Michipicoten Harbour

Wawa (Michipicoten), ON · Municipal · Superior Aggregates Company · Lake Superior (Michipicoten Bay)

Michipicoten Harbour is a historic privately owned deep-water dock on a sheltered cove of Michipicoten Bay on the east shore of Lake Superior, about 125 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie. Developed from the early 1900s by the Algoma Central Railway, it shipped iron ore and pellets from the Helen/MacLeod mines along with pulpwood, lumber, coal and commercial fish, served by the Algoma Central Steamship Line. Rail service was removed around 2000 and the ore facilities have sat largely unused for several decades, leaving the site with the appearance of a ghost town, though the current landowner maintains the commercial dock as one of the only accessible deep-water harbours on Lake Superior's east shore. The port authority is listed as Superior Aggregates Company, which received Ontario Municipal Board approval (2009) for an adjacent trap-rock/granite quarry; if the quarry opens the harbour facilities are expected to be refurbished. The harbour (UN/LOCODE CAMIH) is a small port handling vessels up to ~500 ft, with compulsory pilotage, cargo-pier depths of roughly 16-20 ft and channel depths of 21-25 ft.