North shore of Superior

If you’re reading this it means we finally found decent internet. There has been virtually nothing dependable since we left the Sault. We’re probably passing through Thunder Bay and have found enough to upload the blog. 

The trip from the Sault north was spectacular. A bright sunny day, with no wind. The lake seemed very tame, despite it’s reputation. One of our first stops gave us this view.

This was very close (~30 miles) from where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. They had a plaque to commemorate it.

We stopped at a stunning white sand beach in Lake Superior Provincial Park. Catharine went swimming, although the water was quite bracing. We enjoyed a quick lunch sitting on a bench looking over the Lake.

The road north of Wawa, most of the way to White River was under construction, which slowed us down a lot, but we were listening to the audiobook, “The Art of Not Giving a F*#$”, which was timely.

We did eventually get to our destination at Neys Provincial Park, which was the site of a POW camp during WWII. It has a beautiful beach. The opening shot above shows Catharine going for a swim with Zoe watching. 

The bad news that we had to pitch camp in a light rain. It was our first campsite on the trip, and we were not well organized. We had to bolster each other a lot to make it through the evening, and collapsed into bed and slept very well, grateful for the new, cushy air mattresses and spacious, dry tent (thank you MEC).

The next day we took a hike along the shore, where we found this old logging boat that had been in use when the prisoners were there. We explored the rocky shoreline and marvelled at the obvious power of the lake, with huge logs thrown far above the waterline. If you had been on the ocean, you would have sworn there was a very high tide. But it is just the winter storms. 

(Stopping for a snack and hand wash.)

(Hiking with Zoe. Note all the sphagnum moss on the trees.)

I sat on the beach that evening and read my book and watched the sun go down, while Catharine had a cold swim and went off to get warm in the tent. I enjoyed the sunset at the end of good day.

The next day we broke camp at a leisurely pace because we only had a 3-hour drive to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, just east of Thunder Bay. The drive was uneventful and there was not nearly as much construction. We arrived in mid-afternoon and managed to pitch our tent and get a hike and swim with Zoe before supper. 

Catharine exercised her Pyromaniac Part and we enjoyed a fire. 

The next day, we went into Thunder Bay for the day to have lunch with my cousin, Brad (Joan and Bill's 3rd son), and his wife, Nancy. Nancy served up a delicious lunch and Brad and I compared notes. We have not seen each other since we were in our mid-teens. It was great to re-connect. At the end of the visit, their daughter Rachel and her husband, Mark, who were married one day before Alexander and Andrea last August, dropped by. Here we are in front of Brad and Nancy’s home in Thunder Bay. That’s their golden Sydney peering out from behind Brad. Zoe was already in the car.