# Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie (/ˈsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-saynt-mə-REE) is a city in northern Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of the St. Mary's River directly across from its "twin city," Sault Ste. Marie, in the state of Michigan. The city's population was 72,051 at the 2021 census, making it the third most populous city in northern Ontario. It is the seat of Algoma District.
The city is a hub for manufacturing (primarily of steel), tourism, and health and social services.
The city is the location of the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge connecting Canada and the United States. The city is bordered to the east by the Rankin and Garden River reserves, and to the west by Prince Township. To the north, the city is bordered by an unincorporated portion of Algoma District, which includes Aweres, Batchawana Bay, Goulais and District, Peace Tree and Searchmont.
The Ojibwe settled here for more than 500 years and call this area Baawitigong, meaning "place of the rapids". In the late 17th century, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission at the Ojibwe settlement. This was followed by development of a fur trading post and larger settlement. By the early 1900s, led by industrialists including Francis Clergue, the community became a regional centre for resource development and manufacturing.

## Origins of the name Sault Ste. Marie

The city's name originates from Saults de Sainte-Marie, archaic French for "Saint Mary's falls", a reference to the rapids of the Saint Marys River.
Etymologically, the word sault comes from an archaic spelling of saut (from sauter), which translates most accurately in this usage to the English word cataract. This in turn derives from the French word for "leap" or "jump" (similar to somersault). Citations dating back to 1600 use the sault spelling to mean a cataract, waterfall or rapids. In modern French, the words chutes or rapides are more usual. Sault survives almost exclusively in place names dating from the 17th century, such as Long Sault, Sault St. Louis in Quebec, and Grand-Sault in New Brunswick.
The word sault is pronounced in French, and /suː/ in English.

## History

   Anishinaabe to 1671 Kingdom of France 1671–1763 British Empire 1763–1867 Canada 1867–present

### Pre-colonial period

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 1620s, the area that is now Sault Ste. Marie was shared by the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi whose Algonkian ancestors had come from the east around 1200.
The rapids created an impediment to travel and an obvious stopping point for voyages west to Lake Superior or east to Lake Huron. In addition, the location offered a strong strategic position to observe movement along the river. The Indigenous people drew on the ample resources of the area including wild game and berries, materials to build shelters, and most importantly sturgeon in the spring and abundant whitefish in the fall.
The Ojibwe called this area Baawitigong, meaning "place of the rapids" and maintained a permanent settlement of about 150 to 200 people. Baawitigong was also an important meeting place for the broader family of Algonquin peoples and would grow to thousands during the whitefish season each year.

### Arrival of the French

The very first European recorded to have seen the rapids was French explorer Étienne Brûlé, whose 1621 voyage to the mouth of Lake Superior took him, together with his Huron guides, along the north channel of Lake Huron. The French named this area of rapids Sault de Gaston in honour of Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of King Louis XIII of France. This is the name that appears on Samuel de Champlain's 1632 map of New France based on descriptions from Brûlé and others.
In 1668, French Jesuit missionaries renamed the area Sault Sainte-Marie, and established a mission settlement on the river's south bank, making Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan one of the oldest French settlements in North America. Based on his voyages with the Jesuits the year before, explorer Louis Jolliet marked the area "Le Sault St. Marie" on his 1674 map.

### Exploration and the fur trade

Sault Ste. Marie formed a key crossroads of the 5,000 km (3,000 mi) fur trade route, which stretched from the north country above Lake Superior through the St. Marys River and on to Montreal and European markets.
The French used the area as a juncture to search for other riches as well. In 1735, Louis Denys de la Ronde, a French naval officer established a ship yard on the north shore of the St. Marys near Pointe-aux-Pins. Inspired by reports of precious metals, from here the first decked vessel was constructed and launched onto Lake Superior to mine its shores for copper. From this same spot, American-born explorer Alexander Henry built a 40 tone sloop and barge to explore the Superior for mineral riches.
At the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France relinquished virtually all of its interests in North America and the British and their First Nations allies controlled the fur trade on the Great Lakes. Around 1790 the North West Company established a fur trading post at the village. A cosmopolitan, mixed population of Europeans, First Nations peoples, and Métis grew up around the it on both sides of the river.
Traders regularly interacted with tribes from around the Great Lakes. Scots-British fur trader John Johnston, his Ojibwe wife, Ozhaguscodaywayquay (Woman of the Green Glade), daughter of a chief, and their multi-racial children were prominent here in the village in the late 1700s. They frequently hosted travellers from both the US and Canada. The children were taught English, Ojibwe and French.
Their daughter, Jane Johnston married Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a US Indian agent and early ethnographer, and they had children. Jane Johnston Schoolcraft has been recognized as the first Native American poet and writer in the United States.

### War of 1812 and aftermath

This fluid environment changed during and after the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. Trade dropped during the war and on July 20, 1814, an American force destroyed the North West Company depot on the north shore of the St. Marys River. Since the Americans were unable to capture Fort Mackinac, the British forces retained control of Sault Ste. Marie. As noted, after the war and defining a new border, the US closed its territory to British Canadian traders, shutting off much interaction.
In 1870, the United States refused to give the steamer Chicora, carrying Colonel Garnet Wolseley, permission to pass through the locks at Sault Ste Marie, which were otherwise available to both US and Canadian ships. They had built the first locks in 1855. In order to control their own water passage, the Canadians constructed the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, which was completed in 1895.

### Canadian Pacific Railway

Although Sault Ste. Marie had been a planned destination for railway expansion since the early 1880s, there was considerable disagreement within the business consortium assembled to build the Canadian Pacific Railway as to whether or not to route its transcontinental line through it. The symbolic "first spike" of the railway had been driven at Bonfield, Ontario in Nipissing District in 1881, and construction had been proceeding westward. The American railway magnate James J. Hill, nicknamed the "Empire Builder", supported a route through Sault Ste. Marie, which would allow for both a "water bridge" to the head of Lake Superior at Thunder Bay and an all-rail connection to the west via American railways in the Midwest, benefiting Hill's St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. Simultaneously, there were political considerations around the railway as a nation-building project coupled with fears of American expansionism. During the Red River Rebellion, the Wolseley expedition had left Toronto in May 1870 and only arrived at Fort Garry, Manitoba by August. American control of the Sault Ste. Marie locks was seen to be a continued potential impediment to future military transportation within Canada. An all-Canadian rail route would bypass this.
A CPR line was surveyed and gradually constructed along the north shore of Lake Huron, cutting through the La Cloche Mountains, while the Central Ontario-based Midland Railway of Canada also surveyed its own line, but became insolvent and collapsed shortly after. The Northern Railway of Canada, which had pushed northward from Toronto to Lake Simcoe, sought to push further to North Bay and then cut west under a subsidiary called the Northern, North-Western, and Sault Ste. Marie Railway, competing directly with the CPR. It also collapsed and ultimately the line terminated at a junction with the CPR line south of North Bay, named Nipissing Junction.
Throughout the abrupt rise and fall of these competing projects, CPR construction had slowly marched westward under engineer James Worthington. By 1884, however, changes had occurred in CPR management with the rise of William Cornelius Van Horne, who would later become the company's president. Both Hill and Worthington resigned from the company, and Hill became a bitter opponent of it. A new transcontinental mainline through Northern Ontario, passing directly through the interior and bypassing the lakeshore settlements along Lake Huron (including Sault Ste. Marie), was laid out and constructed from a point on the line which became known as Sudbury Junction. This junction point became a small CPR town, and with the discovery of vast mineral resources in the Sudbury Basin during the construction of this transcontinental line north of the junction, mining activity in the Sudbury area grew explosively, leading to the creation of Sudbury District in 1894 and shifting economic focus away from Sault Ste. Marie.
The original CPR line (by then known as the CPR Algoma Branch), which had lain dormant until 1888, was finally reactivated and completed through to Sault Ste. Marie, joining with the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad via the joint Sault Ste. Marie International Railroad Bridge.
Its economy stagnated toward the end of the 19th century with the decline of the fur trade.
With a population of almost 880, Sault Ste. Marie was incorporated as a village on July 29, 1871. It became a township on April 23, 1887.
The town gained brief international notoriety in 1911 in the trial of Angelina Napolitano, the first person in Canada to use the battered woman defence for murder.

### Becoming a city

Twenty-five years after becoming a town, the provincial government granted Sault Ste. Marie a city charter. The Act to incorporate the City of Sault Ste. Marie left boundaries, by-laws, regulations, contracts, and employees as they had been under the township and allowed the former town council to carry on as the first city council until elections could be held in the new year. It also created a mechanism for the amalgamation of the Moffly subdivision from the neighbouring Steelton township into the city which occurred later that year.
Following a plebiscite of its residents in 1917, Steelton and its 7,000 residents amalgamated with the city on January 1, 1918 bringing the city's population to 18,000.
During World War II, and particularly after the US was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor in 1941, government concern turned to protection of the locks and shipping channel at Sault Ste. Marie. A substantial military presence was established to protect the locks from a possible attack by Nazi German aircraft from the north. The recent development of long-range bombers increased fears of a sudden air raid. Military strategists studied polar projection maps, which indicated that the air distance from occupied Norway to the town was about the same as the distance from Norway to New York. That direct route of about 5,000 km (3,000 mi) is over terrain where there were few observers and the long winter nights could hide activity.
A joint Canadian and US committee called the "Permanent Joint Board on Defence" drove the installation of anti-aircraft defence and associated units of the United States Army Air Forces and Royal Canadian Air Force to defend the locks. An anti-aircraft training facility was established 100 km (62 mi) north of Sault Ste. Marie on the shores of Lake Superior. Barrage balloons were installed, and early warning radar bases were established at five locations in northern Ontario (Kapuskasing, Cochrane, Hearst, Armstrong (Thunder Bay District), and Nakina) to watch for incoming aircraft. Military personnel were established to guard sensitive parts of the transportation infrastructure. A little over one year later, in January 1943, most of these facilities and defences were deemed excessive and removed, save a reduced military base at Sault Ste. Marie.
The first Algerine-class minesweeper in the Royal Canadian Navy was named HMCS Sault Ste. Marie (J334) after the city. It was laid down in 1942 and acted as a convoy escort in the Battle of the Atlantic.
On January 29, 1990, under mayor Joe Fratesi, Sault Ste. Marie became a flashpoint in the Meech Lake Accord constitutional debate when council passed a resolution declaring English as the city's official language and the sole language for provision of municipal services. The resolution was widely seen as retaliation for Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa's move to override the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that declared parts of Bill 101 unconstitutional. Bill 101 had declared French as the only official language of Quebec. Numerous other Ontario municipalities had already passed similar protest resolutions, but Sault Ste. Marie was the largest to have passed such a resolution. It was the first to do so despite its sizable Franco-Ontarian population. Many political figures, including Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Ontario premier David Peterson, who had strongly condemned Premier Bourassa's use of the 'notwithstanding clause', also expressed their opposition to the Sault Ste. Marie resolution. Peterson and his successor as premier, Bob Rae, refused to meet with Mayor Fratesi on several subsequent occasions, even to discuss unrelated matters.
The city had previously established French as an official language for government services, due to a sizable French-speaking population, and these residents objected strongly to the council's action. The resolution was struck down by a court ruling in 1994, one year after Premier Bourassa passed Bill 86, which amended that province's language laws in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

## Climate

Sault Ste. Marie has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) with cold, snowy winters and warm humid summers that are moderated to some extent by Lake Superior. Winters are cool and snowy, usually beginning in late November and lasting until early April. Temperatures drop below −20 °C (−4 °F) just over 23 days per year on average. Summers are warm and humid with mild nights. Temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) occur 4.6 days per year on average. The average annual precipitation is 914.7 mm (36.01 in), which is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year; the autumn months of September to November are the wettest months. The record low was −41.1 °C (−42.0 °F), reported on January 26, 1927, whithe highest temperature ever recorded in Sault Ste. Marie was 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) on July 3, 1921.
Climate data for Sault Ste. Marie (Sault Ste. Marie Airport), WMO ID: 71260; coordinates 46°29′06″N 84°30′35″W﻿ / ﻿46.48500°N 84.50972°W﻿ / 46.48500; -84.50972﻿ (Sault Ste. Marie Airport); elevation: 192 m (630 ft); 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1889–present :
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high humidex | 7.8 | 8.7 | 27.0 | 31.6 | 38.6 | 41.4 | 42.9 | 42.7 | 39.5 | 34.4 | 26.1 | 19.2 | 42.9 |
| Record high °C (°F) | 8.6 (47.5) | 10.8 (51.4) | 26.7 (80.1) | 27.8 (82.0) | 32.3 (90.1) | 33.3 (91.9) | 37.2 (99.0) | 36.1 (97.0) | 35.0 (95.0) | 26.7 (80.1) | 23.0 (73.4) | 15.4 (59.7) | 37.2 (99.0) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | −5.0 (23.0) | −4.0 (24.8) | 1.4 (34.5) | 8.7 (47.7) | 16.2 (61.2) | 21.8 (71.2) | 24.2 (75.6) | 23.7 (74.7) | 19.4 (66.9) | 11.7 (53.1) | 4.8 (40.6) | −1.0 (30.2) | 10.2 (50.4) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | −9.8 (14.4) | −9.4 (15.1) | −4.1 (24.6) | 3.4 (38.1) | 9.9 (49.8) | 15.2 (59.4) | 17.9 (64.2) | 17.7 (63.9) | 13.7 (56.7) | 7.2 (45.0) | 1.2 (34.2) | −4.8 (23.4) | 4.8 (40.6) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | −14.5 (5.9) | −14.7 (5.5) | −9.6 (14.7) | −2.0 (28.4) | 3.5 (38.3) | 8.5 (47.3) | 11.6 (52.9) | 11.5 (52.7) | 8.0 (46.4) | 2.7 (36.9) | −2.5 (27.5) | −8.6 (16.5) | −0.5 (31.1) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −41.1 (−42.0) | −38.7 (−37.7) | −35.6 (−32.1) | −21.5 (−6.7) | −8.9 (16.0) | −5.6 (21.9) | 0.0 (32.0) | −3.3 (26.1) | −8.3 (17.1) | −10.0 (14.0) | −23.4 (−10.1) | −36.7 (−34.1) | −41.1 (−42.0) |
| Record low wind chill | −44.8 | −43.9 | −40.5 | −27.8 | −10.0 | −4.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | −6.0 | −13.9 | −29.2 | −42.8 | −44.8 |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 65.1 (2.56) | 45.6 (1.80) | 52.3 (2.06) | 71.0 (2.80) | 68.6 (2.70) | 79.3 (3.12) | 76.9 (3.03) | 77.9 (3.07) | 108.6 (4.28) | 110.5 (4.35) | 89.0 (3.50) | 69.9 (2.75) | 914.7 (36.01) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 8.6 (0.34) | 5.9 (0.23) | 21.8 (0.86) | 55.2 (2.17) | 67.7 (2.67) | 79.3 (3.12) | 76.9 (3.03) | 77.9 (3.07) | 108.5 (4.27) | 105.7 (4.16) | 53.7 (2.11) | 17.0 (0.67) | 678.2 (26.70) |
| Average snowfall cm (inches) | 83.7 (33.0) | 58.7 (23.1) | 38.7 (15.2) | 17.3 (6.8) | 0.9 (0.4) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.1 (0.0) | 4.8 (1.9) | 43.6 (17.2) | 77.2 (30.4) | 324.9 (127.9) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 0.2 mm) | 20.2 | 15.3 | 13.8 | 11.7 | 12.1 | 11.6 | 12.7 | 10.7 | 14.9 | 17.6 | 17.6 | 19.0 | 177.2 |
| Average rainy days (≥ 0.2 mm) | 3.2 | 2.1 | 5.4 | 9.1 | 11.8 | 11.6 | 12.7 | 10.7 | 14.9 | 16.5 | 10.0 | 4.6 | 112.7 |
| Average snowy days (≥ 0.2 cm) | 19.4 | 14.9 | 10.6 | 4.6 | 0.52 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.16 | 2.2 | 11.5 | 16.8 | 80.6 |
| Average relative humidity (%) (at 1500 LST) | 73.9 | 69.9 | 63.6 | 56.6 | 54.6 | 58.9 | 60.8 | 61.7 | 64.2 | 68.2 | 73.6 | 76.9 | 65.3 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 72.8 | 109.9 | 150.3 | 182.2 | 240.2 | 265.8 | 266.3 | 240.9 | 154.7 | 119.1 | 61.8 | 55.8 | 1,919.7 |
| Percentage possible sunshine | 26.0 | 37.9 | 40.8 | 44.8 | 51.7 | 56.3 | 55.7 | 54.8 | 40.9 | 35.1 | 21.8 | 20.8 | 40.6 |
| Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (January minimum) (July maximum) (September maximum) ||||||||||||||