Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan ("rapids" in French). In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site. Sault Ste. Marie developed as the fourth-oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent settlement in contemporary Michigan state. On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St. Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Street in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Shipping traffic in the Great Lakes system bypasses the rapids via the American Soo Locks, the world's busiest canal in terms of tonnage passing through it. Smaller recreational and tour boats use the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie Canal. The city's downtown was developed on an island, with the locks to the north and the Sault Ste. Marie Power Canal to the south. The largest ships are long by wide. These are domestic carriers (called "lakers"). Too large to transit the Welland Canal that bypasses Niagara Falls, they are land-locked. Foreign ships (termed "salties") are