windmills - sault ste marie

This set of photographs was taken in August, 2009. I was in Sault Ste Marie at Red Rock.

Twenty windmills line the south-eastern rigde of this area of Lake Superior. They are sentinals in the wilderness, spectacular against the blue Laurentian sky. Their noiseless whirl adds electricity to the national grid.

It is a surprise to see these monsters of green technology poking their heads out of the first-growth forest. Sault Ste Marie has a steel and pulp-paper history. Two industries that filled the northern skies with particles and yellow smoke. Today white silent blades have begun a new legacy.

The line of windmills is best seen from out on the lake. At the terminus the first windmill towers; its height and blade-span unimaginable from the comfort of a canoe rocking on the frigid undulations of Lake Superior. (The thumbnail points to the large image.)