Sorry folks, this is a long one. I wanted this blog to finish off Ontario, but this province is Huge and we did so much.
Day 109 - Ottawa - Alexandria to Ottawa was another beautiful drive along Hwy 7 through more farmland. Hwy 7 was once one of Ontario’s major highways until Hwy. 401 came along and offered a faster route with more lanes.
The evening included the full length documentary Against All Odds: The Failure of Russia’s Blitzkrueg, with Director Artem Litvinenko live from Ukraine to speak about the film and Q & A. Great guest speakers, paintings, crafts and silent auction, photographs and stories. Bruce and Sandra, and Laura weren’t able to attend but we know they would be very proud of the remarkable job Tania did with this very strong and emotional event.
And this is our quiet lock in Lindsay. There are lots of locals who seem to gather there after dinner to sit and visit - reminds me of the uncles in Hume and Griner parks.
We enjoyed a granola and Bolthouse juice dinner in our room at the Comfort Inn - true travel food!
Earworm - interesting word. The Germans coined the word öhrwurm - earworm - to describe the experience of a song stuck in the brain. I get them all the time, just ask Roger; I’ve been humming The Boxer by Paul Simon for months and it’s driving us both nuts! Someone told me chewing gum helps get rid of them but that doesn’t seem to work for me. 🤪
We stayed at the Pinewood Motor Inn in Espanola and it’s like a little cabin with couch, fireplace and fridge - very cozy and clean. We’re cold and wet, so the fireplace was very much appreciated :)
Speaking of White River, we stopped again to pose with Winnie-The-Pooh. If you have read the previous blogs there are stories in there about these stops when we drove east in June. A lot of this part of our journey is in our June 13th blog - MeAnd’Er-ing from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie if you want to know more about the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope, and the Winnie-The-Pooh connection with White River. https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3534926806833732830/1518895677920858418
The car is sending us warning messages about the regen. brakes. This happened before and we have been told they can’t do anything after the fact, they actually need it to happen there in the shop for them to know what it is and how to fix it.
Anyway, fingers crossed it’s okay until we get home and before the warranty expires; in the meantime the warning goes away if we restart the car!
Ottawa - After a lovely walk in Vincent Massey Park with our friend Barbara (who we met in Bangladesh and told you about earlier on our visit at St. George enroute east) we connected with our friends Bruce and Sandra (who we also met in Bangladesh and stayed with them on our way east) and shared a wonderful b-b-q meal in their backyard. It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of those! Barbara treated us to Tiramisu for dessert, Italian for “pick me up” or “cheer me up”, very fitting for the occasion.
It was so nice to meet their daughters Laura and Lisa and to be with friends.
Day 110 - Thursday, August 24th - Big event this evening, Invincible Kyiv: Celebration of Independence of Ukraine at the Canadian War Museum, organized by our very own Tania Piatkovska, the young woman who left when Russia invaded Ukraine and has been living with Bruce and Sandra in Ottawa.
These are some of the paintings being offered for sale.
We have been posting pictures of post offices along our journey, but in Ottawa we saw the mother of them all!! Canada Post Headquarters!!
We have also been collecting some of the post mark stamps at various post offices and some of them are quite beautiful. Maybe we’ll get a quilt made of them ….
Day 111 - nice numbers!!
We left Ottawa and returned to Hwy. 7, Central Ontario Hwy., back through Perth, Maberly, Sharbot Lake etc. along the Kawartha Lake Region. The Haneover Farmers Market was in full swing and we scored some fabulous multigrain bread and fresh beans to munch on.
The clocks clicked back an hour at 58,779km so now we’re only 3 hours ahead of home, and we’re on our way to Owen Sound to visit our friend Sharon, travelling along the Georgian Bay Coastal Route, some of it familiar from our journey east - over 3 months ago !!! , like Summerville - Summer Home of Glen Gould.
Traveller EV note - Bit of a power struggle at the charging station in Norwood - ‘she’ was plugged in and sitting at 80% and was not going to leave until 90%, meanwhile there was a guy waiting, and then us after him. She wouldn’t budge, he needed a 45 minute charge, so we pulled out and went to Peterborough.
A visit to Trent-Severn Lock 33 in Lindsay was a great chance to meet Lexi and Jenna, another 2 exceptional employees of Parks Canada. After they manually opened the locks for a Sea-doo Lexi gave us loads of information about the lock system and its travellers. The system is a 386km waterway connecting Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay with 42 lock stations. We visited Lock 21 in Peterborough on our way east, one of only two hydraulic lift locks on the waterway, all the others are operated manually. There is a big event happening there tomorrow for recreational water travellers. It’s going to be crazy!!
We enjoyed a granola and Bolthouse juice dinner in our room at the Comfort Inn - true travel food! Day 112 - continued to drive Georgian Bay Coastal Route from Lindsay to Owen Sound passing through fields of sunflowers, and stopping in Orillia to visit the Gordon Lightfoot tribute at Tudhope Park on a peninsula overlooking Lake Couchiching.
Golden Leaves - A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot stands 13 feet tall. The scenes on the carved maple leaves represent all of the songs from Gord’s Gold.. On either side of the sculpture are 2 smaller maple leaves of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Black Day in July. The setting in the park was beautiful. Gordon was born in Orillia in 1938 and was present of the unveiling of the statue in 2015. There is also a bust of Gordon outside the Orillia Opera House, one of the first places he performed.
A beautiful spot for reflection, and to pick up some new tunes for your earworm!
Gordon Lightfoot passed away May 1st of this year.
Owen Sound - Continued through Horseshoe Valley and Blue Mountain ski areas, Barrie and Meaford, arriving in Owen Sound mid afternoon. The walk along Kelso Beach at Nawash Park with our friend Sharon is wonderful, sandy beach, amphitheatre, Gichi-Name Wiikwedong Reconciliation Garden and a Fishing Derby, people and campers lined up everywhere.
There has been a lot of work done and still in progress to acknowledge this site as aboriginal territory. 
The silos at The Great Lakes Elevator Company are still very active importing and exporting salt, grain, etc. as well as the Miller Cement Silos across the channel, and the harbour is home to the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry over the winter months. 
We spent a couple of days in Owen Sound with Sharon, and Niki, her incredibly cute Pomsky and had some fabulous walks. It’s a beautiful little town (pop. 21,612), home to the Tom Thomson (of Group of Seven fame) Memorial Art Gallery, Festival of Northern Lights and Summerfold Music and Crafts Festival, to name a few. They also have. a permanent site and structure for their Farmers’ Market, as do a lot of the towns we have visited.
Charlie at the Owen Sound Marine & Rail Museum took us through the old rail car and caboose and described every detail, another very enthusiastic and informed young man. 
Note to train friend Brian A. - we met a guy in Gander who belongs to a club of train enthusiasts and they travel all over Canada checking out trains, railways et al. You probably know of them, probably are one of them, and he seemed quite interested when I told him of your dream of a Train Watching Station in Mission.
Owen Sound is on the “Turkey Trail”, the east-west route from Georgian Bay along the north channel, up the St. Mary’s River to Lake Superior. Some say it got its name from the ships servicing the isolated ports wandering back and forth across the channel like a grazing turkey. Others say from the large number of turkey transported from Manitoulin islands where turkeys were first introduced to control a league of grasshoppers. Later, thousands of turkey would be brought to port on foot, crated live and sent by ship to Owen Sound, loaded onto trains for destinations as far away as New York city. Wow, grasshoppers to cranberry sauce, that’s quite a life!
The evening was spent with maps laid out on the table and great stories of travels, family, quilting, battling a Water Moccasin, life in Owen Sound and life in Mission - Sharon is an ex-pat, although by literal definition she did not leave the country, just the province. Her home is filled with beautiful handmade quilts, complete and in progress and we made a connection with Sylvia in Regina Beach for a quilting consult. For the longest time Sharon was with the Be The Change Action Circle in Mission.
Sharon warns us of Muskoka Rattlers on Manitoulin Island, and also forecasts that we will enjoy some of the famous Ontario fall colours on our journey home - that would be icing on the cake for me!
(News coming in from Hay River and Yellowknife, everyone has evacuated, things not looking good.)
Day 115 - we’re back on the road, and water, up the Great Lakes Waterfront Route, 1st stop Wiarton to visit Wiarton Willie, the great groundhog who, every February 2 on Groundhog Day, comes out of his home to predict whether there will be an early spring. “People from around the world” (quoted from Town of South Bruce Peninsula website), eagerly wait to see if Wiarton Willie will see his shadow indicating 6 more weeks of winter, or not see a shadow, predicting an early spring. 2023 he predicted early Spring.
Joyce-lyn is doing a fantastic job maintaining the Woman and Child sculpture and surrounding garden in the park planted by IODE (Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire) Canada, a national women’s charitable organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for individuals through education support, community service and citizenship programs. Another organization founded by women, like the Quota Club that we learned about back in June when we passed through Orillia eastward bound. Much like Rotary, but with a foundation of women and founded in Canada.
From there we continue along the Great Lakes Waterfront Route past barns with what appear to be quilting patterns on the side, and signs at ends of many driveways with the slogan “Stop Fish Farming” and “Stop the Fish Factory! “ a movement by Bruce Peninsula Water Watch opposed to the proposed industrial aquaculture factory planned near Colpoy’s Bay. If built, it will be 500,000 sq. feet, or 11.5 acres, and the company has purchased 200 acres so there is plenty of possibility of expansion. The concern is that it will have an irreversible damaging impact on the pristine water from which more than 4,000 residents source their drinking water. https://www.smellsfishy.org/
I am reading Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism by Maude Barlow, a linchpin for water justice, and this action by Georgian Bay Innovation Group (renamed GB Salmon) hits the nail on the head when she speaks about the privatization of our water.
Speaking of books - our little ‘Backseat Library’ has expanded in to the wheel well. I think Roger is going to cut me off pretty soon!
Quick stop at Little Cove Bakery in Tobermory then into line for the ferry to Manitoulin Island on MS Chi-Cheemaun ferry, ‘The Big Canoe’, a 2 hour voyage across Georgian Bay. It poured rain the entire time so we spent the journey inside the boat, using the time to catch up on my journal!
Mnidoo Mnising, or Manitoulin, is the world’s largest (there’s that word again) freshwater island and has long been held sacred by the Anishinaabe people. It is really beautiful, although the rain discouraged us from getting out of the car and taking pictures. We’ll have to steal some from the internet. 
At the Little Current draw bridge crossing we stopped at the Information office and learned from the young man there that people born on Manitoulin are called “Haweaters”, a name given by indigenous people to early settlers who ate hawberries to help with scurvy. Later the definition changed to those non-indigenous born on Manitoulin Island, and this young man was very proud of the name.
The Island is part of the Niagara Escarpment, or cuesta, that starts from the south shore of Lake Ontario westward, circumscribes the top of the Great Lakes Basin running from New York through Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin. It gives breathtaking views of include forests, farms, huge cliffs of amazing rock, and wetlands. 
We took the most direct route north along Route 6, but if we had more time we would have taken a week to explore the Island. And how’s this for a name of a fishing/hunting store! -
We stayed at the Pinewood Motor Inn in Espanola and it’s like a little cabin with couch, fireplace and fridge - very cozy and clean. We’re cold and wet, so the fireplace was very much appreciated :)
Did we mention that it is Raining!!
Day 166 - no, really it’s Day 116 + - begins our journey home, leaving Espanola and travelling back along the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail. Pulled off the side of the road in Spanish (the town) for a Rotary meeting and heard about Elspeth’s 24 Homeless experience, a fundraiser by Mission Community Services to raise $ for the Medical Mobile Unit. There’s still time to donate to this extremely needed resource in Mission. https://missioncommunityservices.com/. https://www.instagram.com/p/CwOKCxbSZdG/
In Massey we had our first encounter with horse and buggy, not in a bad way but it took me a few minutes to figure that he stopped in the middle of the intersection to turn left - good thing I avoided the urge to pass him.
We stayed at the Watertown Inn in Sault Ste. Marie again and went down to the locks, charged the car and watched 3 boats go through the locks. Remembered our last visit there and meeting Jean and Donna from Brantford. We drove this route when we were heading east back on June 7th!, but the view is different of course and the trees are beginning to change colour.
OMG, it’s August 31st already!
Route 11 has many names, and it gives us a great feeling travelling it and imagining Terry Fox running along here.
Terry began his journey in St. John’s, Newfoundland, ran along this very route August, 1980 before ending his Marathon of Hope in Thunder Bay September 1st, 1980, after 143 days, 5373 km, 3339 miles.
The Group of Seven, a group of Canadian landscape painters also travelled this route, but mostly by rail and canoe. They rented a boxcar and travelled up and down the Algoma Region on a 3-wheeled handcar called a Velocipede, and painted the Canadian landscape from 1920 - 1933. What a great story.
Stopped at Adawa Crafts in Batchawana Bay and bought this sticker - Nancy told us about Misshepezhieu, or Michipeshu, a lynx like creature depicted in the nearby pictographs dating back 2,000 years. Michipeshu caused violent waters that wreck havoc on those unlucky enough to be in the lake when his temper strikes.
Nancy went on to tell us of many places of interest nearby, all mapped out on a plastic litter bag. There is also a German prisoner of war internment camp nearby in Neys Park, that was used during WW II, from 1941 - 1946.
The walk along the beach at Lake Superior Provincial Park was really nice - I think Roger had some “childhood in Ontario” moments walking barefoot in the sand.
Then on to Wawa - as in “Any problems charging in your Me’And’Er Across Canada?”. - “Only in Wawa”, but it says that one of the 2 stations is working so we’ll give it a whirl = and it was!
Happy Dance!!
You might remember our blog back in June when we stayed at the Catfish Motel and plugged into their home because Wawa was down and we didn’t have enough charge to turn back to White River.
The EV Charging station in Marathon is also down, but we had a really good Chinese dinner at Wok with Chow! There is a sunny side to almost everything :) 
Roger has an amazing and detailed route for everywhere we go with charging stations marked with such frequency that if there is a problem we always have enough charge to get to the next one. It’s a little annoying at times, but when you get to somewhere like Marathon where we are spending the night and can’t charge it’s really nice to know we can get to Terrace Bay the next morning. That one wasn’t in very good form either - seems that the summer has been busy or something because we had no problems 3 months ago. I bought a cushion at Canadian Tire - 375 hours has left a bit of a dent in the car seats!
There is a lot of mining going on here in Ontario - the big Barrick/Helmo gold mine operating underground has been operating continuously for 30 years.
In North-western Ontario there a very large movement to Stop Nuke Dump - a protest against Ontario Power Generation’s proposal to build a Deep Geological Repository to bury radioactive nuclear waste on the shores of the Great Lakes. This province is huge and has provided so many natural resources for nuclear power and industry and now they’re trying to figure out what to do with the waste. https://www.stopthegreatlakesnucleardump.com/
When I see these things and remember the struggle we had in Mission to keep our water public, I feel bad for not getting active with the Council of Canadians when Ken C. brought a chapter to Mission. 
I think it’s time to get active again!
Here’s another “biggest”, “tallest”, “oldest”, “deepest” for you - Nipigon boasts “Canadian Tire, the Smallest Store in Canada”.
And talking about bragging rights, we see Welcome To … signs everywhere with Home of …. Baseball players, Curling Teams, Figure Skaters, NHL Players, Rhodes Scholars, even saw one for a Midwife today. Maybe some of my activism will begin at home with bragging signs for Mission’s finest, like Brent Hayden, Kim Smith-Gaucher, Teresa Kleindeist, Eden Donatelli, Carli-Rae Jepsen, to mention a few - hey, we have a lot of people in Mission to be proud of!
In the meantime, the drive is beautiful, the lupines have all gone to seed and the fields are ready for harvest. There a fields miles long of sunflowers!
Passed through the Arctic Watershed division again, and crossed the 90* longitude from EST to CST zone (and for some reason my phone didn’t do the change. Maybe we shouldn’t have turned off for a picture!)
Ontario is Huge - it’s taking forever to get across it, and until that happens I don’t feel we’re on the home stretch. We hit the 23,000 km mark today, and we’re still in Ontario!!
Day 118 + 119 - We’re on the home stretch and when we got to our motel in Upsala there was no-one there to let us in! It’s hot (35C) and we’re tired, so we charged up the car and headed to English River Inn - really friendly, clean and a nice outside area on the side of the river. We’re on route 17 heading north just west of Thunder Bay toward Kenora. Beautiful backroads along Historic Highway 1.
And from there I enjoyed a visit with my Friday Friends back home 💕
Day 119 - I know this is really long, but we really wanted to finish Ontario before posting, and as I said, that is taking Forever. But today we did it!
Crossed the line into Manitoba at 2:22pm., September 2nd.
Travelled Hwy 17, dubbed The Heart of Canada Touring Route, spanning from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg, flowing through Dryden, Vermillion Bay, Kenora, West Hawk Lake in Manitoba, Rennie , scouched down to Hwy 15 at Whitemouth & Elma, and on into Winnipeg. This is a fun piece from Kenora -
It’s HOT - 38C and really smoky, but we’re here!
🚘 A few more random tips and thoughts: 🚘
- 🐾 Dog treats are a must to have handy when visiting. We chose organic veggie ones for sensitive tummies, enjoyed by Grace and Niki.
- Bring your own pillow - by the time we get home we will have slept in 80 different beds, and except in the home of friends and B & B’s where the hosts live in the house, I prefer to use my own pillow thank you very much.
- Farmers Market granola and Bolthouse Farms juice make the perfect breakfast, lunch or dinner. We have a small plastic container and spoon we brought from home. Farmers Markets are also great for veggie munchies.
- The glass tray in the microwave makes a great charcuterie board!
Well Ontario - That’s a Wrap!
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