O Canada! Other Canadiana, September 1-3, 2012

Oh my goodness, I need to finish up these Canada Trip posts before I forget everything that happened!

Joe and I were in the Great White North from Saturday evening until Monday morning.  We visited Old Fort William and Kakabeka Falls - but there were some other fun things we did/saw before heading back to the States that don't fit neatly into a post of their own.  Should those pictures and memories be banished to online photo albums, to forever languish unseen?  No!!

Joe was extraordinarily nervous about crossing the border.

The border crossing - the first ever for Joe, the first in a car for me - was only mildly harrowing.  We were asked a few questions, given the once-over by the stern border guard, and then waved through.  He pointedly asked me if I had any mace or pepper spray on me.  I did not, so we were okay to continue.

Night Danger!  ooh Night Danger!

We did not see any moose on our travels, save for the very dynamic moose in these road signs.  Night Danger sounds like the name of a bad late 70's disco act.  Night Danger!  Ooh Night Danger!!

Apparently Canada didn't join the USA when we decided to can the nationwide 55 mph speed limit.  We were held at a painfully slow 90kph (~56mph) the entire time...even on the straightest, longest of roads.  Not that we would have gone too fast anyway...the last thing we wanted was to cause any trouble in another country.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is the Sleeping Giant in Thunder Bay.  It is one of the high ridges alongside the city.  The ridges were VERY impressive - it was hard to believe we were just a few hours northeast of Duluth.  There's nothing like them in Minnesota.  They reminded me a bit of Wyoming buttes.  And, of course, it's obvious why the ridge above is called the Sleeping Giant.  Isn't it?  Perhaps this will help to clarify...

Two Sleeping Giants

While we were driving slowly along Canadian Highways 20 (the Trans Canada Highway) and 11 (King's Highway), we saw plenty of rock stacks.  It was actually kind of fun, to see who could spot the next one.  We wondered who would have assembled them: there were no sidewalks and very few turnoffs on these roads.  The roads didn't even have much in the way of shoulders, so we couldn't imagine a car pulling over every once in a while for its passengers to pop out and stack rocks.

Joe spoke to a coworker about them and I did a bit of research - it looks like we were seeing Inuksuk.  How cool!  I wish I had taken a picture of one - you'll just have to go to the linked page and see what we were looking at.

Oh, there's much more.  We watched many episodes of Storage Wars (which we had never heard of before, but found instantly addictive.  This further cemented our decisions not to have televisions at home), we bought and rejected Ketchup Chips, and we marveled over how large farm fields were in Ontario.  We got a big kick out of the OPP - not Naughty by Nature, but the Ontario Provincial Police, which deal with, uh, other peoples' problems.

Back to the United States in the next post.

O Canada! Kakabeka Falls: September 2, 2012

We visited one Provincial Park on the trip: Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park, which was on the way between Thunder Bay and Fort Frances.  Kakabeka Falls is called the "Niagara of the North" due to it being TOTALLY AWESOME.  So, in accordance with our quest to see every waterfall in the world, we felt it was our duty to stop by and take a look.

Kaministiquia River

The Kaministiquia River winds through Ontario and eventually empties into Lake Superior.  I thought that the landscape looked "particularly Canadian", what with the rocky river and the pines.  It was wonderful.  

Falls from the top

There's quite a bit of infrastructure at the park.  There was a foot-and-vehicle bridge crossing over the top of the falls, good hiking trails, and many large overlooks built into the cliffsides.  There were also some good interpretive signs and a nice little interpretive center.  Plenty of people were out there enjoying the park - it was Saturday, it was a holiday weekend, and it was beautiful outside.  What was everyone coming to see??

Wow.

Dang.  Yeah, that's an impressive waterfall.  Kakabeka Falls cascades over 130 feet from top to the river below (40 meters).  I have been to Niagara Falls, and I agree with calling Kakabeka the "Niagara of the North".  It was easily the most impressive waterfall I've ever seen, aside from Niagara.  One difference is that Niagara is (pretty much) a straight drop - no cascading over the side.  Kakabeka had many "stairsteps" along the way.  Nobody could survive going over the falls in a barrel at Kakabeka.

There are many other amenities at the park.  According to this sign, Joe interpreted that there was not only an information booth, but an assembly line Quality Control checkpoint, and perhaps a book about a TARDIS?  And a hiker, of course.

Seriously, I also see a guy doing QC and a TARDIS.

There was also a hiking trail that went along the high ridge downstream of the falls.  There was a sign up at the trailhead: "WARNING!!  A BEAR WAS SPOTTED ON THIS TRAIL TODAY."  I have to admit, I was pretty apprehensive - but excited - about meeting Smokey on the trail.  Fortunately - unfortunately? - we did not have the opportunity to make Smokey's acquaintance.  The trail was about a mile and a half long, but the views were very impressive.  Man, do they ever know how to grow trees in Canada.

All in all, it was a great trip.  I highly approve of Ontario's Provincial Parks...okay, the one that I have seen.  We had a great time. 

What would a trip to a waterfall be if I didn't get a picture of Joe looking at it?

Total miles hiked today: (this park) 1.5
Total miles hiked (in 2012): 116.7

Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Thunderdog - n/a; Elly - 0
Total ticks (in 2012): 48

O Canada! Old Fort William: September 2, 2012

We skipped the opportunity to visit Grand Portage National Monument in lieu of going to Old Fort William.  Both are 'living history' museums, in which we could learn all about life on the frontier.  Old Fort William had the added exoticism of being Canadian.

Joe on the way in to the fort.  The hot oil-pouring gatekeeper must have been on break.

Fort William was a fur trading fort from the first part of the 19th century.  Not only did trappers and other frontiersman visit, trade, and stay at Fort William; the fancy pants stockholders and executives of the North West Company also stayed there.  It was actually kind of interesting to see the differences in how they lived at the Fort.  The company men were housed in relative luxury: their own bedrooms with wood stoves; the trappers stayed in bunkhouses.  There were huge four-poster beds in the luxurious rooms, the bunks in the bunkhouse couldn't have been more than five feet long.  Joe's legs would have hung off the end of the bed at the knees.

In addition to bunkhouses, we visited...

• the infirmary, complete with 'dead body' of a trapper who died of a 'venereal disease'
• the kitchen, where we chatted with a history player who told us all about food at the fort.  They had a snazzy counter-weight system that would turn an animal on a spit in front of the fire, instead of someone having to sit there and turn it.  They also had coffee (!!!).  I asked about it - where did they get coffee in 1803??? - and she said that it came from Jamaica and took five years to get to the Fort.
• The gaol, which had a recording of a man coughing and pounding on the wall of the furthest back cell.  Joe was freaked out by the coughing and pounding, and wouldn't go down to the back cell without me.  
• The First Nations Encampment outside the fort, where we met with history players who had just started the cookfires for the day.  That's where we saw the first of the many furs we would see that day.
• There was a huge garden onsite.  It's coming up to the end of the season, so most of it had been harvested already.  But it was clear that it would have fed quite a lot of people that stayed at the fort.

Oh yes.  The furs.  I suppose we should have expected it - it was a FUR TRADING FORT, after all.  But yeah, we saw a lot of dead animals.  There were whole buildings full of them.

Wolves, raccoons, mink, foxes, and (of course) beaver pelts.  Furry critters everywhere lived in fear of Fort William.

We stopped and chatted with some more of the history players.  The Coopersmith (barrel maker) was particularly interesting.  My grandfather was a coopersmith and - sadly - I knew next to nothing about how a barrel was made.  Now I know a little bit more about it.  

We also met a fellow who was spending the morning throwing axes at a stump.  Joe and I hovered until he asked if we would like to give it a try.  A small crowd gathered as Joe took the axes and stared down the stump.  Then he let the axe fly...and I snapped a great picture of the axe flying through the air:

Joe defends himself against the stump by throwing an axe at it

He was great!  Joe is a natural at things like this.  

We also visited the canoe shed, which was of particular interest to me.  I love canoeing and love canoes.  These were amazing: a dozen men could sit in them - along with hundreds and hundreds of pounds of furs.  Trappers and other frontiersmen traveled deep into the woods of Canada in these canoes. Now I want a canoe again.

Daddy, I want a boat like this!  A beautiful paddle boat, that's what I want.

My favorite canoe picture was the one that looked like a scared (or vicious?) porcupine.  We saw another stylized porcupine once before - on a bench in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan.  I wonder if we'll come across another porcupine on our next Big Trip.

Porcupine Canoe in Thunder Bay

Porcupine Bench in Keweenah Peninsula, Michigan

Mount Rose: September 1, 2012

After our 2.5 mile grueling up-and-down hike in Judge C.R. Magney State Park, we continued north towards the Canadian Border.  We stopped at Grand Portage National Monument, but decided not to actually go in.  We were planning a "frontier fort" visit for later in the weekend...although we can hike many trails in a short span of time, there is a limit to how much Frontier Life we can tolerate.

However, there was another activity option for Grand Portage National Monument.  We could...go on a hike.  From the top of Mount Rose, we would be able to see the actual Grand Portage through the trees.  Perhaps someday we'll hike the 8.5 mile trail from Lake Superior to Pigeon River, just like travelers did so long ago.  This day, however, I felt like a just a few more steps would result in me collapsing on the ground.

Joe, bless his soul, did a great job of talking me into going on a steep, mile-long hike not a few hours after being left jelly-legged at Judge C.R. Magney.  I could have stayed in the car and continued knitting.  But he knew that, deep down, I would regret not doing the Mount Rose Hike.

Pretty Straightforward.  Up we go.

Despite the steep trail, this was a much nicer hike than the Judge C.R. Magney hike.  The trees shaded us from the sun, and there was a nice cool breeze off the lake.  Every once in a while we would peek through the trees and get a glimpse of Grand Portage National Monument below.  There were stairs - but they were made of local rock that had rolled down the hillside. For some reason, that made the stairs more palatable.

I liked to think about how, two hundred years ago, those climbing this hill would have seen something similar.

By the time we got to the top we were feeling great.  So good, in fact, that we took a couple of silly pictures of ourselves.  Banner Moment on this blog: an actual picture of me:

Hey guys!

Once we got back on the road, my legs started to ache again.  We still had one more State Park Hiking Club Trail on the docket for the day.  Would we be able to do it?  We'll see in the next post...


Total miles hiked today: (this park) 1
Total miles hiked (in 2012): 114.2

Total ticks today: Joe - 0; Thunderdog - n/a; Elly - 0
Total ticks (in 2012): 48