Ontario

Kenora

I had a great weekend in Kenora visiting my aunt and uncle. Saturday we went for lunch at this hotel that has a restaurant on the top overlooking the Lake of the Woods. It has a huge shoreline, which I got to see Sunday evening when we took my uncle's aluminum boat out for a tour of the lake. There are some pretty amazing houses built on the water too, including one that is completely geothermal.

Saturday we also went to an art studio called Fragile Glass, where I spent a good amount of money. My uncle is a pastor at the Lakeside Baptist Church, but Sunday a missionary who has lived throughout Africa did the sermon. Afterwards we went for a swim at the Keewatin beach (Kenora is named after three areas - Keewatin, Norman and Rat Portage) near their house and my uncle also took me to see the giant Husky the Muskie fish on his motorcycle. I want one!

Kakabeka Falls

Monday I left to start making my way south through Ontario towards my aunt and uncle in London. I drove the 6ish hours to Kakabeka Falls, which is a gorgeous waterfall just outside of Thunder Bay. There are some pretty good walking trails there, and the river has a lot of history as a portage route for both Indigenous people, as well as later settlers. I camped the night at the provincial park beside the falls, and even though it was $40, which seems like a lot to me for a campsite, it was nice to be able to take my time there. I also had a little campfire that night, of course, although it took way too long to get it going. It's all about the kindling.

White River

Tuesday I drove to White River, which is this tiny town that took about 5 hours to get to from Thunder Bay. I was hoping to find a cheaper campsite in that area, but there wasn't one, so I spent the night in the tourist information parking lot, where there were other motorhomes overnight as well. Not a lot to do in the town, which is where the bear cub that inspired Winnie the Pooh was from, but I sat in a coffee shop for a while and hung out in my van. I actually saw a baby bear on my way into town. When I first got to the town another BC VW that I had seen on the road earlier pulled up behind me. It was this cute yellow van with red flowers, and the couple is from Kimberly and also headed to the East Coast. Maybe I'll run into them again...

Sault Ste Marie

Doesn't it look like BC?!

Wednesday I drove to the Soo, which was a fairly short drive from White River, so I took my time and stopped every hundred kms along Lake Superior, which looks deceptively like an ocean. The Northern Ontario landscape is really similar to BC, with fir trees and ferns and big hills (no mountains though). I also stopped at the info centre for Wawa, though I didn't go into the town, where the big goose is.

The Agawa Petroglyphs were really neat as well, though a bit precarious walking along a rocky ledge right by the water to see them. All along the road were signs with a moose with a warning underneath that they are a night danger. I kept thinking it would make a good song with the music from that 80's song. The moose, they're a night danger, who could it be now haha... maybe not. That might be two different songs. Anyways, I stayed the night with my second cousins, the son and family of the great aunt and uncle I am staying with in London this weekend. I had met Steven before, but not his wife or their son and daughter, so it was great to get to spend the night visiting with them.

Thursday I left early to start the long drive from Sault Ste Marie through Michigan to London. Going through the US cuts off about 3 hours of driving and it's all a flat, four-lane highway. I went over three toll bridges, including one with Lake Michigan on one side and Lake Huron on the other. I have now seen three of the great lakes, and may just see them all by the time this trip is over! 

Coming back into Canada from the US was fine, but going into Michigan, (maybe because I was driving an old van) was interesting. I got taken inside while Black Beauty was rummaged through, and three different border authorities asked me the same questions. Where are you from? What did you do there? What did you take at school? Where are you going? Inside there was also a family that had tried to sneak citrus over the border, as well as a young couple with a newborn baby. Not sure what they were doing there... perhaps just "randomly selected" like me. The guy looking through my van also tried to open the side, sliding door (which doesn't work) and broke it off, so that was fun putting it back on, and one corner is significantly more bent now. I know they are just doing their job and all that, but I definitely felt pretty harrassed by the time I left. Their road signs, like "Injure/kill a road worker = $7500 plus 15 years" and "Prison Area do not pick up hitchhikers" were good indicators of their society built around fear. Not trying to harp too much on the US, but I was very glad once I was back in Canada.

Wawa Goose