Tea House reopens at Canal Site following COVID hiatus

After opening for the summer tourist season on the Victoria Day Weekend in May, the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site continues to offer things to see and do for locals and tourists with a few additions.

“Our heritage teas are back at the Superintendent’s House and they’re always very popular,” said Alisha Rosset, the site’s visitor experience infrastructure officer.

The Superintendent’s Tea House will be open at 1 p.m. every Wednesday in July and every Tuesday in August with scones and desserts provided by local restaurants and tea by St. Joseph Island Coffee Roasters.

Cost is $14.80 per person.

Reservations are required and are available by calling 705-941-6205.

“They’ll be in the house’s dining room, living room and the veranda. We’ve cosmetically restored the rooms in there and this will be the first opportunity in a long time for people to see the inside of those two rooms,” Rosset told SooToday.

“We stopped the teas during COVID. This is the first year we’ve been able to bring them back. They’re so popular. We sell out as soon as we announce them,” Rosset said.

The Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site’s historic core consists of a refurbished Exhibit - Stores Building that includes replicas of old and new-style valves used to operate the canal for vessels passing through and a push button working scale model of the canal showing a vessel passing through the gates.

There is also a new visitor centre with Canal-themed merchandise for sale that includes an interactive exhibit depicting the long historic story of the Canal.

“We’re pretty happy about this. Feedback has been quite positive from visitors,” Rosset said.

The historic site’s team is focusing this year on seeking federal government funding to restore the site’s two-storey Powerhouse that is used to operate the canal.

Plans also call for the carpentry shop, currently the only heated workspace for the site’s asset maintenance team, to be eventually turned into a new visitor centre.

There is no fixed timeline in place but there are plans to connect the Exhibit - Stores Building and the Powerhouse to the site property’s main level with a new stairway where the canal itself and other items of interest are located.

Admission prices to the site’s Exhibit - Stores Building are $4.25 for adults, $3.75 for seniors with free admission for those 17 and under.

The site is now open seven days a week during the month of June from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning on Canada Day and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Sept. 5 to Oct. 6.

The site has purchased three more fat bikes, for a total of 10, for visitors, both adults and youth, to use. 

Cost is $10 an hour with a helmet and visitors can tour the site and the islands to the south of the canal.

A new entry sign to the site welcomes visitors in English, French, Anishinabemowin and Michif.

The site is available for rent for wedding photos and receptions, family portraits and other ceremonies.

“We had 139,000 visitors last year. Over the last two years we’ve consistently had about 140,000 visitors. We’ve had a lot of people walking the trails, walking their dogs, some of them fishing. For a northern Ontario Parks Canada national historic site, we’ve had a huge number of people,” Rosset said.

As reported earlier by SooToday, the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site’s Exhibit - Stores Building, after years of painstaking restoration work, and the new Visitor Centre were opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony in June 2022.