SAULT STE. MARIE, ONTARIO

When summer crowds arrive, escape to Up North’s Up North.

BY LYNDA WHEATLEY

After one idyllic Northern Michigan vacation or a childhood full of them, nearly all of us who’ve made this place our permanent home eventually face the same predicament: Now that we live and work where we once only leisured, where the heck do we go to get away?

Easy. Heed the call of your younger heart and head farther north, to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Known for warm breezes, minimal humidity and a decidedly relaxed vibe, the Canadian side of “The Soo,” as locals call it, is a dream summer escape for Michiganders—one peppered with diverse restaurants (many with outdoor decks and patios), stellar breweries, dozens of unique shops and boutiques and historical and cultural sites aplenty.

Where to start? With the ultimate in land, Locks and water views—all three best seen on a leisurely two-hour boat tour aboard the new Miss Marie. The narrated pleasure cruise, which launches each afternoon from the Waterfront Boardwalk, ferries up to 100 passengers along the St. Marys River and into Lake Superior. It offers a full bar, two decks with covered and open-air viewing areas, and, by arrangement, private evening charters.

If gasp-while-you-relax tours are your thing, add the Agawa Canyon Tour Train to your list. In a single day, the train rolls past sparkling lakes, sky-high granite formations and forests so dense with leafy trees, shrubs and conifer spires, the very air seems to glow green.

You don’t have to have an artist’s eye to appreciate the vast and pristine wilderness surrounding these rails—or Canada’s famed Group of Seven, the 1920s-era painters who so distinctly captured Agawa and other Canadian landscapes that their work is considered an arts movement. The train compartments include flatscreen monitors and GPS-triggered narration that tells you what you’re seeing as you see it.

Travelers who prefer to explore under their own power are hardly overlooked in—or around—The Soo. Case in point: The popular and paved saulttourism.com

15-mile John Rowswell Hub Trail, which encircles the entire city and routes walkers and cyclists through multiple natural areas, neighborhoods, commercial districts and more.

What to brake for? In the Heritage Square, a trifecta of only-in-Soo-Ontario stops: the fun-for-all-ages (but especially propeller heads) Canadian Bushplane Heritage Discovery Centre; three floors of heritage-rich exhibits inside Sault Ste. Marie Museum; and the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site, where gorgeous gardens, the interactive Heritage Discovery Centre and two of the oldest stone houses north of Toronto vividly showcase the lives and lifestyles of the big shots who occupied the latter buildings between 1808 and 1908.

Seeking hot-summer-in-the-city action? The Hub Trail can get you there, too. Head to beautiful Bellevue Park for a playground and splash pad; the Waterfront Adventure Center for canoe, kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals; the Canal District with its bustling train station, restaurants and outfitters in a beautifully restored sandstone building; or Esposito Park, where a new asphalt pump track packed with twists, turns, rollers and berms lets kids and adults build their biking skills while they entertain onlookers.

(Hey, hardcore bikers—heftier hills can be found just 10 minutes from downtown at nearby Hiawatha Highlands, the forest home to nearly 25 miles of world-class mountain biking trails for all levels of bikers, and the black diamondworthy Bellevue Valley Trail, only three heart-racing miles long but with a 750-foot elevation drop.)

Sure, the city has a multitude of fun things to do, but it’s worth your limited while to remember it’s also a gateway to other getaways, a few favorites best experienced by doing nothing much at all.

An effortless one-hour drive from the city, for instance, brings you to the sandy beach and stunning woods of Lake Superior’s Pancake Bay, a place the voyageurs once paddled past, now a Provincial Park where you can sprawl out in the sun, swim ’til the sun goes down and camp overnight if you like.

Hug the coastline another hour up Highway 17, and you’ll arrive at Lake Superior Provincial Park, a sublime and seemingly infinite waterside wilderness no outdoors-loving Michigander should miss.

Finding both places is easy. Just like you did to get to Northern Michigan, and then to The Soo, Ontario—simply get in your car and head north.