No other canal in the world can rival the one at Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., which connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron, in the enormous volume of its shipping. There are really two canals—one owned by the Canadian Government, and one by the United States Government. The canal belonging to the United States was begun in 1853 by the State of Michigan, and opened in 1855. It had a length of about a mile and was provided with twin locks 350 feet long, allowing the passage of vessels drawing 12 feet of water. The United States Government, by consent of the State of Michigan, began in 1870 to enlarge the canal, and, by 1881, had increased its length to 1.6 miles, its width to an average of 160 feet and its depth to 16 feet. A lock 515 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 17 feet deep was located south of the locks which were built by the State.
In 1882 the United States Government took over the entire control of the canal. Five years later the locks that had been built by the State were torn down, and a new one 800 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 22 feet deep was put into commission in 1896. The Canadian Canal, 11⁄8 miles long, 150 feet wide, and 22 feet deep, was built on the north side of the river during the years 1888 to 1895. Its locks are 900 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 22 feet deep.
The traffic through the Sault Ste. Marie Canals averages around 60,000,000 tons a year. This is as much as the Panama Canal can expect to get 40 years after its opening. The tonnage of the American Soo Canal passed the million mark in 1873, reached the 20,000,000 mark in 1899, and amounted to 46,000,000 net tons in 1909. It now ranges around 50,000,000 tons. It will be seen from this that the American Canal, built on the south side of St. Mary's River, gets about ten times as much traffic as the Canadian Canal, built on the north side of the river. This gives the American Soo Canal more than twice as much traffic as the Suez Canal, and about four times as much as the Panama Canal expects to begin with.
A canal which was built primarily for drainage purposes, but which seems destined to fill an important place as a traffic-carrying waterway, is the Chicago Drainage Canal connecting Lake Michigan at Chicago with the Illinois River at Lockport—a distance of 34 miles. It was built for the purpose of reversing the movement of water in the Chicago River and preventing the pollution of Lake Michigan. The sewage of the city now goes to the faraway Mississippi instead of the Lakes. The minimum depth of the canal is 22 feet, and its bottom width 160 feet. To complete the project the excavation of nearly 44,000,000 yards of material was required—enough, if deposited in Lake Michigan in 40 feet of water, to form an island a mile square with a surface 12 feet above the water. The city of Chicago and the State of Illinois have agreed to turn this canal over to the United States Government, if it will deepen the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to 14 feet between Lockport and St. Louis. This would give a complete water connection from upper Mississippi River points to Lake Michigan, and open up a highway to the Gulf of Mexico. The estimated cost of this project is $25,000,000.
The completion of the Panama Canal will probably result in an unprecedented activity in the development of inland waterways in the United States. The new markets which it will open up to American products and the old markets it will stimulate and extend, will demand large additional facilities for getting the products of the American farm and factory to the seaboard. Already preparations for capitalizing the commercial opportunities which the opening of the canal will afford, are being made in various parts of the country.
The Erie Canal, connecting Buffalo and Albany and giving the Great Lakes a water outlet at New York, is being widened and deepened at an expense of $101,000,000. The propaganda of the American Rivers and Harbors Congress, looking to the appropriation of $500,000,000 to be spent in a systematic program of inland waterway development, is meeting with encouragement in every part of the country, and it is the expectation of those who believe that the Government should commit itself to such a program, that within 25 years the stimulus to waterway development given by the opening of the Panama Canal, will give to the United States one of the finest systems of inland waterways in the world.