So we were now in Ontario,Canada. Up until now our travels have been centred around the central premise that we were exploring the USA and now we were, in the veritable blink of an eye, in another country altogether. When you call the island nations of either UK or NZ home, entering another country is not so easily achieved. It involves some moderate-major travel organisation, which at its very least is taking the train through the Chunnel to France, but for us usually involves the tediousness of air travel. We had arrived with only a few nights pre-booked and no real plan for the next eight weeks. This ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ approach to travel has worked splendidly for us before, but out of season. Here we were, in the middle of school holidays, in a country that has very short summers, competing for campsites with a nation that loves to camp, in a camper’s paradise. We would need to get organised fairly quickly.
We stopped in at tourist information to get some maps and then found our way to the first of our camping options for the night, neither of which were pre-bookable and both on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis. This one was just outside Fort Frances, the town we had arrived into, in a riverside town park. The park was huge, but the RV parking was limited and at very close quarters. There was one space available, but it didn’t look very inviting. The whole place was dreary in the continuing rain and we weren’t feeling it, so we drove on. Our second option was about 30 km down the road in a small village called Chapple, which had advertised a tiny town RV park with only five sites.
We headed there, with fingers crossed. It was lovely. By the time we arrived the rain had stopped, the sun was shining, the park had only two sites taken, was right on the river in a park-like setting next to the village hall and we were feeling very glad that we had not settled with the first place. And, it was free!
As we were setting up we could see that there were tables and decorations for a big formal party being set up in the village hall. Possibly it was going to be a noisy evening. We figured that we could deal with some late night music but in the end, didn’t have to as the party was going to be the evening after. Things were just getting better and better. The river in question is the Rainy River that we had crossed earlier, so we spent our first night looking across it back at the USA.
At this stage, the only apparent differences between the two countries were: the different flags fluttering, the colour of the money, everything printed in french swell as canadian, the accents, the presence of the metric system, the high price of fuel and the widespread provision of recycling bins. So subtle.
Chapple boasted a museum, which was closed and a cafe that was open for breakfast and lunch. Having had a complimentary night’s accomodation courtesy of the town we though it only polite to spend some money in the cafe, so we had a very delicious and hearty fried brunch on the way out the next morning. It must have been good, there was even a local cop there, and a lady with a large bucket of strawberries. Random.
In the morning we drove north towards Kenora, a town on the north-east of Lake Of The Woods. This is a 4000 square mile lake, containing over 14,000 islands, that spans the border. Two years ago we stayed on the south-west of the lake in the Minnesotan town of Warroad. A fishing trip on to the lake can see you crossing the border on purpose, or by accident, so potentially passports are needed. Customs are pretty relaxed here though.
The town of about 15,000 sees its population double in the summer as lots of people from the nearby city of Winnipeg have holiday cottages here, or come to camp. The town’s original name of Rat Portage was changed in 1905 after the it amalgamated with two nearby settlements of Keewatin and Norman. The new name of Ke-No-Ra was also a diplomatic amalgamation, but I prefer the ratty moniker personally. It is a very pleasant place, seemingly enhanced by its tourism rather than overwhelmed and altered by it. We had booked five nights here in a municipal park on the on the outskirts of town, but it couldn’t accommodate us until Sunday evening, so we had a single night in another park about 15km down the road. This was mediocre. In the morning we were eating breakfast outside and one of our neighbours spotted our large jar of Marmite on the table (I might have bought this online a few weeks ago at great expense having failed to find it in any stores in the Mid-West)
“You two must be Brits!”, she yelled across the way in a northern British accent. Guilty, we admitted. After a few moments of chatting we had discovered that, although now a naturalised Canadian, she was from Warrington, less than 30 mins drive from where Nick grew up in Wigan, had spent many an evening in a pub called The Cherry Gardens, his old local and had been at Liverpool University at the same time that I was. That is the power of Marmite, Folks.
After our long and taxing twenty minute drive, we arrived in Kenora. Filled with fuel, (Crikey Moses, it is about twice the price here as it was in the States. Suddenly Big Dave’s 9 mpg is less amusing.) stocked up at the supermarket (ditto for price shock) and found camp. This was on the lakeshore, although we were in the cheap-seats without a view around the back and it was only 2-3 km from the town centre, an easy cycle. The camp had a little beach and a floating boardwalk which annexed off a safe swimming area, a big advantage in here where everyone is charging around at great speed in their motorboats. It was pleasantly warm, not too hot and humid and we were looking forward to not moving for a few days.
The town had a great waterfront boardwalk with a big open-sided permanent marquee. This plays host to a large weekly market which had mainly craft type stalls with a few vegetable and smoked meats thrown in for good luck. We wandered around, but have perfected the art of not buying anything. No space for clutter…The town also has a small museum which had an exhibition of First Nation ‘jingle dresses’. These are hand made by the native women, adorned with cones of metal (made historically out of the lids of metal chewing tobacco tins) that jingle as they perform traditional dances during pow-wows. The first ones were made around 1900, after the idea and design came to a tribal member in a vivid dream. The museum also had an exhibit dedicated to the town’s ice hockey team, the Kenora Thistles. This ‘all locals’ team holds the distinction of being the team from the smallest town ever to win the coveted holy grail of ice hockey, the Stanley Cup, which it did in 1907. We found a good lakeside spot for cocktails and seaplane watching. Nick got a haircut and bought some new pants (underwear not trousers, Americans). We swam in the lake, sat on the beach, had lots of BBQs. There were tame deer in the camp.
On the last day we cycled to a nearby hiking area, stopping at a big fish on the way.
In the trailhead carpark we met a local man who had just seen a black bear and her cubs on the trail. We vacillated for about ten minutes about whether to continue and decided to go ahead, with bear spray at the ready. There were plenty of people ahead of us who seemed unfazed, so we felt partially reassured. We didn’t see them, and no-one else we met had seen them. Only one big bear poop in the middle of the trail was evidence that they were there and that the chap in the carpark wasn’t pulling our leg. In the end our main mistake was taking our bikes as we ended up pushing them half the way around the mostly un-cycleable 5km trail. An unexpected upper body workout was the positive spin on the experience. There were very dark clouds looming and thunder booming as we cycled home at a fair lick, trying to escape getting wet. We didn’t make it, and got pretty soaked in the last 500m home stretch.
The other thing that we had to do whilst we were here was address the trip planning situation. We were battling the summer vacationers who had booked their campsites months and months ago, snaffling all the good spots. Nick put in some long hours on-line and managed to plan a route, cool places to stay and jolly stuff to do. An itinerary is now in place and we can relax and enjoy the ride, rather than have to boondock in lay-bys. We have a good mix of town and country stops, sublime and ridiculous activities and another seven weeks of Canadian fun.