, and then head back through a Canadian lock. No passport required. We rode on the Original Soo Locks Boat Tours. Well worth the price!

Was a amazing experience, we got there on a busy day and loved seeing so many ships come thru and 3 - 1000 footers in one day. Waiting to see when the 3rd lock gets done. Definitely will be going back once it's done.

Definitely worth the trip. Watched three boats go through on a rainy afternoon. The viewing platform (under roof) is awesome and the historical visitor’s center has great info and visuals to view. Staff was friendly, professional, knowledgeable, and engaging.

This was a wonderful experience! We took the ferry through the locks on the US side and they gave us a history and tour of The Superior and The Huron then came back through the Canadian side. I did not expect it to be so long(approx. 2 hours) and always carry a jacket! Saunt St. Marie is a beautiful quaint town and has lots of little shops and some really good places to eat!

Will check your bags for weapons or anything potentially bad. One large boat from Montreal Canada slowly made its way through. The other boys on the other side moved much slower. One out and another two Soo Lock tour boats headed out the other end. Cool to watch the lock gates open and close and watch the water line rise against the concrete wall.

Great viewing deck that's sheltered from the elements. There are two levels to watch, which gave enough space so there wasn't crowding. There is a schedule in the visitors center that shows what came through, as well as what's coming up...ex: ship____at 2pm. It's definitely worth a stop and look.

We love the locks. It's such a fascinating place and to watch all these huge ships come in is just quite amazing. This is definitely a thing to do when in this area. You just walk through the gates, they do have a bag check there, and go up to the observation deck. The welcome center has the arrival times of the boats for your convenience. They also have shopping across the street while you wait for the boats to arrive. We will keep coming to this place again and again.

The canal is just fascinating. To think about the issues involved in making commerce happening from Lake Superior to Lake Erie is amazing. The technology isn't complicated here but it still is interesting. It's fun waiting on the ships to come and go. The facility does a nice job and presenting information and the ships schedules. The overlook is nice even in the wind and rain. Bring the family!

FREE ADMISSION! Not just a historical site, but an active, working facility that you can actually watch from a two-story observation deck. There's significant construction in progress to replace Locks 3 and 4 with a super-lock around 2027. Highly recommend a boat tour that takes you through the locks. See my review of Original Soo Locks Boat Tours.

This review is a bit unfair since a lot of the main items (museum, another building, and the observation building) were closed due to covid. We walked around a nice park and checked out the locks. There are some anchors and propellers on display and you can see the locks fill and discharge if you get there at the right time and stand at the bottom. If I return, I will try the boat tours that take you through the locks because the view from just walking around is limited. Parking is metered, but inexpensive. When you are done, get some food and souvenirs across the street.

This attraction is adjacent to a huge park, which shares its name. It also has a pretty cool Museum. In the museum you can see historic photos, check what time vessels are arriving at the Locks, learn how the locks work, and see interactive movies. All of this is free. There is plenty of metered street parking in the are and you have to go through a light security checkpoint before you can enter the park and go see the Locks. The park is very tranquil and calm. The Locks have a two level viewing stand that gives you an almost perfect view of vessels going through the Locks. Expect to be there a while though. It takes a bit of time for the vessels to go through the Locks. My vessel was scheduled to come through at 815 and I ended up leaving before it was completely through at 930. The engineering of the Locks is a marvel. It is amazing how they work. Watching vessels go through the Locks is something you should see at least once, but is not very breathtaking.

We drove all the way up north to Sault Ste. Marie to check out Soo Locks (sometimes spelled Sault Locks) which are a set of parallel locks, operated and maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, that enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. They bypass the rapids of the river, where the water falls 21 feet. We got lucky since when we were there, two tour boats came by so we were able to witness how the locks worked. After that we stopped by the visitor center where there was a ton of information and interesting facts about the history of Soo Locks. I would recommend visiting this place if you happen to be in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

People have been watching the boats go by here for over two hundred years. We were no different from them and wanted to do the same. We wanted to see all that water push boats up and through the locks. I love water. And boats. This was all very neat to see, and it was absolutely free. Can't beat that! The locks can be visited year-round, but the visitor center is only open from Mother's Day until mid October. Lucky for us, we made it here in September and not only got to see the locks in action, but also got a chance to visit the visitor center and learn about the history. There is a nice park that accompanies the locks and a two-story viewing tower. The place is clean inside and out, and the staff were all friendly and informative. It's free to the public thanks to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Great Lakes. We had a nice time for the short time we visited and were glad that we came.

Very interesting. The day we went we seen two of the largest ships come into the locks.

We were doing a lake Michigan circle tour drive and just on a dime decided to go up north to the border and I learned about the Soo locks, very interesting history and cute little town! The COVIDness of the time shut down the viewing area and there were not any ships going through the time we were there, but we got the idea about how things worked from reading the educational signs and walking around the area. Nice little park to sit and have lunch as well. Definitely worth a diversion up north if you are in the area.

Pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the process of one end of the canal water going down while the other end of the canal water going up. It doesn't seem at first glance that it would be interesting, but I found it FASCINATING how quickly the whole process was completed. I had taken pictures of the process, but a video would have been more effective. LOL. If you are here and want to make a pit stop to watch or go into the visitor center, it's well worth it. The only con is I'm a short person and getting a spot in the front in the ultimate viewing area is VERY difficult. If you can get that, it's worth the time. Then you can walk to many choices for coffee, fudge, restaurants, breweries, and winery. This is a VERY walkable area.

Very cool and informative. You can watch the large ships be lifted in the water "elevator" as they pass through the locks. Learning about this necessary but often overlooked task brought a lot into perspective.

Very cool. Plenty of metered parking around the park. However I showed up after six so parking was free. Entrance to the park and viewing platform is free. When I got there they had just lowered a large freighter and was able to see as it exited the lock from West to east. To the east there was another freighter waiting. The second freighter entered the lock (things don't happen very fast) and we saw it being raised. The whole thing took a little over an hour.

The Soo Locks are easy to see and you are right up close. They have a great multi-level platform for viewing a visitor center and it's fairly easy to get in and out through security. One of the largest boats was going through when we were there. Amazing how much commerce goes through the Locks in a year. There is a tour if you want to whole shebang. Downtown area in Sault Ste Marie is nice for walking and small shops.

Cool area if you can catch a boat going through the locks! Make sure you don't have a pocket knife on you they will make you take it Bach to your car.

The first time I saw the Soo Locks I was probably in elementary school and we came up here on a trip with my parents, probably about the time the Mackinac Bridge was built. It was a memorable vacation. I left for college in California in 1966 and in 1969 I came back with my Los Angeles area roommate and we drove up here so I could show her how beautiful Michigan is. We went all the way up to Canada so I saw the Soo Locks again that trip. I didn't see them again until 2007 when I came back for a high school reunion in Livonia and took a trip around Michigan in a rental car which took me all the way up to Canada again. I enjoyed the trip so much that when I came back in 2011 and 2016 I have made similar trips taking different routes but always stopping by the Locks. The last couple of trips have been in October when it's been quite chilly and rainy but the Locks are fascinating to watch any time of the year. I highly recommend including them in any trip you make to Michigan. Even if you only intended to go as far as the Mackinac Bridge it's only a couple more hours to come up to the locks. If you have time to take an alternate route instead of the freeway some of the roads surrounding the area are beautiful as well. I always make sure I stop by Tahquamenon Falls on the way back also.

Our family loves the Soo Locks!! It's such a beautiful park, very well-kept. I appreciate how there are always improvements from year to year, as we visit every year! The museum is one we always go to and the volunteers are so knowledgeable and have a passion for history. The visitors center is very informational and they do a great job at updating the schedule hotline for freighters. Do yourself a favor and take the Soo Locks Boat Tour! You get to experience the locks first hand and it's so fun!!!!

Short sweet and to the point awesome trip very good crew on board that gave us a ton of great info and the trip was everything we could want but 1 thing. They don't take credit card so we had a couple small purchases on the boat would have spent more but couldn't cause of this. Even though the bummer of credit cards not being able to be used on the boat still some decent deals in both gift shops. I got a coat and my wife and daughter got hoodies good thing the stores took credit card.