Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario sides of the river. Sault Ste. Marie is one of the oldest French settlements in North America. It was at the crossroads of the 3,000-mile fur trade route, which stretched from Montreal to Sault Ste. Marie and to the North country above Lake Superior. A cosmopolitan, mixed population of Europeans, First Nations peoples, and Métis lived at the village spanning the river. The city name originates from "Saults de Sainte-Marie", archaic French for "Saint Mary's Falls", a reference to the rapids of Saint Marys River. Etymologically, the word "sault" comes from an archaic spelling of "saut" (from "sauter"), which translates
Sault Ste. Marie language resolution on June 30, 1994 and therefore has no effect."" The effect of the resolution was to amend the minutes containing the English-only resolution to note that the resolution had been struck down. As recently as 2007, "The Gazette" in Montreal referred to the town of Hérouxville, then embroiled in a controversy around reasonable accommodation of immigrants, as Quebec's "own Sault Ste. Marie". On January 28, 2010, 20 years less a day after the original resolution was passed, then-Sault Ste. Marie Mayor John Rowswell apologized to French-Canadians across the country for the resolution of the prior council. Sault Ste. Marie language