The original Pasty Camist and current guy who keeps the hard drives spinning and the lights flashing here at Pasty Central, Jonathan Hopper will be spending a little time in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. He, along with his family actually live in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but his daughter will be in a performance of Matilda, Jr. at the Soo Theater in May so, Jon will be roaming the streets while she rehearses. He snapped these photos this past week and promises more to come. We start out with a shot of the theater with the old time marquee. You don’t see many like this anymore. I bet it’s something to see at night, all lit up.

Then Jon snapped a shot of the Tower of History, with the Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church next door. The 210 foot tower was the tallest observation tower in the U.P. when it was built in 1968, by St. Mary’s Catholic Church as a never completed shrine to Catholic Missionaries in the U.P., to be named, Shrine of the Missionaries. Due to financial problems with the project, the Diocese of Marquette took it over and in 1980 it was donated to Le Sault De Sainte Marie Historical Sites, Inc. (Sault Historic Sites). The tower includes museum exhibits about Catholic Missionaries, local history and Native American history.

Third is the Museum Ship Valley Camp, a lake freighter that served on the Great Lakes for almost 50 years and is now a museum ship in the Soo. Then last, but not least we have the American Integrity upbound on its way to Marquette or Duluth and the Paul R. Tregurtha downbound on the St. Mary’s River, both after locking through.

We have a treat for all the fans of the Soo locks. We’re going to feature a video each day for the rest of this week from Andrea Guerriero over at DRE Designs – Great Lakes Marine Products. She was lucky enough to tour the Poe Lock back in March when it was emptied of water and being worked on. Quite interesting to see the inner-workings of the locks like this. Hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

Looking foreward to the videos, will be very interesting!

Love visiting the Soo

How cool is that? To go from being a lil
kid,helping out on Pasty, to being a Dad in Canada,
with a daughter about to become an actress, and
still taking care of Pasty! That's awesome!

I thoroughly enjoyed the video. Anxious to see the
rest.
The pictures are so good. I just love the
Tregurtha. I've seen it so often in Duluth. It's
very exciting watching it entering or leaving the
harbor. It's so very long. We're going to try to
get to the Soo this summer sometime.

The Soo is very cool. I was there last Autumn but it's been decades since my last visit to the Valley Camp. Here is a picture of one of the Edmund Fitzgerald's life boats they had on deck. I have several that I scanned recently from a bunch of my old 35mm slides. I think I took them in the late 1970's or early 1980's: