Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Sault Ste. Marie is a city in Northern Ontario, Canada, on the north shore of the St. Marys River, directly across the water from its twin city of the same name in the U.S. state of Michigan. The Ojibwe lived at the rapids for centuries and called the place Baawitigong, the place of the rapids; French Jesuit missionaries founded a mission there in the late seventeenth century, followed by a fur trading post. The community was incorporated as a village in 1871, became a township in 1887 and a city in 1912. Around the start of the twentieth century industrialists led by Francis Clergue made it a regional centre of resource development, and steel-making and other manufacturing, tourism, health and social services remain its main activities. The 2021 census counted 72,051 residents on a land area of about 222 square kilometres, and the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge links the city to Michigan.