Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie
City (single-tier)
City of Sault Ste. Marie
Soo Locks International Bridge, (North) Downtown Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Nicknames:  "The Soo"[1]
Motto:  "Naturally Gifted"
Sault Ste. Marie
Coordinates: 46°33′32″N 84°20′49″W / 46.55889°N 84.34694°W / 46.55889; -84.34694[2]
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
District	Algoma
Founded	1668
Incorporated	1888 (town) 1912 (city)
Government
• Type	Mayor-Council
• Mayor	Matthew Shoemaker
• Council	Sault Ste. Marie City Council
• MP	Terry Sheehan (Liberal)
• MPP	Ross Romano (PC)
Area [3][4]
• Land	223.24 km2 (86.19 sq mi)
• Urban	53.05 km2 (20.48 sq mi)
• Metro	805.60 km2 (311.04 sq mi)
Elevation [5]	192 m (630 ft)
Population  (2021)[3][4]
• City (single-tier)	72,051
• Density	324.6/km2 (841/sq mi)
• Metro	76,731
• Metro density	95.6/km2 (248/sq mi)
Demonym	Saultite [6]
Time zone	UTC−05:00 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00 (EDT)
Forward sortation area	P6A to P6C
Area code(s)	705, and 249[7]
Highways	Highway 17 Highway 550 I-75
Website	saultstemarie.ca
CA rank: 46th in Canada Municipal rank: 66th in Canada

Sault Ste. Marie (/ˈsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-saynt-mə-REE) is a city in Ontario, Canada. The third-largest city in Northern Ontario after Sudbury and Thunder Bay, it is located on the St. Mary's River on the Canada–US border. To the southwest, across the river, is the United States and the Michigan city of the same name. The two cities are joined by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which connects Interstate 75 on the Michigan side to Huron Street on the Ontario side. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the Saint Mary's Rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage that passes through it, while smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal.

The Ojibwe, the indigenous Anishinaabe people of the area, call this area Baawitigong, meaning "place of the rapids." They used this as a regional meeting place during whitefish season in the St. Mary's Rapids (the anglicized form of this name, Bawating, is used in institutional and geographic names in the area). French settlers referred to the rapids on the river as Les Saults de Ste-Marie (the rapids of St. Marie) and the village name was derived from that. The rapids and cascades of the St. Mary's River descend more than 6 m (20 ft) from the level of Lake Superior to the level of the lower lakes. Hundreds of years ago, this slowed shipping traffic, requiring an overland portage of boats and cargo from one lake to the other. The entire name translates to 'Saint Mary's Rapids' or 'Saint Mary's Falls'. The word sault is pronounced [so] in French, and /suː/ in the English pronunciation of the city name.^[8] Residents of the city are called Saultites.^[9]

Sault Ste. Marie 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 the local services boards of Aweres, Batchawana Bay, Goulais and District, Peace Tree and Searchmont. The city's census agglomeration, including the townships of Laird, Prince and Macdonald, Meredith and Aberdeen Additional and the First Nations reserves of Garden River and Rankin, had a total population of 79,800 in 2011.

Native American settlements, mostly of Ojibwe-speaking peoples, existed here for more than 500 years. In the late 17th century, French Jesuit missionaries established a mission at the First Nations village. This was followed by development of a fur trading post and larger settlement, as traders, trappers and Native Americans were attracted to the community.

As the community had developed on both sides of the river, it was considered unified and part of Canada. After the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States, the border between Canada and the US was finally settled at the St. Mary's River. At that time, the US prohibited British traders from operating in its territory any longer, causing major losses. The areas separated by the river began to develop as two communities, both named Sault Ste. Marie.^[10]