Pancake Bay (ON) to Whiteshell Provincial Park (MB)

July12 – cool and misty rain in morning, sunny later in day, ~3100km from home

Got up and saw Erica and Mary-Ann off, then took a walk on the beach before leaving Pancake Bay. The shoreline was beautiful, especially the rocky headlands, green misty mountains, and pebble beaches on the drive through Lake Superior Provincial Park.

We pushed on and arrived in Pukaskwa National Park in the late afternoon. After stopping at the visitor’s center and setting up camp, we hiked two of the front-country trails along gorgeous ocean-like headlands and sandy beaches littered driftwood so dense that you mostly had to walk on driftwood to go down them. The lichens were something to behold since it is so moist in the woods along the shoreline. We also enjoyed checking out different plants, like the encrusted saxifrage (an arctic alpine plant that is a glacial relic since it is so cool along the Lake Superior shore), Pitcher’s thistle, a species at risk, and an orange lily that grows on the side of the road and in the woods. We also had fun seeing lots of spring flowers in peak bloom (twin flower, bunchberry, strawberry, ladyslipper, clintonia and Labrador tea), all about a month behind Nova Scotia because it is so cool here (seems to be a trend to this entry – today was a high of 12 and low of 8).

Next to Pukaskwa National Park is the Pic River First Nation (Ojibway), and they were having their 25th annual pow-wow, which we went to in the evening. The colorful regalia of the dancers were amazing and there were many great drummers and singers. For supper we ate moose sausage, chili and bannock – the bannock wasn’t crumbly and sweet like the Mi’kmaq bannock, it was more like Toutons (fried bread dough Newfoundlanders eat with molasses).

On the way back to the campsite we saw a large red fox with a dead rabbit in its mouth...pretty neat. Pukaskwa is a really nice, low-key National Park with very few campers for a July Saturday. While the front-country and campground aren’t very large, the facilities are nice – to sum up, the park is alarmingly beautiful and underutilized.







July 13 – warm, mostly sunny with rain showers, ~3450km from home

Woke up to rain, packed up and it stopped raining. Walked 3 minutes to the beach at Horseshoe Bay, where the wind was really kicking up some big waves. Left Pukaskwa and hit the road along more misty Lake Superiror shoreline.

Stopped for lunch in Terrace Bay and visited the Aguasabon Falls and Gorge. We found out that they used to drive logs on the river until 1989 and that the town was designed and built by a paper company (almost every town we have hit lately is a pulp and paper town).

On to Thunder Bay and stopped at the info center, where we saw the Terry Fox Memorial and good views of the Sleeping Giant (Scott just happened to be wearing his Terry Fox shirt that day). We parked in downtown Thunder Bay, walked around the waterfront park and ended up walking through Erin’s (Josie’s sister) old neighborhood on our way to find Kanga’s Saunas for supper. We shared an order of Finnish pancakes (thin, eggy and buttery - yum) and fresh fried pickerel (not quite fish and chips but delicious). Besides Kenga’s and the casino downtown, there wasn’t much happening in Thunder Bay. We feel free to now use the phrase, “As dead as Thunder Bay on a Sunday.”

Not far outside Thunder Bay is Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park, where we camped for the night. At the visitor’s center we saw stromatolites (fossilized cyanobacteria colonies, some of the oldest fossils) and learned that Lake Sturgeon can grow up to 9 feet, 300 pounds and can live to 130 years old (they spawn at the base of the falls...the babies are super cute). The falls were also impressive – the theme for the last couple days has been that there is a lot of water in Northern Ontario. And a lot of hydro development; it turns out the amount of water that goes over Kakabeka Falls is controlled by Ontario Hydro and they have a deal with the municipality to turn the falls up (divert less water) on weekends and holidays and down at night and on weekdays. Oh Canada’s untamed wilderness! The other impressive thing is that it stayed light out much later than home, past 1030...crazy North.










July 14 – sunny and cool, ~3950km from home

We started the day by back-tracking to Thunder Bay to pick up Persians, a pastry invented in Thunder Bay that is basically a cinnamon-infused yeast doughnut with a very light textured frosting that makes them absolutely addictive. The shop had been closed the day before, but we couldn’t leave without them. We then headed west through boreal forest and treed bogs. We liked the look of Kenora but kept moving through past the Manitoba boarder to the Whiteshell Provincial Park where we spent the night. Camping in Manitoba is super cheap but there was a ton of litter in our site which was disgusting. Picking it all up was a mood dampener but made it livable! Pizza in the Outback Oven made a yummy dinner that picked up our spirits, as did watching a bit of The IT Crowd on the ol’ lappy before calling it a night. Computers in tents seems wrong, but not as much when you’re car camping every night.