World Canada Ontario Vermilion Bay

Bob & Maggie's Big Canada Trip

Amost to the end of Ontario Aug 28, 2008

From Sudbury (where we reported on the “big nickel”) the Trans-Canada Highway runs pretty much directly west to Sault Ste Marie, passing through a number of famous places (famous to a geologist anyway!). Place names like Blind River and Elliot Lake are familiar from mining geology courses (some of the first big uranium mines in North America). The other interesting geological feature of this route along the north shore of Lake Huron is that the contact between the flat lying sedimentary rocks of the early Paleozoic (only 500 million years old) and the Precambrian Canadian Shield (2 billion years old) pretty well follows the lake shore. But enough geology. Today (Friday, Aug 22) we experienced our second “turn away” of the entire trip and both within a week of one another. We were hoping to stay at an Ontario Provincial Park called Chutes near a little town (maybe 500 people) called Massey. When we got to Massey the first thing we saw was an advertisement for the town “fall fair” that weekend and the second thing we saw was the “fall fair”. Well, it always amazes me how many people come from hundreds of miles away to these small town fairs. The fair was hopping and the Park was full! So onward. We stayed at a KOA further down the road. Not so nice but it did have WiFi which allowed me to send the previous travel-log update. The next day (Saturday) it was on to Sault Ste Marie, which you might know is French for St Mary’s Rapids. Sault Ste Marie (Ontario) is right across the St Mary’s River from Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. The latter is home to the big (and famous) Soo Canal and Locks that freighters use to go back and forth between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The locks are required because Lake Superior is 10 ft (3 metres) more above sea-level than Lake Huron – which explains why there are rapids on the St Marys River. In the 1850’s the Americans refused to allow a Canadian(British) ship carrying troops and supplies bound for Manitoba to use the locks resulting in a diplomatic incidence and leading to the construction of a large canal with locks on the Canadian side. The Canadian locks had some new technology which worked so well that the Americans then used that same technology when they built the Panama Canal. While in the “Soo” as they say here, we took a day trip on the Algoma Central Railroad which was originally built in the 1890s to haul iron-ore and timber to the lakes. Our trip went for 180 km (114 miles) through remote “Algoma” country to Agawa Canyon – a wilderness Provincial Park – and then returned. It was a nice trip but I think the tourist hype promoting it left us thinking there should be more. Interestingly, the fare for this trip costs more in late September and October and it is probably a more spectacular trip then when all the leaves are in full colour. From Sault Ste Marie it was northwest around the northern shore of Lake Superior. Did you know that Lake Superior is the same size as Scotland and contains 10% of all the fresh water in the world (not counting fresh water locked up in glaciers!). The scenery along the lakeshore is beautiful- rocky tree covered headlands alternating with beautiful sandy beaches. This was one of the areas that Canada’s famous Group of Seven painters painted so often. They were instrumental in fact in getting several Parks established along the lakeshore to preserve some of this scenery. A few mentionables along the route today were the “halfway point” on the Trans Canada Highway (halfway between St John’s NL and Victoria, BC) and the world’s largest Canada Goose at Wawa. Wawa is Ojibway (the Indian nation of much of Ontario and I believe a great part of Michigan) for “wild goose”. For my American readers who might wonder about the references to the Trans-Canada Highway: before the late 1950’s there was no real highway across all of Canada; in 1949 the ten provinces and the Federal Government agreed to jointly build a Trans Canada Highway. It was first completed in 1962 or so. Since then it has of course been modified and there is in many provinces more than one “Trans Canada Highway” and with the building of so many more roads since 1960, it is possible to cross most of Canada (if not all of it) without driving on more than a few miles of TCH. But unlike the USA where roads can take you to virtually every part of the country, there are still vast areas of Canada with no roads at all. Partly this is because something like 85% of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the US border so needless to say, most of the roads are in the southern part of the country. At any rate, we spent two nights at Pukaskwa (Puck-a –saw) National Park on the shores of Lake Superior. Absolutely beautiful and the weather cooperated although the first night it got down to 5C (40F). A bit chilly! I’ve attached a few photos. The rest of the trip across the north shore of Lake Superior was very nice with lots of good scenery (canyons, waterfalls and scenic panoramas). We spent a night near Thunder Bay (where much of the Canadian wheat harvest gets loaded aboard ships for Europe) and then northwest still more. I’m sending this Thursday night, Aug 28 and we are about a 3-4 hour drive from Winnipeg Manitoba where I have cousins to visit. On our travels today we crossed the boundary between the Eastern and Central time zones – which you might say is no big deal as millions of people cross time zones everyday. It so happens though, that on this highway there was a big sign and a reminder that it was a Canadian (Sir Sandford Fleming) who came up with the idea of standard time zones. Prior to that everywhere had their own time. Now of course the whole world uses the same set of standard time zones! Just another interesting fact for you to store away!

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