Marathon is actually the closest town to Neys Provencial Park, but it doesn’t have the waterfall so Terrace Bay got first dibs. Pebble Beach in Marathon was closed for construction… We are not sure exactly what that means, but it was closed and blocked far enough back that we could not see what was being constructed…. But one of the staff at Neys visitor center recommended Carden Cove for a beach in the area. Both it and Terrace Bay Beach were dog friendly which is nice. Our beach at Neys was not dog friendly.
Carden Cove was a small but lovely beach, and had very little parking which was ok the day we were there, but could be problematic later in the season.
Nellie and I walked most of the way around the cove and ran across this little building project. Guess some locals are making use of all the driftwood logs that accumulate over time. Just love how the shorter one has notched logs, similar to Lincoln logs. They certainly have plenty of wood to work with…
Pukaskwa National Park was only another 30 minutes or so away and since we purchased our annual pass to Canadian National Parks, we decided to visit. It is mostly a hiking, kayaking, canoeing, etc park. There are no roads except the entrance and campground which is right at the entrance. But we enjoyed a short walk and their display of teepees and birch bark shelters. The little rocky coves are just beautiful, sometimes wish we still carried kayaks, but most of the time not.
Terrace Bay was a side trip from Neys, about 40 minutes west it was the closest town for supplies and had a nice water fall to boot. Aguasabon Falls was quite spectacular. Although you could not get a head on view of the falls, you can see the fall dropping over 100 ft on the left of the picture. It drops into the Aguasabon gorge with rock walls over 2.6 billion year old.
Rocks and geology just blow my mind sometimes. Trying to imagine a river cutting a gorge into solid rock and yet not cutting the rock right next door where the fall is doesn’t work in my mind. Then I remember its not all water. There have been oceans covering the area, uplifting of rock layers, earthquakes, volcanos, etc. Imagine 2 BILLION years of weather and it makes it a little easier to just accept and not question.
Anyway here is where the Aquasabon river empties into Lake Superior, on Terrace Bay Beach. The beach was very nice, with a small protected harbor with a boat ramp, docks and kayak launch.
They also have a boardwalk and trails thru the adjacent woods, we were going to walk some of the trails, but as soon as we hit the woods, the mosquitos came out with a vengeance and the bug spray was way back in the car. Nice view of the Trans Canadian Railroad which the highway closely follows.
Peace Love and still wish I had taken a geology class.
Neys is a nice park right on the shore of Lake Superior. Randy picked out a very nice camp site with lovely views, both inside and outside the bus.
As we have traveled northwest around the great lakes, the days are getting longer and longer. The fact that we have yet to reach the central time zone has enhanced this. In the US, central time starts halfway thru Michigan, but up here it does not change until west of the lakes. It must be the widest time zone ever, all the way from the east coast to west of the great lakes is a LONG way!! While in Neys, pre summer solstice, the sun was setting at 9:55. Later than we are usually up much less out and about, but having the sunset over Lake Superior right out the front door we couldn’t resist staying up. The weather has changed back to sunny and warm but cool in the evenings notice the jackets, the haze is mostly smoke we think.
Neys Camp was originally a POW camp during World War II housing German prisoners of war. I honestly didn’t know that German prisoners were transported to North America during the war. During our travels we learned about Japanese internment camps in the US, but never about the Germans. Guess it was just up here in Canada. Sounds like it was mostly forced labor, and must have been brutal during the winter right on the banks of Lake Superior. The visitor center had a nice model of the camp and some other informative displays. Below is a “star” on the ground made of rocks that was originally part of the POW camp probably home to a flag pole.
Of the other displays, there was a life ring from the Edmond Fitzgerald. One of the more famous and recent ship wrecks in Lake Superior happening in 1975. It washed up here on a near by island.
And a display of different animal skat for identification purposes. I don’t usually inspect poop unless its Nellies, but may be important to someone?
One of the things we enjoy about going north in the summer is the feeling of eternal spring. The flowers look as fresh as they did down south months ago, but one of the bad things is that the pollen seems to be eternal as well. The pines pollen was just finishing in NC when we left in March, but up here it is just beginning…
Home of Winnie the Bear. White River is a very small town about half way between Saulte St. Marie and Thunder Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior. They attract visitors by allowing campers to camp downtown. Motorhomes, campers and even tents are welcome in the city park which is basically a small parking lot surrounded by restaurants for the travel weary. We did not choose to stay here, but nice knowing you can.
The town is best known for being the home of Winnie, a bear who was purchased by a military veterinarian passing thru in the early 1900s. After his return to Europe and while serving in the army in France during the world war, he left Winnie (named for his home town of Winnipeg) in the care of the London Zoo. From there Winnie the Pooh was born and became a legend and favorite of many children.
As we travel around Lake Superior, the weather has changed significantly. We stopped in Sault St. Marie, but basically stocked up and enjoyed watching some TV. But back to the weather, it became rainy and pretty darn cool. Not a hard rain, but several days of drizzle with temps not reaching above 60. Our next stop Wawa was pretty much the same as for weather, but they added in some fog. Here is lake Wawa, there should be hills on the shore but they are socked in the fog.
Wawa is named after the indigenous word for geese, or so they say. The town has embraced the goose mascot. This was the last section of the trans Canadian highway to be completed, and before it was here, Wawa was one of the most remote areas only accessible via steamship. Given the size of the marina we can’t imagine that there was much steamship traffic. Anyway this Canadian Goose was erected in the 1960s when the highway was completed.
These geese are just because.
This area of Canada is very isolated even with the Trans Canadian Highway going thru. As far as industry is concerned, it appears that logging and mining are the most important. Using the resources available to make a living. This drill rig sitting on the edge of the lake in downtown is a reminder of the importance of mining.
Logging is/was also prevalent on the north shore of Lake Superior. Every waterfall has stories about logs being floated down the river after spring thaws and the dangers involved in the transportation. Here are first High Falls and Silver Falls both on the Magpie river.
And a overlook view of Lake Superior. The fog does not allow much of a view, so below is what you are suppose to see.
They also seem to have a signature totem pole design with extra large lips or teeth, they were everywhere.
Peace Love and gratitude for the wawa even if it is falling from the sky.
We stopped at the Chutes Provincial Park for just one night. We rarely only stay one night, but we have reservations in Sault St. Marie with cable TV. We have not had TV since entering Canada, and I for one am really looking forward to it. Plus we wanted to spend more time in Killbear instead of here.
While Killbear is much larger, much more popular, we truly enjoyed our one night stay in Chutes. There is a hiking trail along the Sable River. Where there are viewing platforms for two waterfalls. The first was the Seven Sisters cascading falls. Unfortunately, the viewing platform did not provide a very nice view.
As much as I preach that boundaries should be respected and don’t go past the fence as it could be dangerous, Randy decided to climb out under the platform for a better view. I have to admit it was a much better view and he returned safely.
The other one was the Chutes fall which the park is named after. The platform provided an excellent view, but was almost on top of the fall so it was hard to photograph.
There were also a bunch of beautiful wild flowers on the trail. I really love being up north late May and June, it is like spring is just beginning. Actually it is, March and April down south when spring begins is still frozen way up here. We just love the spring flowers!!
Creeping Dogwood
Star Flower
Ladies Slippers or as a neighbor called it a Wild Orchid
The Discovery Center in Killbear had, among other displays, a large display regarding a local rattle snake and its almost extinction and its more recent come back. There was an interesting video which lasted about 10 minutes that explained some of the measures they have taken for protecting these snakes.
First you should know that we really don’t like snakes, any kind of snake. But rattle snakes are scary.
Apparently they have installed some snake fencing in the park which leads the snakes to a safe passage across the street. Research has shown that roads are one of the most likely killers of local snakes. Here is one of the passage ways and the snake fencing leading the snakes to the passage.
The process must be working because traveling on the Trans Canadian Highway the next day we noticed snake fencing along a lot of the highway and larger passages ways under the highway. The tighter mesh at the bottom of these taller fences is supposed to prevent snakes from crossing.
Peace Love and Respect for the Snakes. I guess they must have a purpose…
We began our Canadian journey heading around Lake Huron. From Owen Sound we are now going around The Georgian Bay. It is connected to Lake Huron, but the Tobermory Peninsula and another chain of islands kind of separates them. Killbear is about a third of the way around the Bay. It is a large park with miles of trails and is very popular. Difficult to get reservations especially over the weekends, similar to US state parks where locals fill them up on the weekends.
We did not get a real good explanation for the name of the park, there are several tales about loggers and bears, but these have all been disproven since there are references to Killbear that predate commercial logging in the area. Either way it is a beautiful place. The Georgian Bay is said to have over 30,000 islands, tons more than the 1,000 islands in the St. Lawrence river in NY. The rocky outcroppings and tons of little islands dotting the landscape are a little reminiscent of the coast of Maine. This one was a short walk from the campsite and is home to “The Tree”. It seems to be in pretty bad shape needing these poles to prop it up. Lookup Killbear on the internet and you can see what it used to look like.
There are still wild fires blazing in eastern Canada (Nova Scotia and Quebec). These fires have been bring smoke our direction on occasion. But nothing like the unusual thick smoke covering New York City and Washington, DC. The weather will soon shift and elevate the smoke down south, but I believe it will be an on and off occurrence most of the summer for us. You can see the difference one day from the other.
We visited the Discovery Center in the park which was pretty interesting, but more about that later, and then to the lighthouse. The rocks at the lighthouse are a little different from most of the park. Instead of smooth sandstone rocks, they are more layered and at an angle. It was a nice little hike and Nellie is really loving the cooler air. Forgot to mention the heat wave broke and it is very pleasant, even jacket weather in the evenings with our beautiful shaded campsite.
Two points is another hike we took. There are two large rock outcroppings with a nice sandy beach between them.
There are a couple of benches on each of the outcroppings to rest, and although we are against graffiti in nature thought this picture on one of the beaches was quite nice. Technically, I guess, it is graffiti but better than painting on the rocks.
Also at one and only one spot there were a lot a whole lot of dragon flies. You can see them in the picture.
A couple of deer sightings, our only wildlife so far, and we almost made a sunset. Almost.
Peace Love and Gratitude for the trees even if they need to be propped up!!!
From Inverhuron Park, we moved to Owen Sound. A larger town than Kincardine, but again like Tobermory seems to be very summer vacation oriented. With paid parking everywhere. There are a couple of waterfalls in the area near town, but each required parking fees up to $10. I guess I can understand paid parking in the height of tourist season, but right now there is literally no one around and I personally don’t want to pay that type of fee. So we washed clothes and stocked up on groceries in anticipation of staying in a couple of Provincial Parks without ready access to town.
We did get out to explore and headed east to Meaford. On the way we found a lookout on Irish Mountain. Mountain is relative, as we were reminded by an Alberta resident at the lookout. These are simply hills in comparison. But the view looking over Meaford and the Georgian Bay was impressive. Note the haze in the photos is actually smoke from fires in Nova Scotia, bet the view is even better when the skies are clear.
A lot of the roads in Ontario, Canada (at least our experience thus far on this trip) are very straight for a long way. You can see how far this straight road goes even thru these “mountains.” This view was on the way down from Irish Mountain.
Meaford is a quaint little lake front village, known for its homegrown apples. Of course, it is not apple season, but now we have a reason to come back. There were a number of orchards on the way from Owen Sound. In one it appeared that they had trained the branches of the trees to grow down so that the apples were easier to pick. Not sure that this was the case, but that’s our story and we are sticking to it. They even have a lighthouse.
We found a lovely little park dedicated to dogs, specifically “Beautiful Joe”. Beautiful Joe was a real dog who, in 1891, was severely abused by his original owner, having his ears and tail cut off during the owners fit of rage. Joe was adopted by a local family, nursed back to health and he enjoyed a long and happy life with his new family. Although a remarkable and sad story, it would have probably been forgotten if not for Margaret Marshall Saunders an author born in Nova Scotia. Her brother’s family had adopted Joe and she met him during a visit, subsequently she wrote a children’s book from Joe’s perspective. The story won a literary contest and became the first Canadian novel to sell over one million copies.
The park is built on what was Joe’s backyard and is a tribute to all dogs.
There is a memorial to the rescue K-9s utilized during the 9-11 twin tower disaster in New York City, USA.
A memorial to service dogs, one police K-9s and a memorial wall for donor memorials to their best friends.
And this being Joe’s backyard his grave is on the grounds.
It was a very lovely park and backs up on the Big Head River with river access for dogs and humans alike.
Because of this history and just being good people, Meaford is very dog friendly with dog beaches and an annual dog parade among other events and amenities.
Peace Love and Gratitude for man’s best friends our dogs. Nellie is certainly our best friend (but don’t tell her that she is a dog)!!
Right next door to Inverhuron Provential Park is Bruce Energy. And I mean RIGHT next door. Bruce Energy is not only the largest employer in the area, but is also the largest nuclear power plant in either North America or the world depending on who you talk to.
They claim that after the Fukushima plant was destroyed in the tsunami a couple of years ago that Bruce is now the largest in the world. Randy’s internet research says different. But either way it’s a large facility and provides over 60% of all of Ontario’s energy. We were able to visit the visitor’s center, but all site tours were booked by school groups.
Of course the visitor center and the brief film we watched were taunting nuclear energy’s safety, carbon neutrality and partnership with surrounding neighbors. I found this statistic interesting.
We also found it interesting that there is this small plaque acknowledging the participation of the indigenous people in the project. Pretty small plaque.
We finished our tour with a visit to the Kincardine lighthouse and the Port Clark light.
Interesting story about boat travelers in the 1800 with a lot of fog and not being able to find the inlet to Kincardine. One of the passengers started playing his bag pipes and it was answered by a player on shore. They were able to communicate via pipes to get the vesicle to shore safely. I thing that they currently have bag pipe players play on the river front one day a week during the peak summer season.
Actually had a fabulous lunch in Kincardine at the Watercress Café. Pulled pork poutine and a great classic club. Our first official poutine. We don’t eat out often and are usually disappointed, but this was a pleasant surprise. Very small with slow service but nice food. If in the area check it out.
Peace Love and Nuclear sure beats Coal in a lot of ways.
Chasing our horizons... 