Woke up and had an unmemorable breakfast in a restaurant in Thunder Bay with a freaky-ass mural that made you think that you were underwater, but underwater in a sense that you were in the Disney movie “The Little Mermaid”. If I had smoked a joint I would have expected little sea creatures to jump out and start singing “Under the Sea” to me, but I digress.

After the meal, we went to get Doug’s watch fixed. We were scrounging for change since neither one of us wanted to bother with Interac for a 5.00 charge, and the lady in the watch store was ready to give it to us for as much as we had. I told her that it would be unlikely that we would be back in the area to make up the difference, but she didn’t care. Luckily we came up with the change, because it isn’t like we are both starving students or anything, but I thought that was illustrative of the difference between Northern and Southern Ontario. Up there, they were willing to give us a break. Down here, if we had been scrounging for change as long as we had, we just may have been kicked out of the store while an employee sold the watch down at a local pawn shop.

Since Sleeping Giant Provincial Park was closed for camping for the season, we drove a couple of hours further towards Manitoba to Quetico Provincial Park - with a brief stop at Kabakeka Falls.
The legend of Kabakeka falls is interesting but somewhat implausible; an Ojibway princess apparently led a whole tribe of war hungry Sioux over the falls, leading them to believe that an Ojibway camp was down the river. Why am I not believing this quite? Well, for one, the sound of Kabakeka Falls was quite audible even considering the major highway that runs near it, and back then I imagine it was even more distinctive. One would think that one of a tribe of Indians would have perhaps noticed the sound of the falls oh, say, perhaps miles ahead. But its cute for the tourists, and may actually get one of the tourist men laid as his vacant girlfriend muses over how “romantic” it was.

The somewhat thin legend aside, you don’t get to stand on a wooden platform over a waterfall roughly 2/3 the height of Niagara Falls everyday. Tres cool.

We then got back in our traveling mode and headed for Quetico.

What we were greeted with when we got there was awesome; campsites that faced directly onto a lake, with nothing but the still waters and trees greeting you in the morning. Better yet, there was no-one there but us and a couple of hardcore RV’ers - the cold temperatures at night and the school year seemed to have dissuaded families with pesky kids that usually swarm on Provincial Parks like flies on shit.

We went on a quest for firewood when we got there that led Doug to the local park ranger. When asked if there was anyplace that we could buy firewood, the guy looked at him with a slight look of disgust and said “No, we don’t chop it up for you”. Wes being the disbelieving of absurdity sort didn’t really take this seriously. What he got out of it was that nobody really sold firewood and yes, in this Provincial Park, it was cool to gather your own firewood. Down in our more Southern climes, this is actually illegal as some extremely stupid types actually cut down thriving trees to use as firewood, mostly because their parents did crack when they were children. Wes actually almost got kicked out of another park once just for picking up a stick and carrying it back to his campsite to use as kindling, but that is, as they say in that wondrous production of drug-induced talking animals, another story.

Firewood gathering mostly aside, I drove into Atikokan to grab camping necessities - hot dogs, hamburgers, and condiments. Atikokan is a VERY small town. Not in the way that people from Toronto consider Bracebridge to be a small town. No. In comparison to Atikokan, Bracebridge is a metropolis. That aside, the grocery store was well stocked, with prices that almost made me crap myself. All of the brand name stuff that we take for granted down here, such as Schneiders bacon, is horrendously overpriced. What I guess was a more local meat place, Burns, offered lower priced bacon that I’m sure tasted just as good. It got me thinking that in this town, Schneiders bacon was like Tommy Hilfiger jeans. “Oh, Martha was buying the Schneiders the other day. We all know Brent gets his money from that pot farm. And there Martha is, just rubbing that Schneiders in our face.” This is a reason why living in such a small town is such an idealized fantasy - the reality is much, much more grim.

Returning from Atikokan, I was greeted with a roaring blaze that put Fahrenheit 411 to shame. There it was, in all its glory. Somewhere along the line, I learned the joys of peeing in the woods as opposed to the sick privies that were within short walking distance of our camp. It wasn’t quite cold enough for them not to smell horrendous, but the off season demanded that the showers and flush toilets were closed. If this wasn’t enough reason for me to bail, I figured that I must be at least somewhat outdoorsy. One must press on.

After a couple of Keiths and a couple of joints, it was time for bed. Somewhere along the middle of the night, the ground dug into us so hard that our tendons became pronounced screaming points of pain. But, despite that, the air was clear, the fire was good, and as always, Wes was the best thing to snuggle up to in the world. Don’t tell him that I said that though - he means to be tough.

The stars weren’t out for the first night, but the morning greeted us with a little bit of sunshine. After a bit of hot chocolate for breakfast (who needs coffee when you have a drink with marshmallows with a half life) we set out on a brief hike, in search of fish. Holding a rod, a tackle box, and a backpack full of beer and snack food, we set off on a hike. As you can imagine, beer is not the best thing to bring on a hike, so that idea didn’t last too long. That and the fish had receded into the warmer depths of the lake, so we abandoned that idea.

The forest up there isn’t forest in the sense that we think of it down here. It is old, it is green, and there is moss and huge overturned trees everywhere. You really get the sense that the earth around you is alive, rather than a somewhat verdant corpse that is being raped for its natural resources. After finally getting to see the glorious spectacle of stars that night, we left Quetico with a sense of wonder, and more than a little of a hangover, unaware of the sick drive that was ahead of us. Sick in terms of time (16 hours) but beautiful in terms of scenery (Lake Superior Provincial Park).

On our next long drive up north, we will probably stay in Lake Superior Provincial Park, as the views from there were gorgeous, the hiking and fishing opportunities excellent, and canoe rental is imminent. We will also probably go a little earlier in the season so that more of the Park facilities are open (read - I can go 2 days without a bathroom, but not a week), and the drive won’t be so fucking long. That being said, it was the most wonderful, and actually the most economical, vacation that I have ever had.

Posted: March 22nd, 2008 under Travel.
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