Today was our day to stay in Sault Ste. Marie and do tourist stuff, including the boat ride we scheduled yesterday.  There are three tour companies – we rode the smaller-but-tries-harder option – Miss Marie Sault Lock Tour and it was excellent.  Drove Polo to the dock loaded with our eBikes, and got in the ship for a tour out through the Canadian locks, around the Algoma Steel Plant, then back through the larger American locks.  We learned that over 4 Billion Dollars of our taxpayer money is going into replacing two of the American locks with a newer one – built by the US Army Corps of Engineers and scheduled to be completed in 2030.  However, there is no fee for ships – typically loaded with iron ore from Duluth – to go through the locks.  The logic, apparently, is that it has always been that way.  Go figure.

We then got the bikes out, and rode to lunch in downtown Sault Ste. Marie.  The food was very good, but for a Friday there seemed to be almost no one downtown eating at the many restaurants.

Then we took the bikes for a short ride to the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre – and Insectarium .  The bushplane museum had several interesting planes – only some of which were bushplanes and about a third were seaplanes or amphibious.  However, we were there while a group of child aid workers were having a very noisy outing and team-building event, which made it hard to hear some of the exhibits.

While there was no apparent connection between airplanes and insects, we very much enjoyed the insectarium and the very friendly docents and curator.

After the Bushplane Museum we went back to the Canadian locks and nearby island to tour on our bikes.  We met very nice staff members, who told us where we could ride our bikes and where the paths were flooded.  At Scott’s insistence we followed their advice and got lots of good pictures of the locks and bridges.

Then we went back to Khan for dinner, then bed before tomorrow’s trip to North Bay, ON.