Sault Ste. Marie (
/ˈsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ "Soo Saint Marie") is a city on the St. Marys River in Algoma District, Ontario, Canada. It is the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay, with a population of 74,948.<sup id="cite_ref-SC06_0-2" class="reference">[1]</sup> The community was founded as a French religious mission: Sault either means "jump"<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[5]</sup> or "rapids"<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">[6]</sup> in French, and thus the entire name translates to "Saint Mary's Rapids" or "jump Saint Mary's". Although the word sault is pronounced like "so" in French, anglophone residents pronounce it as "soo". Residents of the city are called Saultites. With a mission established by French Jesuits in 1668, claiming of the area by Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, in the name of Louis XIV of France, and fur trading posts soon after, this was one of the oldest European settlements in Canada.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">[7]</sup>
