7 - Edmonton to North Bay, travelling east across Canada - May 2022

Entry 7 – Edmonton to North Bay, travelling east across Canada - May 2022

We exited the Canadian Rocky Mountains strip on the Columbian Parkway drive about half way along, heading east towards our next destination of Red Deer. Some warranty repairs had been booked, to be completed on the new trailer. We waved good-bye to the magnificent scenery of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The lovely views continued, travelling along the Saskatchewan River, with a lunch stop along Abraham Lake.

We spent a couple of nights at a trailer park nearby Edmonton, the capital of the Alberta Province. We stocked up the pantry and fridge along with a visit to a quilt shop where more unplanned money was spent.

Ernie had obtained a small inverter to help Taylor keep her phone charged during our days of long driving time. Ernie & Steve put their thinking caps on, coming up with a plan of attack for mounting the inverter near Taylor’s vehicle seat. They found a piece of wood, requiring to be cut to size to complete the fitting. The only saw they could find was on the pocket knife Taylor had purchased for Steve at Banff, displaying it’s owners name, “Steve.” It took a while to saw through the wood and they completed the job to Taylor’s satisfaction.

We continued east starting our long drive across Canada. For the next few thousand kilometres the scenery consisted of mostly flat farm land. Some farmers were in the process of seeding their summer crops, otherwise it was brown paddocks with some stubble from previous crops. Around half the year the paddocks would be covered by layers of snow. There were a few occasional paddocks with some cattle. The sighted stock was miniscule, in comparison to what is seen in similar outback farming communities in our home land, Australia.

   

We guided Taylor and Ernie towards camping at some provincial parks (Australia – national parks) where possible. It didn’t take long for them to appreciate the tranquil beauty of camping in a bush setting. After two days spent driving, travelling a bit over 600 kilometres, we set camp in Pike Lake Provincial Park, located about 20 minutes’ drive south from Saskatoon the capital of Saskatchewan. Two nights stay progressed to three nights where everyone relaxed, enjoying the beauty of Canadian nature

Continuing east we devoted three days to just driving. We soldiered on with a night spent in a Walmart super store carpark and a night in a Brewery carpark boondocking (Australia – free camping.) We stopped regularly to stretch out our senior aging bodies, with our dog companion, Max enjoying lots of new scents in amongst fresh new bushes. Day light generally appeared around 5 am, with dusk around 9.30 pm each day. We found around 300 kilometres of travel on driving days, about the right balance for our bodies. Quite possibly we could have travelled double the distance with younger bodies.

We continued east through the province of Manitoba. Prior to leaving Australia we saw Manitoba was suffering from water inundation from late season snow melts and heavy rains. There had been heavy flooding with many areas placed under emergency measures. Many roads had suffered major damage from flood waters with highway one closed for an extended period. At the time we thought/hoped it would have been addressed by the time we arrived in this area. Unfortunately, the rain had continued, with the ground at peak saturation and we found ourselves studying the plethora of road closures, trying to find a route to continue with our east bound travels. Taylor rose to the task, finding a nice safe route around all the road closures.

It was again time to rest up for a while and we set camp at Falcon Lake Provincial Park. Once again it was great to be camped amongst Canadian nature where we all had our bodies reset after 3 nights break from any driving.

It felt like summer had finally arrived with the appearance of the sun creating a perfect out door temperature. At one stage we were sitting outside eating a few nuts. Max alerted us to the presence of a squirrel eyeing off our nuts.

It seemed the squirrel wasn’t perturbed by Max or us not leaving. It was quite content to sit out the time, awaiting an opportunity to obtain some nuts. Sorry, we’re not sharing.

Too soon it was time to continue our journey driving across Canada. We finished packing up in the rain. The heavens had decided to pour down on us for the rest of the day. At one stage the visibility was down to around 50 metres causing everyone to be on alert for hazards. One thing Canada could learn from Australia would be to provide regular road side stops. The lack of road side stops and narrow road verges making it almost impossible to stop without causing embarrassment to other traffic increase our anxiety during these extreme weather conditions. After some deliberations, Ernie and Taylor thought it had been some of the worst weather they had experienced whilst driving. Around mid-day it felt like it was night time, driving through the black wet conditions. Ernie decided to continue onwards, worried about getting stranded by any flooding caused by the big wet. There were many road side lakes with water levels getting close to submerging the road.

Our planned stop for the night had been inundated by water and we decided to push on, looking for a safer option. After a long day, having driven about 400 kilometres, we set camp at another boondocking location, similar to bush locations we enjoy in Australia. Adding to the beautiful setting we were treated to a sighting of a young male deer with its antlers starting their growth stage. We could hear the loud sound of a water fall nearby, enticing some further exploration.

At sunrise the skies were still covered by threatening clouds and of course it was still raining. A check of the local weather prediction showed more extreme weather fronts were approaching us from across the nearby expanse of the world’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Superior. Lake Superior is of mammoth proportions holding ten percent of the worlds fresh water, very like a large ocean with powerful waves colliding with rugged coastlines. Ernie thought we could outrun the approaching weather front and we were driving early, sacrificing our breakfast time. We could see dark black clouds licking at our heels for a couple of hours whilst driving and were relieved to see the dark clouds disappear to our rear.

Lunch/breakfast was at a fast-food location of Tim Hortons. It was sort of ok providing some warmth to our cool bodies but of no comparison to our nice healthy and flavoursome home-made meals. It reiterated how wonderful our two trailer girls were, providing delicious meals, meal after meal after meal.

It was another boondocking night spent in another carpark located at a viewing tower, show casing some magnificent engineering of a bridge over more water. It turned out to be another special, “different,” location other than the constant passing of large goods trains, disturbing the sleep of some, but our main author slept un-disturbed the whole night. Though our author did open their eyes very early in the morning feeling snug and wonderfully warm and instantly started to groan, seeing a beautiful sunrise that needed to be photographed.

 

We were even treated to some special bird sightings, some Turkey Vulture’s and a Wood Pecker, nearby the bridge.

The beautiful scenery continued during our driving time, travelling around Lake Superior. It was a drive of about 1,500 kilometres just to clear the small section of Lake Superior we were to traverse.

After another day of just driving, we set camp at Pukaskwa National Park. It was another magnificent setting with views of Lake Superior and some sheltered inlets. There was a variety of walking tracks to choose from, approx 20 minutes to about 9 hours of hiking.

We enjoyed many different walking trails over our 3 days of stay. All with memorable, special “Canadian,” scenery with some special names like the Bimose Kinoomagewnan, 3.7-kilometre, 2-hour hike.

Pukaskwa National Park was another special location with a variety of walking tracks to choose from and oodles of splendid scenery.

We so enjoyed Pukaskwa N.P. and could have easily stayed longer than our three nights. We returned to our driving duties continuing east across Canada. For our first stop back, “on the road again,” we spent a night in Lake Superior Provincial Park. It was a bit tight getting into the camp site and the trailer got stuck between two trees and seemingly snookered by a third tree. The outside temperature was hovering around the 2 C mark and adding to the misery it was raining. There was a lot of jiggling with plenty of conversation. Eventually we disconnected the truck from the trailer, reconnecting at a sharp angle to push the trailer sideways past one of the obstructing trees. Just another frustrating new incident adding to our Canada experience.

It was a fantastic setting driving around Lake Superior. Our eyes were tantalised by the magnificent setting.

We continued driving in an easterly direction across the Canadian expanses. After three days of just driving, it was time to rest up and rejuvenate our weary bodies. Halfway Lake Provincial Park caught our attention. We were allocated a site and once we had set up our camp the karma settled over our bodies. We were very happy with the enchanting atmosphere of Halfway Lake Provincial Park.

We enjoyed walking through the large expanses of the Halfway Lake P/P campground admiring a wonderful scenic setting. We were all feeling a bit hyper from the excitement generated by our wonderful green surrounds. When we came across a playground on one of our walks our hyper excitement took over. The girls generated a lot of energy on the swings and Steve got into the act, exerting his body upside down on some rings, though he did come down rather quickly feeling giddy. Taylor was about to take over on the rings when Ernie gave her some sensible direction to “get off,” before you push your body beyond its current age level limits!

After a while, hordes of mosquitoes started to appear. It was such a nice setting we were not going to let the mosquitoes impact our joy. Ernie produced an insect screened tent which we set up. With their gas fired heater in the middle, we positioned our chairs around it and continued to enjoy the beautiful surrounds. We cooked hot dogs over the fire for tea, enjoying our forest views with the mosquitoes watching on, unable to share in the feast upon us.

Annoyingly by the following morning the rain had appeared, putting a hold on some planned further exploration of the provincial park. The long-term forecast wasn’t very favourable with rain predicted for the rest of our stay. It was reiterated to us once again, “Welcome to Canada,” where it is mostly wet, cold and so awfully cold. We had only just recently seen a section of ground still covered by ice near Lake Superior.

To lift everyone’s spirits Taylor spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen marinating a chicken and preparing some side dishes for our evening meal. She even cooked up a peach crisp for dessert. Her efforts were much appreciated, where we settled for the night in a most satisfied relaxed mood.

The rest of our time at Halfway Lake was devoted to researching and planning the next stage of our travel route. In a way, the rain helped to enforce some time out, where we focused time, studying our next proposed route without distractions from the beckoning of another fabulous location calling for exploration.

After three nights at Halfway Lake, we headed down the road a bit to North Bay. Ernie and Mary both loved to consume a meal of chicken wings. We were aware of a restaurant in North Bay specialising in chicken wings with the option of over 100 flavours. We decided to aim for an arrival at North Bay for a lunch time meal at this restaurant. We were on the road earlier than normal, something to do with Ernie and Mary putting in some extra effort to get away asap to arrive at North Bay in a timely manner for lunch. North Bay was to be our location for a period where our daughter lived. Our daughter and partner met us at the Moose Cookhouse where we all had a very enjoyable special meal. If you look closely at the pictures, you will see a large volume of food (all chicken wings) in front of Ernie and Mary. They were both in a heavenly environment. Ernie and Taylor continued onwards, planning to catch up with their daughter in Toronto.