Jun 7-14
The week went by in a hurry and we have had little opportunity to access the internet. During the three days in Thunder Bay we had lots of opportunities to learn about this city of 110,000 people. Fort William is not a fort but rather a key trading post for furs heading east and supplies going further west into the North-West Territories. And have you eaten old and extra old gouda? The only Ontario factory making this delicacy is here.

On the way to Bryden ON, we crossed the Arctic Watershed. Some distance west of Thunder Bay there was a ridge of hills that took almost an hour to cross. West of it all rivers flow to the Hudson Bay and Arctic Ocean. We also crossed a time zone - didn't know that the west part of Ontario was an hour earlier :-)

This is not a trip to visit the bigger cities of Canada. It is our dedication to Canada only and we plan to learn about smaller communities. So, we bypassed Winnipeg and stopped instead in Portage La Prairie, a great little prairie town, where we found a Toyota dealership/RV place who repaired our fresh water drain tap. It is a first class place for any RV repair. We spent two nights camping in the park on an island in the middle of town! $20 per night with hook ups.

Along Lake Superior

Fort William

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113267374780103436207.00048486e9783daaa0e1e&ll=50.243692,-91.669922&spn=1.735456,4.938354&z=8

This is the link to the map we wanted you to see. We are in Dryden tonight and will cross into Manitoba tomorrow. There are some pictures to show and I still need to work on how to do it.

 Patience please!

Sudbury to Thunder Bay

June 3 to 6
Sudbury to Thunder Bay.
Starting out on a trip like this seemed no different than any of our other excursions. We had been through northern Ontario before so the first several days were familiar. The big difference is that we have made no reservations and no promises to ourselves about how far we shall drive, if at all, in any one day. We have a very comfortable sense of freedom, and all we know is that we will be home around the beginning of September.

Did you know that Wawa is about half-way from Toronto to the Manitoba border? Just about 1000 km for each leg. Tim Horton’s place in Wawa was a busy place. Every fisherman with truck and boat on trailer stopped there for coffee and a donut. The entrance to the parking lot had a sign – only visible after we turned in - which said “No Trailers” ! Brilliant. Fortunately we were between waves of visiting fishermen and were just able to make a tight u-turn at the far end, park briefly, and then leave before the next group from Michigan arrived.

The drive west along the north shore of Lake Superior is beautiful, parts of it spectacular. The closer we got to Thunder Bay, the more we saw of that giant lake; it holds more water than the rest of the Great Lakes combined! There are hills that we think must provide great practice for what was to come later. We arrived Thunder Bay on Sunday and stopped at the tourist information, up on a hill with a view over the city of 118,000 people. The Terry Fox memorial is a magnificent tribute to his valiant fight which ended a few km. east of this location. He had completed 3300 km of his cross-country run from St. Johns, Newfoundland; more than half of the total 5800 km.

The bottom tap for our fresh water tank is leaking and I don’t know where. A call to our favourite dealer will tell us.

All is well.