Completing the Circle

The circle is now complete.  We drove the remaining 311 miles to arrive home at just before 5pm.  This last segment was a reminder why I usually try to avoid driving south on any major Michigan road on Sunday: half of Michigan is returning from “up north” and traffic is extremely heavy.  Several significant slowdowns and a fiery crash that caused significant damage to an overpass and shut down the southbound lanes of US-131 by Big Rapids all served to extend our travel to nearly the entire day.

We stopped in St. Ignace to pick up some pasties and some whitefish and to stream our church service, and then at Burt Lake State Park to make lunch.

And it’s hot.  93 when we got home.  Makes me want to turn right around and go back north to where it’s cooler.  Why did we arrive back home three days early?  Rain.  I think it was the same system that caused significant flooding in Minnesota and shut down the Wisconsin State Fair that drove us out of Ontario

We drove a total of 2262 miles, taking two weeks to do so.  Two weeks is not enough time, unless, of course it rains.  There are a lot of things in the next-time bucket that could warrant a return trip, or at least a partial circle tour.  We’ll see if that happens.  There’s so much else we want to explore.

Rain

​Into each life some rain must fall​. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from the 1842 poem The Rainy Day)

Into some lives a LOT of rain will fall. (Tim Friend, from his 2025 trip around Lake Superior)

The forecast called for rain today.  Looking at the weather map, the radar showed a big storm system heading to the north east, but it was unclear whether it would hit us or not.  We had planned camp at Pukaskwa National Park, but, if it was going to rain, we would just put some miles behind us.  We’ll just have to play it by ear.

So we headed east.  A little over an hour’s drive to Marathon where we stopped at Pebble Beach.  An interesting name for this beach as from a distance it looked like pebbles, but, close up, the smallest stone was the size of a grapefruit with the larger ones being close to the size of basketballs.  Hardly what I would call “pebbles”.  Beautiful beach, though.  Several people came and just sat in their cars, probably to watch the storm come in over the lake.

We decided to take the side trip into the national park.  Pukaskwa National Park sits on the largest stretch of undeveloped Lake Superior shoreline and is known for its wild, unspoiled scenery.  It’s so unspoiled that the road into the park takes you to the visitor center and the campground, just a few miles.  Nothing more. The rest of the park is only accessible by hiking or paddling.  And even the established trails cover just a few miles in all.

So we got out and hiked a few of the trails, all the while watching the weather radar whenever we could pick up a signal.  The last hike was supposed to be to a couple overlooks, but we were halfway there when we started hearing distant thunder.  I managed to pick up a signal and the weather radar showed rain bearing down on us so we turned around and hiked back to the RV.  Slow going, also, as the trail had many rocks and roots.

As we drove out of the parking lot, rain started to spatter on the windshield.

We stopped for lunch at a turnout along the road and ate to the sound of pouring rain drumming on the roof.  When we took off again on the Trans-Canada Highway, the rain became so heavy that the wipers could not keep up.  The water was running in rivers down the road, making hydroplaning a real risk, even in a vehicle weighing over five tons.

We figured that, as long as it kept raining, we would keep driving.  No sense attempting to camp or hike or paddle in the rain.

It kept raining for five hours.  So we kept driving.  Several things we had planned on visiting are now in the next time bucket.  One of those was swimming in Lake Superior in Batchawana Bay, apparently a favorite of the locals.  We stopped at a rest area right on Batchawana Bay and made dinner,, but, of course, it was raining, and the presence of lightning made swimming out of the question.

The rain let up when we reached Sault Ste Marie and we crossed the bridge into the US, taking all of about a minute at the border crossing.  We stopped at the Soo Locks and just missed a gigantic freighter going through the locks.  It was just leaving when we walked up to the viewing platform.

Driving for five hours in the pouring rain does tend to tire one out and the nearest place to stay was the Walmart in Sault Ste Marie.  As we parked, the skies opened up again and it poured buckets for another half hour.  At least that brought the temperature down.  We’re used to the upper 60’s around the north side of Lake Superior, now it’s 80 and humid.  We’ll be heading home to very hot/humid which will take a little getting used to again.

369 miles driven today.  This means we will be getting home a couple days earlier than planned.

A Day in Terrace Bay

Although we put 45 miles on the odometer, we ended up in nearly the same place that we started this morning: Rainbow Falls Provincial Park,.  Because the campgrounds were quite full, we had to reserve a site at one campground for the first night and a different campground for the second night.

The day dawned sunny and bright, with a lot less of the mist and haze that we have been experiencing.  As we drove away, however, we drove into a fog bank and it was rather foggy for most of the morning.

As we had already hiked to Rainbow Falls, we drove 20 minutes farther down the road to Terrace Bay, and parked at the Terrace Bay Beach.  Here is a broad sandy beach in a protected cove that also has the confluence of the Aguasabon River. The river descends into the bay in a series of  beautiful cascades, making for some great scenery in all directions.

A trail leads up from here and follows the Aguasabon river to the falls, 2Km upstream.  We hiked this and also took a fork in the trail to another cove, called Danny’s Cove, a secluded little beach area where we just enjoyed the pleasantness of the day for a while.  The fog gave it a bit of other-worldliness and it was very quiet and still.

Aguasabon Falls is surprisingly tall, which would explain the steepness of the trail leading up to it.  Can’t get real close and the falls are only visible from above on a viewing platform.

Back at Terrace Bay Beach we stopped in at the park store and asked a few questions, including how to pronounce “Aguasabon”, “Nipigon”, and “Schreiber”.  We also found out there is a red chair close to here, on a point on the east side of the bay.  We hiked there, only about a quarter mile, and found a delightful outcropping with the iconic red chairs and a great view.

There are over 100 of these located in places like this, lesser-known but still scenic areas.  Started by some National Park team members in 2011, they came up with the idea to place 18 Adirondack chairs in lesser-known places, inviting visitors to enjoy and share on social media.  This has grown to over 100 placements in Canada Parks.  What a great idea.  This certainly was an enjoyable location

After lunch we picked up a few groceries at the store in Terrace Bay and talked to a local park person about places to see in the area.  On her suggestion, we drove down to the Pump House Beach, which appears to be known only by the locals.  There are no signs, just a road leading through a residential area.  The beach was another sandy beach in a protected cove with rocky outcroppings on either side.  We hiked to the end of one of these and sat out on the rock, mesmerized by the  sight and sound of the surf.  The sun had come out for a while and warmed the rock but now the fog was rolling back in, obscuring distant views.  The large and flat warm rock, however, just invited us to lay down on it and we did for a while, soaking up the warmth and enjoying the sound of the waves.

We don’t sit too often but today we did, enjoying the rest.  The only thing missing from this spot is red chairs.  It would have been a great spot for them.

We made dinner back at the beach and then reluctantly drove back to our reserved camping location at Rainbow Falls.

Forward progress around Lake Superior: three miles.  Tomorrow we will start putting a few more miles on.

The Big Lake They Call Gitchi Gloomy

The weather today was overcast and misty. The temperature struggled to reach 70 degrees.  So a lot of the views were shrouded in fog or mist and there was a definite chill in the air.  Definitely a contrast to home where it was sunny and 88.  We’re not complaining, the coolness makes for great hikes.  It just seems like mid-September here rather than August.

Other than a train rumbling by occasionally, this overlook we stayed in last night was quiet.  Perfect boondocking spot.  Level, quiet, very close to the main road.  We were the only ones there. I’m surprised there weren’t more people here since this spot is published in some of the free camping sites on the Internet and many area campgrounds are full.

A quick search showed there was a laundromat in town but when we drove there, it wasn’t open until 10am.  The place looked like a dive anyway so we moved on.

The tiny town of Rossport had a trail that the woman at the amethyst shop mentioned.  We decided to try it out.  It was only a mile long and hugged the shoreline of Lake Superior, sometimes getting pinched between the shoreline and the Trans Canada Highway when the highway came within 30 feet of the shoreline.

Beautiful trail, however.  And sometimes it clambered over large rocks, requiring the use of painted arrows on the rocks to point the correct direction.

One delightful surprise on this trail was the tiny blueberries.  Somewhat smaller than a pea, these could be found on plants only a couple inches tall amongst all the other plants along the trail.  And there were many that were ripe, so we paused to snack on microberries.

The woman at the amethyst shop also told us there would be red chairs along the shoreline in some areas.  She called them Muskoka chairs.  When we asked her what a Muskoka chair was, as she was describing it, it sounded a lot like an Adirondack chair.  Maybe just a Canadian name?  I looked it up later and there are some subtle differences between the two, seat height for one thing, but they are largely the same thing.  So we should be on the lookout for Muskoka chairs.  We found one on this trail.  A bit faded but offering a great view of Lake Superior. It felt a lot like an Adirondack chair.

Rainbow Falls Provincial Park is our home base for the next couple of nights.  A little bit unusual during this trip to have advance reservations but we figured it was close to several things and there isn’t a lot of other choices.  

We couldn’t check in yet so we hiked the short trail to Rainbow Falls.  Very nice series of cascades reachable by a short boardwalk.

Onward to the town of Schreiber where we picked up some much-needed fuel.  With signs warning of limited services on this highway and my low fuel light on, it was a priority.

When you are the only game in town, you can charge what you want.  When I calculated dollars per gallon, it came out to just under $6 per gallon.  Converting that to American dollars came out to $4.65.  A dollar more than in Michigan.

This gas station also had a laundromat.  We had lunch during the wash cycle and walked the beach during the dry cycle.  Leaving the pile of laundry on the bed, we came back to Rainbow Falls and put the kayaks in Whitesand Lake.  The mist on the surrounding hills and the quietness of the lake made for a great paddle.  With the campgrounds full, I don’t know where everyone is.  We were alone on the lake and we weren’t seeing many people on the trails either.

We found our campsite here at the Rossport Campground, made dinner, and put away the laundry.  Even during vacation, some chores still remain.  Clothes still get dirty and food still needs to be made and eaten.

And I got a reminder that chores remain at home also.  Abigail called and I talked her through a flat tire on her car.  She tried to mow the lawn and discovered the mower battery was dead.  There are a whole list of other things waiting when I get home.  Vacation doesn’t eliminate the chores, it simply stacks them up on the other side.

78 miles driven today.  866 miles to home. There’s gonna have to be some longer driving days ahead if we’re to make it home in a week.

Bushwhacking, Prospecting, and Boondocking

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park had some nice areas to it, but it is going into our been-there-done-that bucket.  The campground is nice, the trail we hiked last night is nice, the road in was 20 miles long and bumpy, and the cell service is terrible to nonexistent.  This park is a rather large peninsula jutting out into Lake Superior but there are very few ways to actually access Lake Superior without hiking for many miles.

We did get some glimpses of the Big Lake. On our way out this morning, we stopped at the Joe Creek Nature trail, which ended at Lake Superior.  Only a half-kilometer long, it follows Joe Creek, a lovely little babbling brook, through very dense forest.  The undergrowth is so thick here and the trail so narrow that the vegetation has grown together from both sides of the trail, requiring us to push through.  They didn’t tell us we would have to bring a machete.  It would have made the bushwhacking easier.


And the trail ended at Lake Superior alright; it opens out into a short marsh and then the lake itself.  No defined shoreline, just the end of the trail looking over the last remaining trees and brush to the lake.

Next was another short trail to an overlook, this time looking toward Thunder Bay.  Nice view above it all, wish it weren’t so grey and misty.

Just a short distance from this trailhead was a store selling amethysts.  The Thunder Bay area has the richest and highest quality amethyst vein on the continent and this store was one of several that sells amethyst products to the public.  We struck up a conversation with the lady in the store.  I’m not sure she gets a lot of traffic through the store as she seemed starved for conversation.  It was kind of hard to get a word in edgewise.  But she did tell us about some nearby amethyst mines that allow public foraging and then gave us some tips of what to look for.  When we finally managed to tear ourselves out of the conversation, we made the Diamond Willow Amethyst Mine our next stop.

These mines allow you to prospect for your own gemstones.  What actually happens is they blast the current vein periodically, pick out all the good stuff to use or sell themselves, then scoop all the rubble (the tailings) into several piles around the public area.  Pick your pile and dig for amethysts among the large piles of rocks.  They sell it by the bucket, forty bucks for a full bucket, about three gallons in size.

Pretty good racket: mine all the good stuff out, allow the public to come in and take care of a lot of the discarded stuff and pay forty-bucks for the privilege.  Ok, I’m getting a little sarcastic...

But people do find stuff and we found a few of our own, not the spectacular specimens found in their stores for five hundred bucks, but definite crystal structures.  The only problem is, some of those nice crystal structures come with several pounds of rock attached.  I managed to bust some off by banging it against another rock, but that risks breaking the crystals themselves.  In the end, we had a full bucket of a few larger rocks and a bunch of smaller stuff that I managed to break off.

The mine provided a place to clean and sort your haul and we were able to reveal some of the beauty of the crystals out of the muddy coating.

Some of the larger ones I will probably attack with a wet saw when I get home to take some of the extra rock off.

This was a lot of fun and now we have about 30 pounds of rocks squirreled away in the RV.  Kinda reminds me of the old movie The Long, Long Trailer starring Lucille Ball.  In this movie she collects rocks and more rocks until the trailer gets stuck because it’s so heavy. I will have to put a limit on the amount of rocks we take aboard.

We are currently parked at an overlook in the town of Nipigon, Ontario.  Nipigon sports the northernmost freshwater port in North America, so we are at the northern tip of Lake Superior.  This overlook apparently allows overnight parking so we will try it out.  We looked at a camping area at a fairgrounds in Red Rock, but we were told that a big folk festival starts tomorrow and we may have difficulty leaving when 2000 people are arriving.  So we are here, boondocking at an overlook.

Only 84 miles driven today.  At this rate, we’ll be home by Thanksgiving.

Into Canada

We encountered something this morning that we haven’t had to deal with on this trip so far: Rain.  It rained for the first few hours of the morning and we had the opportunity to examine closely the leak that has plagued this RV for the past few years.  It always appeared to be coming in the window over the table, but this time we could see that it was dribbling down from above the window.  Something to examine more closely when we get back.

Just a couple more stops before we left the United States.  The first was Grand Portage National Monument.  I didn’t even know there was a national monument here until just a couple days ago.  This is a site that explores the history of the Ojibwa nation and the fur trade that operated in this region.  The Grand Portage is a path through the mountains from Lake Superior to the Pigeon River, a distance of about 13 miles.  Here, furs, particularly beaver, were traded for various items that the Ojibwa and other tribes wanted, and the furs would travel 1300 miles by canoe to Montreal, where they would be then shipped to Europe.  The goods that the Ojibwa wanted were similarly carted by canoe along the same route.  All this stuff had to be carried over the Grand Portage to the Pigeon River, where it was distributed far and wide to trading posts all over Canada. 

The primary mode of transportation was the birch bark canoe, which could transport a surprising amount of cargo for its size and weight.

The National Monument displays all this in a series of reconstructed buildings and artifacts.  It is a very well-done exhibit.  Of special note is the workshop where several birch bark canoes are stored.  Here, volunteers keep the craft alive by teaching others and continuing to build birch bark canoes in the same way that the Ojibwa built them in the late 1700’s.  One of the canoes being built was done by a 14-year-old native girl who was there helping out with the  exhibits.

The fur traders took the Ojibwa designs and made them bigger, resulting in canoes that were 30 feet long and could hold several tons of stuff.

We got there over an hour before it opened because we have remained on Michigan time, so we hiked to the top of Rose Mountain behind the heritage center and enjoyed the view from up there.

We strolled the grounds of the exhibits for a while and talked to a few more of the volunteers.  It was nearly lunch time when we left.

We stopped at an overlook to make lunch and then stopped at Grand Portage State Park, which sits right on the Canadian border.  Here, the thing to do is hike to High Falls, one of the big obstacles in the river making the Grand Portage necessary for the fur trade.  This falls is the highest in Minnesota and would certainly be a show stopper for a canoe with several guys and four tons of cargo.

The border crossing was relatively painless and now we are in a foreign country.  At least they drive on the correct side of the road here.

We left the traditional Lake Superior circle tour route to go see Kakabeka Falls, a provincial park about a half-hour in the wrong direction.  But being the second largest falls in Ontario after Niagara, the falls are rather impressive.

We stopped at a Walmart in Thunder Bay to pick up some supplies.  We had considered stopping overnight at one of the Walmarts here, but we saw warnings online that at least one of them was not a good place to stop overnight.  And it was the one we were stopped at.  Vagrancy is apparently a problem here and we could see several people hanging around and graffiti on some of the buildings and walls in the area. So we decided to move on.

There was some vacancy at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park so we made reservations there and headed that direction.  Deb saw a place online that sold smoked fish and we stopped there, arriving at 6:01pm. They closed at 6pm.  They were still there and graciously allowed us in the store.  We came away with some smoked whitefish and a large piece of carrot cake that we had for snack later.  It was really good.

After checking in at Sleeping Giant, Deb wanted to go on another hike so we hiked to the Sea Lion in the waning daylight.  This is a rock arch right in the water that used to look like a lion crouching until the head fell off.  Now it just looks like an elephant with no ears.  But it was a decent hike, despite the fatigue from a long day.

146 miles traveled today.  Seems like it should have been more than that.

Waterfalls

There are a lot of waterfalls here.  Some are fairly small but there are a lot of decent size cascades, perhaps not in height, but in water volume.  And standing next to them, you get the feel of the power of moving water through the thunderous roar of the water and the boiling of the water where the waterfall plunges into the pool below.  And on its way down, the water gets flung in all directions by large rocks in its path.  We stood downwind of one waterfall and were cooled by the spray mist that boiled off the turbulent water, a nice cool-down after a warm hike.

Many of these waterfalls are within easy access to the State Route 61, also known as the Voyageur Highway, the road we are taking along the Lake Superior shoreline.  The waterfalls, the shoreline, the small towns, eight state parks and numerous scenic turnouts, and the exquisite beauty of this route have earned it the designation of an “All American Road”.  Definitely a worthy contender for any road trip bucket list.

It was a waterfall day.  We didn’t cover a lot of distance, only 54 miles, but that short distance included several waterfalls.

First stop was Cascade River State Park.  Here, a half-mile hike goes past five waterfalls, and there’s so much water rushing through this gorge that it’s hard to tell where one waterfall ends and the other begins. Not great parking for a larger vehicle, but we were there early enough to have plenty of space in the roadside parking area.  It was hard to get a good picture of some of the cascades because of the twisty gorge, but it was a spectacular short hike.

We stopped at a couple turnouts, one of them was Cut Face Creek, right along the shore of Lake Superior.  We walked the pebble beach for a bit and talked to a couple fishermen in a canoe who were out because Lake Superior was so calm. “It’s not like this very often,” they told us.

We stopped in Grand Marais and had lunch on Artist’s Point, a spit of land jutting out into the lake.  Lots of artsy stuff here, shops and such, and the place was crawling with tourists.  We spotted a donut shop and bought a couple donuts from World’s Best Donuts.  We ate them later on this afternoon.  They were indeed very good.

Next destination, our stopping place for the night: Judge CR Magney State Park Campground.  This state park has a trail named the best hiking trail in the country by ​USA Today​.  The Devil’s Kettle trail is a two-mile round trip trail to the Devil’s Kettle waterfall, gaining about 400 feet and including nearly 200 steps.  Devil’s Kettle itself splits in two, the right half plunging into the typical plunge pool, and the left half vanishing into a deep hole in the rock.  For years, no one knew where this water went.  Objects thrown into the hole disappeared without reemerging elsewhere.  But the water volume measured upstream and downstream was approximately the same, so the conjecture was that the powerful currents broke down those objects and held them underwater until they resurfaced somewhere downstream.

Anyway, it was well worth the moderate hike and the spray from the upper waterfall had a delightful cooling effect.

After having dinner in the campground, we walked out to Lake Superior.  The sun was shining brightly at the campground, but as we approached the beach, a fog was rolling in, making the air feel about ten degrees cooler and giving us goosebumps.  Rather strange to be shivering in the summertime.

Communication from here on out could get a little dicey.  We have no cell service right now, but are using the campground WiFi. So we may go dark occasionally as we head up into Canada and around the north side of Lake Superior.  We have been able to do pretty well so far using a cell phone signal booster, but amplifying nothing still gives you nothing and we may drop off the digital map once in a while.