Lake Superior, Ontario

For the past few days we have been exploring the northern side of Lake Superior in Ontario. I am happy to say that we have now spent time at all 5 Great Lakes! Lake Superior is amazing - it holds 10% of the world's surface freshwater. It takes 200 years for water to circulate out of the Lake Superior compared to a 3 year circulation time for Lake Erie and 6 years for Lake Ontario. Needless to say, the lake is vast, and the wilderness that surround it's north shore is comparable. The northern edge of the lake is full of islands, and the mainland is full of smaller lakes. Interesting opposite landforms! Several great adventures here.


We visited Pukaskwa National Park, which seemed to be completely run by Natives - all of whom were incredibly friendly. We rented a canoe for the morning and explored a cove of Lake Superior. We followed a creek upstream and portaged over several beaver dams (one of which held back about 4 vertical feet of water) and found a huge beaver lodge. During this adventure I also found a leach attached to my foot - YUK!

We hiked through "the bush" of this National Park to reach beautiful vistas from rocky points and sandy beaches full of bleached driftwood (great firewood). The forest that we walked through was covered in dense moss. All surfaces, even the nearly vertical rock faces, were covered in deep layers of moss. We plunged our fingers into the moss, and all but our palms were lost. Every step we took was springy underfoot. Adalaya stated that this was her favorite place so far on our trip, and George enjoyed the insulated silence of this forest.


This area is so beautiful that many Provincial Parks abound. We stopped at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park for the afternoon. There is an inland lake here which drains into Lake Superior by way of Rainbow Falls - a beautiful series of cascades over pink granite which is spotted with green and gray lichen. After our hike we went for a swim in the Park's lake. This was my first lake swim on this trip and it felt great! Soothing to the soul!

4th of July in the U.P.

We dipped down into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for Independence Day weekend. We figured we should show our patriotism by being in the states on the 4th after being in Ontario for Canada Day. Upon entry to Sault Sainte Marie, MI we were chosen for the "random" (i.e. suspicious hippie van) search. Luckily there was no cavity search, and we were allowed reentry into the homeland.

I needed to take care of some business over the phone (my tracphone doesn't work in Canada) while we were back in the States, but of course no businesses were open till Tuesday. So we entertained ourselves over the long weekend in the U.P. First we saw the "Soo" Locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. At one point we saw a HUGE barge waiting for the water to rise in the lock. Then we headed to the north shore of Lake Michigan for a few days. The highlight of this area for us was a gas station called Gustafson's that sold all kinds of local food and goods: pasties, local wild rice, various animal pelts, several flavors of jerky (we chose Cajun), smoked cheese, and many species of smoked fish. We bought a hunk of the smoked Lake Salmon and enjoyed it in our fish tacos on the 4th. Here's a photo our patriotic fish taco dinner. Luckily there was a red picnic table to complete the patriotic colors that George and Adalaya happened to be wearing. We camped at the town's public marina that night and were able to catch some fireworks.

The municipal marinas have become our favorite guerrilla camping spots because they are free, have great views, a good breeze to keep the bugs down, water spigots, and public bathrooms. This one even had a free shower! God bless America!

Canada Day!

Today is Canada Day and they celebrate the birth of their nation in a similar fashion - flags and fireworks! George and Adalaya also celebrated it by dunking themselves in the frigid waters of Lake Huron. We've been wanting to swim in these beautiful lakes for awhile now, but because of the temperature of the water, the chilly wind, and the rocky coast we have not submerged more than our feet. But today we found a nice sandy beach and it was a bit warmer (although still plenty windy) so we attempted it. All bodily alarms went off once we got knee deep, so we had to increase the stakes. We have been allotting ourselves one indulgent ice-cream cone per week, so we set the stakes to an extra ice-cream cone (with 2 scoops) in a waffle cone with sprinkles to anyone that fully submerged themselves (including their head). I decided that I don't like ice-cream that much, so I wimped out and opted to document the event. Unfortunately, I can't get the video to load, but here's a few photos.

The task at hand...

And the spoils...

Bruce Peninsula, Ontario

We spent an amazing couple of days on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. It's the piece of land that separates Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay to the north. This is some of the most spectacular landscape we have ever seen. There is a hiking trail that runs from the tip of the peninsula all the way to Niagra Falls, along the Niagra Escarpment. We've been on this trail a couple of times, visited the Bruce Peninsula National Park, and ridden our bikes to a nearby Provincial Park. The water in the Georgian Bay is crystal clear and has the most beautiful hues of azure and turquoise due to the limestone that makes up the Niagra Escarpment. We have found all kinds of amazing things: limestone caves, 1000 year old cedar trees, and oil shale full of 450 million year old fossils - real fossil fuel!




George suggested that I elaborate on my previous post, "The Fruits of Breakfast" to include the local food that we find and enjoy along our way. Sounds like a good idea to me, since we feel like we're eating our way across the continent. So I'll list those at the bottom of each post, like so:

Local foods we've eaten on the Bruce Peninsula:
Goat Dairy Farm in Arthur, Ontario. We sampled and bought their goat milk, chevre, hard cheese, goat jerky (it was delicious), pork sausage, and goat's milk soap.

For our one meal of eating out this week, we chose "fish and chips" in Tobermory while we were waiting on the ferry to Manitoulin Island. We asked some locals where to find the best fish and chips in town (since many places advertised this popular dish), and they led us to a great fish shack that claimed to have "the most eye-poppinest, jaw droppinest Whitefish and Fries in town". Indeed, it was delicious. While we were there, we inquired why all the little harbor towns we had visited had only sailboats and motor boats in the harbors; no fishing boats like I'm used to seeing in the New England harbors. The waitress told us that the Canadian Government had bought all the fishing rights about 10 years ago and signed a treaty with the Canadian Native Americans. Now the only people that could commercially fish the waters were the Native Americans. So the fish we were eating had been caught by and bought from the local Native Americans. I was amazed, America would never do something like that!

Niagra or Bust!

We were feeling the need to get some miles behind us (after all we were still in Virginia), so after getting provisions in Front Royal, VA we zoomed north. Well, maybe we didn't zoom, but we went as fast as a big metal box on wheels can go on mountainous back roads, which is to say about 45 mph or less. So we meandered through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania where we stopped for a few hours of fitful sleep beside a cemetery (not going to do that again). By sunrise we were in New York State. We figured we were in need of a good cultural experience, so we went into downtown Buffalo for some NY style pizza for lunch. Yum! And it just so happened that today’s special was cheese and broccoli pizza, Adalaya’s favorite!

After lunch we crossed over the Peace Bridge into Canada where our customs lady was very chatty and told us how to get to “the best hot springs ever” in Calgary. No wonder our customs line took forever to get through! We then took yet another beautifully scenic parkway, Niagra Parkway, which took us north from Lake Erie to Niagra Falls along the Niagra River. It is an amazingly beautiful and uncrowded drive, and there’s a bike path along the river as well. When we started to see a plume of mist in the air we knew we were getting close, so we parked the van and rode our bikes to the Falls. What an amazing place! I was expecting a dirty brown river and tourist traps everywhere, but the river is an amazing emerald color and the whole area is clean and beautiful and full of people from all over their world. And the Falls themselves are indescribable. A full rainbow with a faint double rainbow above it graced the falls in its plumes of spray.