Just yesterday, we visited the largest city in the Upper Peninsula, Marquette, today we would be visiting the second largest Sault Ste Marie and her identical twin sister across the St. Marie’s river Sault Ste Marie, Ontario Canada. With a population of 14,400 on the U.S. side, her sister across the river is substantially larger at around 73,300 and is the third largest city in the geopolitical region of northern Ontario. As a settlement at large, Sault Ste. Marie was first explored by the catholic missionaries, Fathers Joques and Raymbault of Saint Marie Mission in 1641, giving it her name Sault Ste. Marie “rapids of st. Mary.” A permanent mission was later established in 1668 by Fathers Dablon and Jacques Marquette and the town grew out of the mission and newly founded fur trade, making the American city the oldest in the geopolitical region known as the Midwest.
Born of the New France Territory, she would fall into British hands in 1763 with the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War and continue to be heavily contested after the American Revolutionary War. It would not be until 1814 in the wake of the war of 1812 that a joint U.S.-U.K. commission would set the boundaries of the modern border. It would cut a community in half that for almost 200 years enjoyed free range in the growing settlement. The U.S. authorities stopped unchecked movements in and out of the American side and forbade Canadians from trapping in U.S. territories. We know that since that time the relationship of the two nations has eased and you can tell by the seamless transition between the two cities. The two countries boast the largest border between two nations in the world and it is also the most peaceful and for ease of travel the U.S. dollar is accepted in Ontario, just don’t expect to get your change in greenbacks.
Today we were headed to the Mill Market in Ontario just across the border for some gluten free goodies and to check out some local products. I-75 crosses the St. Mary’s River as the Sault Ste. Marie international bridge ending its 1,786 mile journey north from Miami as it dead ends into Huron Street in downtown Sault Ste Marie, Ontario just past the Canadian border checkpoint. The bridge was opened in 1962 and is the 10th busiest border crossing between the two nations and the only crossing in a 700 mile span.
As we curved down the bridge towards Canadian border services you begin to see the subtle changes, flags, license plates, multiple expressions for pricing, and everything is written in English and French. The border guards are nice enough and other than just the volume of cars, there is only one lane in and one lane out, it was an easy process.
A few turns off of Huron street and we arrived at the Mill Market. In the repurposed municipal fish hatchery building on the river, it has been converted to a farmers market on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s during the growing season and touts the best of land, water and air that the local farmers, fishermen and artisans have to offer. You can procure everything from homemade soap to fresh goat cheese pizza and hand woven llama fur mittens to a half a cow. The selection was impressive. We purchased a myriad of gluten free pizza crusts, pies and slices of cake and loaded our cooler with the delectable goodies. I spent some time talking with the mushroom farmer Findlay who had recently began his impressive small scale operation and had some beautiful fungi. And of course I had to talk to the local Maple Man Don Manchuria whose family had been producing maple syrup just up the river since 1964. We wandered the stalls and talked to many of the purveyors, but something else was getting my attention.
It was getting close to lunch time and Maggie agreed it was time for a snack. She snagged a slice of pepperoni and I took on a slice of roasted veggie goat cheese and a slice simply called the carnivore. The best of both worlds, the veggies were crisp and fresh, the goat cheese warm and a bit earthy with the right amount of tang. The carnivore was as to be expected, meaty smoky and dripping with red tinged animal fats. The crusts were crisp and not to chewy, very good pieces of pie. We began to head out of the market and past the insectarium near the entrance. Maggie refused to check it out as it was basically a petting zoo for some very large insects. As we headed out of the parking lot and towards the bridge, we stopped in at the duty free. A few cigars, a nice bottle of Canadian whiskey and it was back over the bridge. I had a date with history I’d been waiting for and it was commencing soon.
