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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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Ontari-ar-i-o
Clever old us, we thought leaving Winnipeg bright and early on a Sunday morning would be pretty simple, but we ran into miles of police tape and traffic redirections – nothing that got in our way – because of the Manitoba Marathon.
We drove along for a while, rain and shine,
bought some fruit (California, not BC)
and saw ourselves
and then were welcomed to Ontario
where the landscape is thick with inukshuk, some say erected by hitchhikers, which are also relatively numerous in these parts.
and then just a lot of northern Ontario scenery, as promised: rocks, trees, water (repeat):
We stopped for lunch and met a valiant dog (kept very busy guarding the place from birds and beavers, according to his owner) who kept a close eye on our rig
while we tucked into some excellent pirogies (hand-made by a local Ukranian woman) for lunch.
And passed many such moose signs,
as well as 3 live and 2 dead ones, and other sobering sights.
And finally rolled into Thunder Bay safe and sound about 11 hours after starting. We had a little ramble along the industrial strip in search of food, to provision ourselves for the next leg. This venture raised some interesting questions, like what was the yellow scum round the edge of all the puddles?
We gave up on that one, and it all ended with a splendid feed.
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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.
