Canada Farewell Tour

I've always been fascinated by the Great Lakes, and Lake Superior in particular. After all, with a tenth of the world's fresh water, it's a fairly sized puddle.  There seemed justification enough to spend two nights in the adjacent Pukaskwa National Park. Besides, we hadn't parked more than one night at a single site since setting out, so by Day 13 we needed to linger a bit. The best thing we can say about Wawa was that the two-hour distance from the national park allowed us to arrive with more than enough time for a decent hike around noon. The first trail brought us along a small beach just a few minutes' walk from our campsite.  We soon began our first ascent through the woody hills along the lake and made an unexpected discovery. Lake Superior regulates temperature to the extent that blueberry bushes yield fruit along its coast longer into September. After being denied at the blueberry farm in Wawa, we were perhaps a bit more enthusiastic than usual about pickin...

On Day 12, we said our final goodbye to Lake Huron, destined for the greatest lake of all, Lake Superior. Our soft policy of driving no more than 4-4.5 hours a day required a stop in the town of Wawa before ultimately heading to Pukaskwa National Park along the lake the next day. It was a gray day, only augmented by the sorry state of Wawa's main Street.  The town appears to be known for two things, the fact that it happens to be the intersection point of two major highways heading west and a very large goose statue. The thing is, geese are absolutely filthy creatures. Anyone who has suffered prolonged experience with these glorified shitting machines is well aware that they can turn a pleasant riverside path into a minefield of irregularly large bird turds--and very quickly. So having a high number of geese in your area is nothing to be proud of, let alone celebrate with a statue.  As it turned out, we should have taken one good look at the statue and used it as a barometer f...

It was Day 11 when we left Parry Sound for Blind River. The drive was as Google mapped it out, about 3 and 1/4 hours that forced us away from the coast for roughly half the journey as we bypassed Sudbury. This portion of the itinerary was hands-down the most dreadful of any of the drives we've had on this trip. Not that the roads were poor, but it was just a depressing hour-plus of nothing (not even a gas station), and you really feel the loss of major bodies of water along the way. Once we got back to the Lake Huron coast our spirits were lifted. We stopped off at the small boat harbour for a free spot discovered through the iOverlander boondocking app. You never know how legit these things are, but this proved to be a stellar site to stay the night. Indeed, it was by far the second best informal campsite we've been to (with Arret Pour Un Nuit in Newfundland still king). The view was certainly spectacular, and as a bonus, there was a beach just a five minute walk away. Kenting...