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Got to Guelph and on to Newfoundland
We left Orillia after a brief tour of downtown, where the wildlife is safely behind windows…
Passed some nice Ontario farmland
and kept our eyes peeled in search of characteristic Ontario farmhouses with their steep gables – this one came close:
Encountered more traffic than we were used to
and ran into a touch more rain.
Pile ‘er high. A reuben at one of Orangeville’s fast food joints. Where hunger leads, we follow (wherever we can find a 40 foot space in the parking lot).
The salad had seen better days, but the dressing was pretty good.
Dutch Elm disease killed a lot of trees in Ontario, but some of them have had a second life, like these in Orangeville.
Our only moose sighting for days.
And before we knew it…
A pretty town, Guelph.
Supper in the Slow Fooderie of Guelph: the Artisanale, adjoining the all too tempting Bookshelf, includes a list of the farms and producers who provide its food. Last night’s menu offered some splendid things, like Spot Prawns with spinach (although how they could be described as local to Guelph eluded us, and the kitchen staff – the chef was not around when we dined)
and roast chicken, potatoes and asparagus
(if you need to take your drumstick home with you, the waitress can do some clever things with tinfoil)
and grilled mackerel with tomatoes, peppers and olives. Didn’t manage to find out what kind of mackerel this was, but am guessing Atlantic, which like Spot Prawns at least counts as – on some lists – sustainable (if not exactly local).
And that was pretty much it; the end of the road, the parting of ways. I left this afternoon for Newfoundland, completing by air my coast-to-coast travels. More on that another day.
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On to Orillia
So yesterday, it rained when we left Montreal River.
And then it was cloudy.
And then it rained.
And then it was cloudy.
And then it rained.
And then it was cloudy.
And, wait, let me think: then it rained.
Yes, and then it was cloudy.
Then we saw some blue sky.
And some wildflowers, or weeds if you must.
We spent some time admiring the scenery while a logging truck chugged along ahead of us.
And then we hit a flat bit, still with the logging truck ahead,
and finally overtook him at Blind River.
We stopped for lunch at Bobbers in Bruce Mines, where the breakfast special was a bargain at $4.95 and the place was packed.
Some more flat bits.
Bait sold everywhere. There were even signs promising you could buy it 24 hours a day.
And then, finally, the sun shone…
and shone…
and shone…
End of the road, Orillia. A few small things we might need overnight…
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Thundering to Montreal River Bay
Indeterminate weather on Monday as we set off from Thunder Bay, but great clouds, and lots of lake.
Lucky truckers. We check out the traffic ahead of us.
It is construction season in Canada, so we’ve seen a fair amount of that. Here’s where your car tires are going (fittingly, into the road beds of new highways).
Travelling through Group of Seven country, most definitely.
A beautiful place on Lake Superior: Old Woman Bay.
Our BCAA guide told us the place to eat in Wawa is the Kinniwabi Pines,
where you can get Canadian, Chinese and Trinidadian cuisine, and where we managed to get a cup of tea. Alas for us we were too early for the Trinidadian (Mom makes the meals elsewhere and they arrive at 5pm) but we were provided with a perfectly fine stir-fry which we could heat up in our cabin later. The brother and sister who run the place told us how the view there sold them on the place and they’re still happy there ten years later. We could see why. Look one way and it’s this:
and the other way it’s just this:
Moose, moose everywhere.
A train, a lake.
Welcome to Montreal River!!
Another spring? Lilacs out at the Twilight Resort.
Not quite hiding behind a tree beside our cabin.
Swinging nightlife at Montreal River.
Richard enjoys a glass of wine and a few pistachios before dinner.
Dinner is served.
The shores of Lake Superior, at Montreal River.
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.



























































