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Lake Superior — Canada

Northern Lake Superior

     

Monday, September 25

Trip from Sault Ste. Marie to Wawa
The trip to Wawa was not as interesting as it could have been due to the weather. It alternated between pouring down rain and sun peaking through the clouds all day until sunset. It prevented us from wandering very far from the car, for example to take a hike, even a short one. So, we had to be satisfied with stopping every so often to view Lake Superior, which is gorgeous, from the road. The sky, although annoyingly wet, really made for some dramatic photo opps. Lake Superior is surprisingly blue, often aquamarine, due to the varying depths near the shore. I had expected it to be gray because of the cloud cover. Not so at all. The waves were also larger than expected.

There was quite a nice little information center and museum at Agawa where we picked up some local history. The fall foliage along this stretch of the TransCanada Highway was pretty colorful, even with the rain.

We reached Wawa around 5 PM and were greeted by not one, but two large rainbows. Too bad I couldn't find a good backdrop for them. Wawa’s claim to fame appears to be a very large statue of a Canadian goose, the first of which was erected in 1960 when the last leg of the TransCanada Highway (Rt. 17) was completed through this area. The highway missed Wawa by a mile, and the rather upset townspeople decided to erect a fake fowl large enough to be visible from the highway that would attract visitors to the town. Since then, the goose statue has been replaced a couple of times, but still stands guard at the entrance to the town. The town and its goose are looking a little tired, and the button you could push to have it honk (?) at you was dysfunctional, but the townsfolks there were hospitable enough. (Actually we saw another smaller goose statue with a plaque under it in another location as we were leaving town, leading to some speculation on our part as to whether or not we had seen the "real" Wawa goose.) We ate an unremarkable meal at the Viking Restaurant, walked along a boardwalk next to the town’s lake, then repaired to our dinky, but Internet wired room at the Sportsman’s Motel.

Tuesday, September 26

Trip from Wawa to Dorion
What a disappointing day! It rained cats and dogs all day long. We drove all day long. White River had absolutely nothing of interest, that we could find. Aside from stopping to eat the sandwiches we had prepared before we left (probably at the visitor center) and buying a pair of hand-crafted copper earrings at the Indian trading post, we didn't spend much time there. The next stop was Marathon. The visitor center at Marathon doubled as a ski lodge for a very tiny ski hill with one chair lift. The park ranger manning the desk there was friendly and interesting. He handed out paper samples made at a local pulp mill, and related how Marathon had grown from 1,500 people to 5,000 souls because of two gold mines that had opened up east of the town on Rt. 17. He encouraged all arriving visitors to sign the guest book as the number of people logged in September would determine whether or not the center would be open the following September.

Before leaving Marathon, we visited Pebble Beach where I liberated Canada of four of its large, surf-smoothed granite rocks.

At Rossport, we stopped at the Serendipity Garden Café for a cup of tea as it was pouring, cold, and dismal. There, we became engaged in an interesting conversation with another customer who was staying at the guest house there for the week. She was a creative writing professor on sabbatical from the University of Wisconsin, working on a book about Lake Superior. She passed along a lot of information about where to go and what to see as we rounded the Lake. We didn’t leave the café until almost an hour and a half later!

That hour and a half cost us a room in Nipigon, where we had planned to stay for the night; when we arrived, we found that all (of the not very many available) motel rooms were taken. Apparently it had been very dry in this region until the present week, and there had been over 300 forest fires the previous week. Firemen were arriving from all over to help mop up. While searching for a place to park ourselves for the night, we landed in front of a paper mill in Red Rock where some workers were just getting off their shift. One of them took us under his wing and escorted us west on Highway 17 to Dorion to the Dorian Inn Motel where there were still a few rooms available. The room was okay, but rather smoky, despite its status of "non-smoking" room, and there was no Internet access. Also, there was a train track very close to the motel (see photo taken out our window) that the fast-talking desk clerk didn't mention and that we didn’t see until we were going into our room. Fortunately, the trains were stopped from coming through all night because the track was being repaired nearby. We lucked out because when the first train came through very early the next morning, it was tooting its whistle loud enough for the next three towns to hear. The room didn't rumble much, but the motel's restaurant, aptly named the Rumblin' Inn, was rumored to experience a pretty good train shake. It didn't affect the food in a negative way though—it was good.

Wednesday, September 27

Trip from Dorion to Thunder Bay
Our first stop of the day was the Amethyst Panorama Mine where we received a short orientation before being sent out to search the rubble pile (probably restocked each night) for $3 per lb. amethyst scraps. We came away with $12 worth of purple rocks and a couple of necklace pendants (not found in the rubble pile). The photo here shows amethyst side by side in a rock with iron ore (the red part).

We ate our pre-packed lunches at, where else, a tourist info center (this one had a namesake: the Terry Fox Memorial after a young man who had excelled as an athlete in foot races in spite of having cancer and only one leg).

The rain was still putting a damper on outdoor sight-seeing, and we were beginning to realize that waiting until evening to find a place to stay was getting a bit risky, especially since we would soon be back in the U.S. during prime fall color season. So, we decided to head for Thunder Bay and do some advance reconnaissance. We wanted to look for a book about Lake Superior that the writer from U. of WI had told us about (The Ultimate Guide to the Region by Hugh Bishop) and find an Internet hotspot for nailing down room reservations for the next couple of nights.

Finding the book and a WiFi connection wasn't as easy as we thought it would be. The search led us back and forth across Thunder Bay. The Chapters bookstore didn’t have the book and the Starbucks there didn’t have an Internet connection. Finally, Luke at Starbucks sent us to Grinders, where we bought white chocolate drinks and set up shop at a table with the laptop for the next hour and a half, making reservations for the next couple of nights.

And then, finally finally it stopped raining for long enough to do some sightseeing—we went to Kakabeka Falls, the spot that inspired Wordsworth to pen the Song of Hiawatha based on the story of a young Indian girl named Greenmantle who was captured by the Sioux, then led them to their deaths over the falls during a raid on her own people, the Objibwe.

We stayed in Thunder Bay that night at the Landmark Hotel. Awful place, the Landmark—we were supposed to be in a non-smoking room, but the smoke from other rooms leaked into our room through the vents all night. The restaurant was okay. We spent the evening making more advance plans and reservations, without the help of the Bishop book, which we didn't find in Thunder Bay.

 

Another View of Lake Superior

 

Rainbow in Wawa

 

Wawa Goose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too close for comort?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amethyst Mine

 

Amethyst & Iron Ore

 

Kakabeka Falls

   

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