Military dispute led to Canadian lock at the Soo
IT HAPPENED IN ONTARIO
While Canada has a Welland Canal, the United States never saw the need to build one to get around Niagara Falls. It simply uses ours.
And ships can travel from Lake Erie to Lake Huron without much trouble.
But moving from Lake Huron to Lake Superior, well, that’s another matter.
While the drop is not as significant as at Niagara Falls, it’s substantial. Laker ships don’t shoot rapids.
So, a lock system was needed to move ships and goods easily to and from Lake Superior. Even before the Welland Canal was built, the North West Co. built a canal to link the lakes, allowing the passage of men and furs and trade goods. However, in 1814 (during the War of 1812), when American troops tried — and failed — to capture Michilimackinac, they managed to destroy the North West Co. trading post at Sault Ste. Marie and wreck the locks.
In 1837 governments on both sides of the border started exploring how to best link Superior to the lower lakes. The Americans came up with a solution first and their canal was in operation by 1855. The Canadians decided theynolongerneededtheirowncanal and used the American structure.
This worked fine for 15 years. But in 1869, the problems with Louis Riel in what would become Manitoba boiled over into the Red River Rebellion. Two steamships, and
were chartered by the Canadian government to carry Col. Garnet Wolseley to haul about 1,000 troops, weapons and supplies from Collingwood to the lakehead at what is Thunder Bay today, and from there to Fort Garry in Winnipeg to aid in putting down the rebellion.
The passed through the American locks at the Soo but when the arrived, slightly later, Michigan Gov. H.P. Baldwin got wind of the ships hauling military cargo and alerted officials in Washington. They told him to stop passage of the
through the American system — direct orders from the president of the United States.
Wolseley ordered to be emptied of the offending cargo and troops, which were then marched along the old Portage Road in the Soo. But then the Americans refused to release the steamer. For two weeks.
It took intervention by Sir John Young, also known as Baron Lisgar, the second Governor General of Canada. Young formally protested the American stopping and holding of the Canadian ship, and pointed out that American military vessels had been granted passage through the Canadian Welland Canal. Finally, the Americans released the and allowed it through.
The had quite a history before making headlines in 1870. It was originally built as a Confederate blockade runner for the U.S. Civil War. It served out its final years carrying passengers and cargo from Toronto to the Niagara Peninsula and then as a barge before being broken up.
After the incident, though, the government decided to build a Canadian canal to link Superior and Huron. This canal, finished in 1895, was almost 2.1 kilometres long. One lock was 270 metres long and 20 metres wide, making it — for about a year — the longest lock in the world and the first electrically controlled lock in the world. The next year, the Poe lock on the American side, became the longest in the world.