The primary motivation for RV Trip 13 was to head west so we could be in Regina for July 5^th for the Swenson family reunion. It will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of when Sharon’s Dad’s family came from Sweden to Canada. Along the way there and back we will visit a variety of parks and try to explore some new things. The way out was actually our 9^th RV trip along the northern shores of Lake Superior, one of our favourite places to camp. The trip from home to Winnipeg would take us 5 nights/6 days and we stayed at 5 different Ontario Provincial Parks.

On day one we travelled from our home to Tobermory so we could take the ferry across to Manitoulin Island. We arrived early in Tobermory so we could park in the ferry lanes and go to the Tobermory Brewing company for an early lunch. I had the Blackened Salmon with a Porter beer, Sharon had the Fish Tacos, and we shared the Turtle Cheesecake for dessert. After lunch we just got back to the RV at 12:30 when it absolutely poured rain. Unfortunately, this also meant the first part of the ferry crossing (which is the most scenic) was foggy, rainy, and wavy. However, it was National Indigenous Peoples Day, and they had arranged to have drummers, singers, and dancers on board to do a show in the forward lounge, so we enjoyed that to pass the time.

We drove through Manitoulin Island and exited the island across the Little Current Swing bridge which luckily, we didn’t have to wait too long to cross. Our destination for the first night was Chutes Provincial Park (PP) and just as we arrived it started raining again. However, the rain stopped long enough that we could do a walk to see the waterfalls. The waterfalls got their name from the logging days when they would bring the logs down the river and across the water fall to flow downstream. The mosquitoes were out after the rain looking for fresh blood. Later we realized that this trip was the first June trip, of the 9 trips we have taken. Typically, we’ve been travelling this route in August/September. We soon realized how different the bug situation is at this time of year!

Our new experience for this day was to visit St. Joseph Island and the National Historic Site called Fort St. Joseph. It’s roughly a 35 km side trip one way to go to the Fort and that had been why we hadn’t tried it in the past. However, our destination for that night was Pancake Bay PP so we had the time to do this new stop. The other benefit this summer is that National Parks and Historic Sites are free to visit from now until September 2^nd, bonus! This site had park staff in period costumes, a documentary about the history in the theatre, a museum, and the outside grounds where the foundations of many of the buildings were still there. Here are the key facts about this fort:

• The British withdrew from Michilimackinac in 1796 and then in 1797/1798 they built Fort St. Joseph with a blockhouse for troops, a bakehouse, a kitchen, a guardhouse, a powder magazine, a wharf, and lastly a wooden palisade. It was then the most westerly of the British Military posts.
• Officers of the Indian Department were also in the fort and they held councils with the Indian allies.
• Eventually a small community grew around the fort due to the protection it offered but also the access for trading.
• The location was quite strategic as the main trading/shipping route for the voyageurs went along the St. Marys River and Munuscong Lake right in front of the fort.
• After the US declared war in 1812, Captain Charles Roberts of Fort St. Joseph conducts a surprise raid on the Americans at Michilimackinac on July 17^th, 1812, and they captured it without a shot being fired.
• Eventually Fort St. Joseph was abandoned and then in 1814 the Americans burned the fort down and this is why there are only building foundations left.
• Parks Canada has done extensive archaeological surveys of the area and in 1964 they discovered a Bateau that would have been used to bring limestone to the island to make the building foundations, and they have preserved it so it’s on display in the theatre.

The displays in the museum were quite well done. After the museum we took the trail out to foundational remains of Fort St. Joseph. When we arrived at the demonstration area, they had just finished cleaning out the ashes from the bake oven as it had reached cooking temperature. The first thing the staff had baked was nutmeg biscuits which were very good. Later they were going to bake some bread. When we went to leave, they offered us some mud seed balls. They took clay and made it into a flat shape, mixed in some dirt, and then placed wildflower seeds in that dirt. Lastly you formed it into a mud ball and after it is dried out you can save it until you are ready to plant it. We got 2 seed balls they had made, and Sharon made a brand new one to give to her mom. Overall, this was an extremely interesting stop and well worth the extra 70 km drive.

After Fort St. Joseph we carried on along the Trans Canada highway and found cheap diesel at an Esso station (Sharon gets a discount) in Sault Ste. Marie. We got diesel for $1.25/l and along the trip we saw it as high as $1.65/l. We did a bit of shopping in the Soo and then carried on to Pancake Bay PP where we had a beautiful campsite right across from the beach and Lake Superior. I had picked up some new water shoes in the Soo because we had forgotten to bring ours, so I had to check them out and go for a swim. The water was very calm, and it had been 34C in the Soo, so the water was much warmer than when we go swimming in Colpoys Bay at home. After we had dinner, we took a stroll on the beach and watched the sunset.

The next day was the pretty drive through Lake Superior PP, and we decided to stop at the Agawa Rock Pictographs since we hadn’t been there in awhile. There were only a couple of other people there, so the mosquitoes were anxious for their breakfast😉 The hike is a short scenic loop through some rock crevasses until you reach the rock wall where the pictographs are located. The Ojibwe people painted the pictographs of mystical beings, animals, and humans, and they are believed to be from 150 to 400 years old. You need a calm day to walk along the rock wall because the Lake Superior waves can crash up against the surface. They have some chains, ropes, and anchor pins to help you traverse the wall. We were able to see most of the pictographs without getting wet or slipping.

We were able to drive through the rest of Lake Superior PP before we encountered very bad fog. The day before we had 34C in the Soo and now our temperature dropped to 13C! We stopped for lunch at a picnic spot just before Marathon and it absolutely poured rain but stopped when we went to leave. When we reached Terrace Bay, we decided to see a new thing (to us) which was the lighthouse just off the main road. It is a 50’ tall replica of the lighthouse at Slate Islands PP but we couldn’t see Lake Superior at all from the top due to the fog. Our destination for the night was Rainbow Falls PP, Rossport Campground, but we stopped first to dump our tanks and fill our water. We couldn’t get one of the waterfront sites, but we did have a view of the lake and it turned out another LTV was in the campground, so we spoke with them. When we first setup the black flies attacked with a vengeance! We had never experienced this at this park as we had always camped in August/September. We took a stroll along the Lake Superior shores and then returned to have BBQed steaks for dinner. After dinner we found a nice spot along the rocky shore to watch the sunset, another very nice one.

The drive the next day was totally clear. We crossed the Nipigon bridge and further north we came across the Terry Fox National Ride of Hope on their cross Canada ride. When we arrived at the Terry Fox memorial, we realized we had just missed greeting them the day before when they had a ceremony at the memorial. Our Terry Fox team (Sharon and I) have participated in the Terry Fox run for 43 of the 44 years it has been going, and we’ll be doing it again this year. We’re in the top 1% of the teams across Canada in terms of fund raising.

We took the Thunder Bay bypass and headed onto Quetico PP where we arrived prior to the 2 pm check in as we had crossed the time zone line from Eastern time to Central time. At our campsite we found out that the electric outlet was not working, although the neighbour’s outlet in the same post was working. We called the office, and they sent maintenance people to look at it, but they couldn’t resolve the issue. We plugged into the neighbour’s outlet since they hadn’t arrived yet. Since we had one of our favourite sites we really didn’t want to move to another one. The Park Manager Gavin came by and was very apologetic about the issue and offered to reimburse us for the cost of electricity and give us free firewood. However, when the neighbours did show up, they didn’t have the 100’ of electric cord necessary to connect to the pedestal so we got to stay plugged in to their slot and then they got the credit for the electricity. We realized later that the free firewood was not properly dried out, so we spent 3 hours tending our smoke fest😉 However the sunset more than made up for it.

There was very little traffic on the Highway 11 southern route the next day except for logging trucks. We decided to stop for lunch in Fort Frances and went to La Place Rendez-Vous since it was right along the water. They seemed to be well underway with a massive renovation and had a brand-new composite deck right along the water. Most people seemed to be eating inside but we chose the water side. We shared calamari which was excellent, and I had the Walleye fish sandwich, and Sharon Sizzlin’ Gambas (shrimp). We would stop here again.

The main road through Fort Frances was under construction and when we followed the detour route, we discovered some other new things we hadn’t seen before. There was a 100’ lookout tower that was originally part of the Early Radar Detection system as a defense mechanism during the Cold War. They also had some sign boards explaining the logging and pulp and paper history of Fort Frances. Lastly there was a sign board about the North-West Mounted Police when they went through Fort Frances in October 1873. Sharon’s Dad had been involved in the setup of a commemorative statue in Fort Dufferin near Emerson Manitoba for the March West.

When we left Fort Frances, we decided to do a 40 km detour to see the Manitou Mounds National Historic Site – Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung, one of the most spiritually and archaeologically significant places in Canada.

• It has the largest concentration of burial mounds in Canada dating from 800 to 2000 years old.
• It is a cultural and spiritual hub for the Indigenous peoples across North America, also known as “The Place of the Long Rapids”.
• It was designated a National Historic Site in 1969.

After travelling down the dirt roads, we arrived at the Interpretive Centre where they house over 16,000 artifacts. We looked around the displays as we waited for our guided tour out to the mounds. In the exhibits we learned about:

• The story of Mother Earth from the Mishomis Book.
• About the Waaginogaan dome shaped tree bark structures.
• How they grew and harvested Wild Rice.
• The importance of Sturgeon fish to the people of the area when they came to this location in the spring and fall.

Eventually our guide was ready to take us on the golf cart out to the mounds. You could walk the 5 kms out and 5 kms back but the trail was just through the bush with little to see along the way. Also, there were very few interpretive signs so it really was best to have the guide explain things all along the route and once out at the mounds.

Our first stop was to see the round house and the cottage. A local had owned the land and recognized the importance of the mounds so preserved the area and eventually his descendants gifted the land to the Rainy River Band. They also purchased some other land around the main section of mounds from a settler who had partially destroyed one of the mounds. When an Indigenous person passed away, they would wrap the body in an animal fur until the body decomposed and then they would bundle up the remaining bones and place them in one of the mounds. At one point there were 23 mounds on the site, 15 remain today and 8 of those are visible from the tour. The fields around the mounds were beautiful with wildflowers and the biggest lady slipper flowers we’d ever seen. The white pelicans migrate through this area, and we saw 4 in the river. The guide told us they feed on the baby sturgeon fish. The Rainy River band has been trying to preserve the Sturgeon fish population, so they raise and release hatchlings. The fish is considered a threatened species in Canada, so the regulations are stricter than on the US side of the river. Before we left the mound area the guide offered to do a tobacco ceremony where she said a prayer and then released tobacco back to the earth.

On our return trip we stopped in the round house to look inside. They hold communal gatherings in the round house and had pictures of the guides ancestors. She was a descendant of the Chief that signed the original Treaty 3 in this area. Once back at the centre Sharon went to the restaurant to buy a takeaway portion of the Wild Rice soup and some Bannock so we could try that later. Again, this was another worthwhile detour from the normal route.

We were the last to leave the centre as it was just before 5 pm closing time. The good thing is that we didn’t have anybody coming down the dirt road towards us since it was quite narrow and would have been difficult to pass a vehicle coming the other way. We still had a 170 kms to travel to get to our final destination of Rushing River PP. It was a pretty drive through Nestor Falls and Sioux Narrows, but Sharon took the opportunity to snooze😉 When we arrived the park office was closed so we proceeded to our reserved site. The site wasn’t very level, so it took a bit of time to balance out the leveling blocks on the front wheels, but we did have a good view towards the lake. After dinner we took a walk around the North campground section we were in and it was surprising how full it was, we guessed because schools had finished that day and the Canada Day long weekend was approaching.

The next morning when we left, we dumped our tanks and then spent some time looking at the water falls along the Rushing River. It seemed like much more water than we had seen in the past.

As we carried on into Manitoba, we wanted to stop at our favourite cheese factory Bothwell but first we tried a new restaurant called Grandpa’s Café in Blumenort. It seemed quite bizarre to find a Mexican restaurant in this area, but we enjoyed the Jalapeno Margarita’s and the fish and shrimp tacos. The cheese factory outlet was low on stock, but we were still able to buy $200 worth of cheese, should last us until we get home😉

That will conclude this first blog for RV Trip 13 as we’re now in Winnipeg visiting family. We’ll start the trip further west tomorrow so more blogs to follow.