Just keep walking: summer journeys across two bridges

Sep 20, 2026
travel

Interstate 75, like all Interstates, is not a friendly place to walk. For one, it’s illegal. Secondly, it’s extremely dangerous, with traffic flying past you at speeds over 75 miles per hour. This is unfortunate, because Interstate 75 has two of the most iconic and interesting bridges of the Interstate highway system: the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge and the better-known Mackinac Bridge.

While the Sault bridge allows bicycles, both bridges are fully off-limits to pedestrians except for a few hours each year. This year, for the first time, I walked across both bridges.

Sault Ste. Marie

This bridge walk takes place on the last Saturday in June, just before the peak of the summer season. This is aligned to be a day after Engineers Day, a celebration of the Soo Locks. A friend of mine was working in Sault Ste. Marie this summer, and she suggested that I visit her over this weekend.

The primary Engineers Day celebration takes place in downtown Sault Ste. Marie, with a combination of typical event vendors and local businesses. I spent a few hours here, with the highlight definitely being the purchase of a bag of maple sugar cotton candy.

A trip solely for attending this bridge walk would likely be underwhelming. There’s a lot to see in Sault Ste. Marie, even outside of Engineers Day: the Chippewa County Courthouse is a beautiful historic building, and downtown Sault has many charming, tourist-focused businesses while also being more distinctly working-class than a place like Mackinac Island. The Lake Superior coastline is beautiful, with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in reasonable driving distance. Given all the attractions available, I recommend planning a few days to visit the region.

the walk

I got up early on Saturday morning and took a quick shower. Fortunately, the friend I was visiting lived at Neveu Hall, which is directly adjacent to the start of the bridge walk. Buses started from the Canadian side at 7, taking people across the border to the American starting point. The size of the gathering at the starting point really picked up around 8, with mayors of both Saults Ste. Marie¹ giving brief speeches before starting the walk precisely at 9.

The crowd for the walk was large, but not overwhelming. The bridge was closed to all traffic, and all walkers headed from south to north, leaving plenty of space for people to spread out. Plenty of people stopped to take pictures, but for the most part, people just kept walking. The bridge has railings and doesn’t go very high, so the experience should be fun for anyone without an intense fear of heights. Most people took about an hour to complete the two mile walk across the bridge. Right before Canadian customs booth, there’s a choice: take buses back to the United States from there (and avoid customs), or continue into Canada and take return buses from there.

After clearing customs, a reception for walkers took place in the parking lot of the nearby Marconi Multicultural Event Centre. Members of local Rotary Clubs provided free food and read a short speech promoting peaceful collaboration between the United States and Canada. Buses began arriving to take people back to the United States around 11. Given that most walkers finished around 10, there was a bit of a wait, and unfortunately, not much interesting in the area other than the Marconi.

The bus ride was $10 per person and took about an hour, most of that time spent waiting on the bridge and clearing customs (since there’s a procession of buses making the return trip, it takes a while to process everyone). There’s no lingering celebrations on the American side, just a parking lot.

key details that I wish I knew beforehand

• Americans do not need any form of identification. Buses are present to take walkers back across the bridge prior to reaching Canadian customs.
  • My friend, who did not have a passport or enhanced driver’s license, didn’t participate as we were unsure whether this was allowed. Official details of the event online do not make this clear.
• There is sufficient parking available near the starting point. Navigate to the arts center at Lake Superior State University before the event starts and you’ll be fine.
• If you choose to go through Canadian customs, you’ll spend just as much time waiting to return to the United States as you did walking to Canada. This is not very enjoyable, especially given the hot weather common in this season. The only interesting nearby destination is the Marconi building. Unless you have a different way to return to the United States, I’d recommend turning back before customs.
  • Expect to be back in the US around noon if entering Canada. If turning back before customs, you should be back before 11.

Mackinac

The Mackinac Bridge Walk takes place on Labor Day, capping the end of summer. I did not have a friend living near the Straits of Mackinac, nor did I plan ahead for this trip by more than a few days. Since tens of thousands of people attend the event each year, nearby hotels and camp sites tend to be fully booked months in advance, with the cost to book a room on short notice easily running over $300. Fortunately, a hotel room isn’t necessary, at least for beginning the walk on the north side of the bridge.

a brief history

The first walk over the Mackinac Bridge took place in June 1958 to mark the bridge’s opening. The walk was moved to Labor Day in 1959, and has taken place every year² since.

The walk used to only go in one direction: either north-to-south or south-to-north. Participants gathered on one side of the bridge and walked across, with the bridge authority providing buses for the return trip. With walkers only traveling in one direction, the bridge could remain open to at least some vehicular traffic. This also enabled the bridge to be opened to pedestrians or cyclists for other events:

• Big Mac Spring Bike Tour, a biking tour that crossed the Mackinac Bridge
• DALMAC, a biking tour from Lansing to the St. Ignace area
• Bike the Mighty Mac, an opportunity to bike across the bridge in June
• Memorial Bridge Run, a race across the Mackinac Bridge around Memorial Day
• Law Enforcement Torch Run
• Mighty Mac Bridge Race
• Fall Colors Bridge Race

2017 was a big year for paranoia about vehicular terrorism, especially in the aftermath of the Nice truck attack. Even though there was no evidence of any attempted terrorist attacks on the Mackinac Bridge, and even though there are plenty of other crowded locations in the state where pedestrians lack any protection from vehicles, the State Police determined action was necessary. Officials closed the entire bridge to vehicular traffic for the walk in 2017, and in 2018, the Mackinac Bridge Authority made this closure permanent. All other events allowing non-motorized traffic to cross the bridge were cancelled by unanimous vote of the bridge authority, while the Labor Day bridge walk survived with a 4–2 vote.³

Though it took a few years to get the details sorted out, and though the overall state of non-motorized use of the Mackinac Bridge has certainly gotten worse given the cancellation of all other events, the new format for the Mackinac Bridge walk is significantly improved, as walkers can start from either side. This had lead to some differentiation: the north side, where the governor gives a speech to kick off the event, has more parking, while the south side has more amenities and festivities.

planning

I attended the walk with a friend, as spending multiple hours doing this alone sounded boring, and a friend could help motivate me to keep going. This was the right call: telling people about the walk after pales in comparison to sharing the experience in the moment.

Since we did not have a hotel, we drove up to the bridge Sunday evening. We parked at the St. Ignace Welcome Center, directly off of the highway, around midnight. There was sufficient parking, though it was more crowded than usual; while the legality of sleeping here is unclear, we were not the only ones doing it, and the police did not hassle us.

We got up around 6 to drive to the start of the walk at Bridge View Park. While there is ample parking at Bridge View Park (as organizers park people everywhere on the grass), this was a mistake: we waited in a queue for about 30 minutes before reaching the front, with a parking agent directing us to a spot. As we waited to take the Bridge View exit, we noticed walkers crossing the now-closed freeway ahead of us from the welcome center to the starting area for the bridge walk. Even with our mistakes, we were in line by around 6:45. Despite the large crowd, it only took a few minutes for each of us to access the ample porta-potties available.

the walk

While waiting for the walk to start, we listened to governor Whitmer’s speech, with the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness beginning a race across the bridge slightly before 7.⁴ Public access to the bridge opened at 7 sharp, though given the significant crowd size, it took a few minutes to actually make it onto the bridge.

Walkers use the outer lanes of the bridge on the opposite side of traffic (e.g. southbound walkers use the eastern lanes). This is to leave the center lanes open for emergency⁵ vehicles. Michigan State Police officers are stationed in the center lanes of the bridge every few hundred feet.⁶ Some of them tried to keep walkers out of the center lanes while others did not really care; given the size of the crowd, especially at peak times, it’s hard to stay perfectly within the lane.

The bridge reopens to cars at noon, when walkers are expected to be off the bridge. To faciliate this, walkers reaching the center of the bridge after 10 are turned back, with the turnaround points moving further out until 11:30 (at which point new walkers are not allowed on the bridge). The bridge authority doesn’t offer buses across the bridge, suggesting that walkers instead only walk to the center of the bridge and then turn around. While this saves them money, doing this is unsatisfying to many people, so there are two alternatives: take a ferry across, or cross both ways.

Ferries to Mackinac Island, which lies to the east of the bridge, allow round-trip tickets to be used with both the Mackinaw City and St. Ignace docks, so for those looking to spend the day on Mackinac Island, this option is effectively cost-free. The Arnold Transit Company also runs dock-to-dock boats specifically for bridge walkers at a reduced rate ($25, compared to the $37 for a round trip to Mackinac Island).

The second option, walking in both directions, is a bit of a challenge. Since walkers must reach the midpoint of the bridge on their return walk by 10, they need to average a pace of around 2.3 miles per hour. This should not be difficult for able-bodied adults, but it does require staying focused. This is the option we aimed for, with the knowledge that if we failed, we could take the ferry back.

The day’s weather could not have been more perfect: clear and warm with a moderate breeze. Even in these ideal conditions, the bridge swayed under the weight of tens of thousands of walkers, with that sway becoming more noticeable towards the midpoint. While not intense enough to make the walk difficult, it was disorienting. The bridge is a fascinating object, and not one to be underestimated.

Making it across to the south side of the bridge felt momentous, and there were celebrations worthy of the occasion. Crowds were exploring the local shops, a DJ was playing music, and we received our certificates for crossing the bridge. As we came to the end of the designated walking path, we noticed another sign: “double crossers U-turn here”. We looked at each other, thought for a moment, and committed to walking back across.

Once we got back onto the bridge, we took a short break in walking to eat snacks (I was carrying a backpack with light snacks, such as pretzels). This was a valuable boost in energy, especially as we had not eaten breakfast. We slowed down to take more pictures along the way, knowing we’d have no trouble making it back to the midpoint by 10. We tried to stop at points, but people just kept walking around us (and sometimes, obliviously, into us). We still comfortably made it, passing the midpoint at 9:35.

Our final semibridge took by far the longest, despite being downhill: we finished the walk at 10:30. We got an additional certificate, with a different image, for crossing northbound. With a physical manifestation of our accomplishment in hand, we headed out for lunch. Shockingly, there wasn’t much traffic, and we drove down US-2 a few miles to a restaurant serving pasties. We waited for the bridge traffic to clear up; when we headed back south around 1, cars were once again moving smoothly.

key details that I wish I knew beforehand

• The bridge is not actually five miles. It’s 4.5 miles. This sounds like a minor difference, but it makes double-crossing within the allotted timeframe go from a challenging task to a relatively easy one.
• Ferry service across the strait is available for $25. I only learned about this the prior day, so we didn’t make our plans counting on it (our original backup plan was “go to Mackinac Island”).
• Parking overnight at the St. Ignace Welcome Center is fine. I spent the days before the walk trying my best to research the overnight parking situation in the area and coming back with unclear information. We decided to risk it, assuming that even if I couldn’t park there, we could find somewhere… but it would’ve saved me a lot of research time to know that the welcome center was not only available, but extremely convenient.

those who walk bridges

I’ve walked a lot of bridges in my life. When I visit cities, I often enjoy walking iconic bridges, especially enjoying bridges that cross political divisions (such as the Chaudière Bridge). There’s something special about these bridges, though: they’re “forbidden fruit”, where those like me can only cross at certain times as part of a common social activity.

Some of the commonalities are obvious. When walking across the Sault Ste. Marie bridge, I asked those around me for advice on walking the Mackinac Bridge; many of those present had also done that walk. Bridge walkers are generally quite friendly and sociable. Talking with strangers helps pass the time, and the constant flow of people walking makes the miles blend together. A five-mile walk alone across a bridge feels long, but that distance melts away easily when walking alongside thousands of others.

People at these events tended to lean towards the left politically, with the visible exception of some conservative politicans⁷ at the Mackinac Bridge. Contributing to that leftward lean: a significant Native-led protest against Line 5 as part of the Mackinac Bridge walk.

Runners and hikers were well represented at both events, with Run 906 shirts ubiquitous at the Sault bridge. As with those hobbies, attendance at both walks was overwhelmingly white. Native Americans were likely the second-largest ethnic group at Mackinac (with the Line 5 protest driving attendance).

At the Mackinac walk, some attendees wore costumes. I chatted with a couple dressed as “Where’s Waldo/Wenda”; they’ve been doing the walk for many years and many returning walkers recognized them. Also present: a Santa Claus, a cheesehead, and a Trump caricature.

There were other commonalities too. I went to see both the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses, and noticed that the type of person attending a bridge walk seems to have a lot in common with the type of person eclipse-chasing. It’s the sort of hobby one takes up when they’re interested in geospatial anomolies: an event, limited in place and time, where a part of everyday reality suddenly works very differently. You can’t walk across the bridge. But you did today. The sky doesn’t do that. But it did today. And you got to experience it with fellow humans, just as fascinated by the occasion as you are.

If it’s not obvious, I enjoyed both bridge walks quite a lot and intend to do them again in the future. Let me know if you’re going; I’d love to see you there!