Advertisement
Published: July 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Day 4
Woke up in our shady motel - which we later found out is probably one of the worst, if not the worst places to stay (full of hookers and other questionable characters) and went to Hoito (a famous finnish landmark restaurant) for a hearty saturday breakfast. I had these amazing thin pancakes and poached eggs, while my hubby had french toast and sausage. It was truly a fantastic breakfast and we felt like we were in scandinavia for a brief moment. It was definitely the place for a weekend breakfast as the line was out the door all morning. Apparently Thunder Bay has a huge finnish population because so many "bushworkers" came over from finland in the early 1900's. Many people around town have blonde hair and blue eyes... Hoito started as a co-op because the bushworkers couldn't find a decent place for a good reasonably priced meal in T-bay when they came in from their bush working....Hoito has been around since 1919 or so....
excellent.
After breakfast we went to "Fort William" historical park. It was a replica of the old fort that served as a trading point between the fur traders and the east. It
was a fort, but stangely had no military presence at the base, lots of staff - everyone was in character, it was enjoyable. And luckily, aside from a 10 min walk in the woods to get down there, an escape from the bugs that have been hounding us the whole trip so far. If anyone is interested in what we learned there please ask, but we have a feeling it's not the type of thing you will want to read. Long story short: europeans would go out with Aboriginals to get fur from west and north and would bring it back to the fort in July for "rendevous" and then the french traders would bring it back on a 7 week canoe trip to Montreal where it would then be shipped to england to dress the chic.
Now on to the bugs...after we left Fort William we headed west on the southern route to winnipeg. We stopped for a long hike at Quetico Provincial Park. A beautiful, huge park with tons of backcountry camping and canoeing. We felt like a nice long hike...and found one that seemed perfect. A 4 km hike to a beautiful beach where we could
swim and then turn back. It was great - except the bugs were so thick we are both even more littered with bites, despite trying to protect ourselves with clothing and deet all over the place. When we finally reached the beach - 1.5 hours later, Jesse removed his supposedly broken in hiking boots to reveal HUGE blisters that were ripped and bloody on both heels. Ouch. A nice little hike turned into a few hours of pain, and me laughing and then feeling bad at watching Jesse walk like a duck for 4km back to the car. needless to say we are looking into new hiking shoes for J-dog.
Back on the road and now we are in an overpriced, but nice, motel on the side of the highway in Nester Falls...somewhere between Emo and Kenora - yes, these are ontario towns you should probably know exist.
Tomorrow we will get through most of Manitoba and will unlikely get to internet very much as we have already paid too much on motels and will be camping more than we have thus far.
Oh and if you were waiting for some information on a swollen ear. Apparently
my ear can only take about 2 bug bites and then it just freaks out - my left ear is about double the size of the right, but I'm treating it with special cream diligently so it should get better soon!!
Canadian Bugs are Eaters, as some park worker yelled to us as they saw us emerge from the trail head - apparently this year is the worst people can remember....lucky us!
But seriously we have seen some of the most amazing scenery ever - this is better than most places I have been that are famous for the beautiful scenery. Our province is majestic, diverse, beautiful and alive. It's dynamic and its people are friendly hardworking and hardy. We have learned a lot from them. That it's worth driving 12 hours to get some lululemon clothing for the girls in Wawa and you have to drive the speed limit when going through the reserve land - those "treaty three police officers will nail ya if you are going just 5 over....believe you me".
Ontario - Yours to Discover - we got a taste and we'll be back for seconds....
L and J
Advertisement
Tot: 0.256s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 48; dbt: 0.1505s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Hilary
non-member comment
Your ear
Didn't that happen before? Your ear explode?