Category Archives: 2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth at Monkey’s Speedway

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

Our purpose in going to Brockville on this trip was to attend the celebration of life of my late cousin Ernie Neufeld who died this year after falling down the stairs in his home. But before we got there we had a problem. Steinbach was in the news on account of overland flooding as a result of extensive rains. We were worried that our house might have been flooded so we called our neighbour Anne who had our key. She said water was very high in our backyard and hers so she had gone to check on our basement and found we had a big problem!  But it wasn’t what we thought. Our basement was dry. But it was stinky. It turned out that our freezer had been accidentally unplugged and all the meat inside it was thawed out and rotten. Stinky rotten. And we are on the first leg of a 5-week trip across eastern Canada more than a thousand miles away. That was my big problem. I had accidentally unplugged it when I was checking things out the day before we left. My bad. My very bad.  We were lucky to have the nicest neighbour in the world. She and her granddaughter cleaned it out for us! That is carrying neighbourliness to a very high level!

As I said, when we were in Brockville Ontario we attended the celebration of life of my cousin Ernie Neufeld.  It was held at the yacht club in the harbour in the centre of town near these buildings.

 

When I was growing up, Ernie was my closest cousin so I wanted to pay my respects and celebrate his life. It was a life well worth celebrating.

Ernie was 2 years older than I and much more sophisticated. After all, he lived in the Big Smoke—Winnipeg. So, he was the teacher; I was the student. He always willingly and happily taught me what I, as a rube, needed to know. For example, he taught me how to smoke. He also taught me that girls liked to kiss, though it took me a few years to find that out. After all he was 2 years older and much more advanced than I was.

Since there were many of his air force and Air Canada buddies at the celebration, I chose to speak  about his first flight which I had witnessed.  I thought this would be an appropriate topic because Ernie became a pilot when he joined the Canadian Air Force in Greenwood Nova Scotia where he met an elegant, and an exotic, young beauty, Margie, who became his bride. I was mesmerized. Then if that was not exciting enough, he moved from the Air force to Air Canada, because he wanted to get away from the military bureaucracy, but found that the one at Air Canada was even worse.  I learned this from one of his friends who also spoke. My  most exciting experience with Ernie was his first flight which I witnessed as a young lad. Ernie was also a young lad.

At the time I was visiting  in Winnipeg, as I did at least once a year. He and his mother lived with our Oma. Oma was fantastic!  She loved western movies. At least so we thought, for she took both us downtown by bus to see them. What a great Oma.

But getting back to his first flight.  I’m meandering again. One time, we went bicycle riding to Monkey’s Speedway in Winnipeg. This was a series of pretty large hills in Winnipeg near what later became Polo Park, and right beside the Assiniboine River.  The area was undeveloped at that time. So boys took it over, much like homeless people would today. Boys turned it into a park for riding bikes. The object of our endeavors was to drive to the top of a hill on our bikes and then down at incredible speeds. I could not believe how fast we rode. One of those hills had a smaller hill at the bottom. As we careened down, and after we hit that small hill,  we literally flew into the air as if on a ski jump. It was stunningly exciting.  But on one jaunt, Ernie flew so high into the air that “he slipped the surly bonds of earth,” and when he landed back on terra firma, he broke his arm when he crashed at the bottom.  His first flight ended in a crash. We had to call 999 [now 911] for help to rush him to the hospital. The police came first and they took us both to the General Hospital (now the Health Sciences Centre) where his broken arm was treated and put in cast.  It was all very exciting. But not too much fun for Ernie.

A friend of Ernie’s read this poem that apparently is often read at the death of air force pilots:

 

High Flight

By Jon Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air ….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

That was the day that Ernie first slipped the surly bonds of earth. I don’t know if he also touched the face of God but I hope so.

 

Not surly: Soup of the Day in Brockville Ontario

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

Church in Brockville Ontario

 

Today we woke up at 5a.m in Mattawa so we took our time. I read some more of Barbara Huck’s book on the Canadian Fur Trade routes. It is endlessly fascinating. We did not want to eat in the restaurant of our motel so we hit the road instead. We were on the road by 7:20, which for us is extremely early.  We stopped for breakfast at Deep River, home of Canada’s nuclear energy facility where our cousin Erich Vogt worked, before he became a professor in nuclear physics at the University of B.C.

For what might have been the first time ever, I ordered food from the senior’s breakfast at age 75.  I have always thought the portions for seniors are too small. This one was fine. The restaurant was called the Bear’s Den.  I particularly enjoyed the toast made from real home-made bread.  To quote God, I said about the meal: “It is good.”

Later in Brockville, we wanted to enjoy a dinner at Finnegan’s Irish pub because they advertised that their Soup of the Day was Jameson’s Irish whiskey with a side of ginger. That sounded pretty good to us, but the kitchen was already closed by the time we got there. We crossed the street where there was another Irish pub, called Thousand Island Brewing Co.  Lots of Irish in this town.  And they like to drink. Of course, they do; they’re Irish.  We were convinced that the waitress was not Irish. She wasn’t surly.

We liked it so much in this town we decided to stay and an extra day after the celebration of life.

 

 

Insect Armageddon in Mattawa

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada

 

We ended the day in Mattawa Ontario along the Ottawa River. As I had learned from my Barbara Huck book, French explorers Champlain, Brulé and Radisson all passed through this area on the way further west. I guess they also returned on the way east.   It was a regular stop on the fur trade route.

When we arrived in Mattawa , we selected a motel fairly quickly. Too quickly it turned out. Unless we had reserved ahead of time we usually found a motel or B&B on line.  Often that worked fine. Often not so fine. This was one of the ‘not so fine’ days. Quite often, particularly in Northern Ontario, just when Christiane thought she was securing a great place to stay  she discovered her phone was “out of bars,” which meant I gathered, she lost the technological connection and was thrown off course. No towers were in range.  That is what happened so we had to find a motel the old-fashioned way. Scoping it out where there were slim pickings.  That’s what ’s we did. The motel looked acceptable and had a real nice dining room overlooking the Ottawa River.

Mattawa is found at the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa Rivers in Nipissing District Ontario. I had never realized it before but Huck drew to my attention that “Today’s Ottawa River—with dozens of dams and reservoirs—is a docile, domesticated descendant of the wild waterway the fur traders knew.” Just like the Winnipeg River. And just like so much of Canada. So much of our country has been domesticated in the name of progress. Today, as we sat in the restaurant of our motel the river was a like placid lake. There was a lone boat anchored in the middle of it with a diligent fisherman enjoying the wonderful day. I guess domestication is not tall bad. Domestication has its place. My wife told me that so I am convinced.

Huck described it this way,

“Then [during the fur trade] particularly between Mattawa and Montreal, the river was a punishing, and often deadly, series of cataracts. But for fur traders enroute to the Great Lakes, it was nearly 500 kilometres shorter than the alternative route down the St. Lawrence and through Lakes Ontario and Erie.”

 

And of course, to the instruments of capitalism in the big cities distance and time were all important. The safety of the men not so much. Of course, who knows perhaps the voyageurs might have chosen the shorter and more dangerous route on their own. To them as well, time was money.  It was not just the greedy capitalists who appreciated money.

Our motel referred to itself as “your outdoor adventure’s dream.”  Nightmare would have been a better description. It looked really good. Right on the shores of the Ottawa River.  When we tried to secure a room, we were told we would have to go to the restaurant first.  We did not mind; there was no other restaurant around and we had noticed that the food looked good. We selected a seat by the window overlooking the river and drank in the view. It was outstanding. The river was like glass. There was one boat anchored in the middle of the river with a lone fisherman. It looked idyllic. It was a tranquil day with a fisherman or woman basking in the sun. The temperatures this day were very warm for autumn. In fact, I think it was record heat that day.

We started with drinks. Christiane had a Jameson and I had a Captain Morgan dark rum in honour of my trip to Wawa in 1967 with my buddies. That was my drink of choice that summer. We toasted the Cap’n. We were under age and just learning to drink. We were very stupid in other words. Today, we were smart. So at least I thought. Of course, now that I think of it, we thought we were smart in 1967 too.

I am sorry but the photograph I had of this site has disappeared into the digital ether never to be seen again. You will have to visualize it. My bad. Again.

After we settled in to our room, we thought we would open the screen window rather than air-conditioning as we thought (wrongly) that the AC was not working. Then we noticed an unwelcome sight. The window sill was covered—literally covered—in a pile of dead black flies about an inch or two thick, it seemed. It was rather disconcerting.  Actually, it was downright creepy. We wondered what caused the flies to come here to die? Was it the record heat wave? How long had they been lying there? Speculating did not help us to accept the scene. It was black fly Armageddon.

But it was late at night and we did not want to try to find a better room. This town had very few. We tried our best to clean up the corpses and put them out of our memories. Sometimes travel is not for the faint of heart. When you travel, you have to be prepared for everything.

This might not be the worst motel experience  we ever had, but it was definitely a contender for that crown.

Mattawa River Tremors

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Geology

 

We had followed the Mattawa River from Lake Nipissing to the Ottawa Valley where it flowed into the Ottawa River at Mattawa. The east flowing Mattawa River was a very important river for a very long time.  According to Barbara Huck, in her book on the fur trade routes of North America that  I was using as sort of tour guide to this area,

 

“The east flowing Mattawa River follows an ancient fault line in the Precambrian bedrock. Though strewn with rapids and falls, for more than 6,000 years it was the main highway from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence. Appropriately Mattawa means “meeting of the waters.” The cataclysmic fracturing of the Earth’s crust that produced the valley with its soaring walls and visible thrust lines occurred about 600 million years ago. Even now there are tremors along the fault line, which may explain the ancient stories of spirits in the cliffs.

There was more cataclysm about 11,000 years ago, at the end of the last glaciation, as melting water from the receding ice sheets roared down the fault into the Ottawa Valley. The raging ancestral Mattawa carried great boulders with it, between Pine Lake and McCool Bay. These huge cobblestones pave an area that today is more than 15 metres above the river.”

 

All of these things that fascinate me now, were of no interest to me more than 50 years ago when I travelled this way with my buddies who had so long ago graduated from Grade 12 with me and ventured out to our road of discovery. What a pity! We are too late smart.

 

And as Barbara Huck added, “The modern Mattawa is tame by comparison, a 65.5-kilometre swath of spectacular scenery that echoes ancient native traditions, and the stories of the fur trade.”

 

The area was beautiful. And the history interesting. And we were not in a rush. Life was good; until it wasn’t. Stay tuned.

 

 

Pluralism around the Sault

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Colonialism, History, Indigenous People After Contact, Moral Humility, Pluralism

 

 

The Clergue blockhouse at Sault Ste. Marie

 

The Clergue blockhouse was right beside the Ermatinger house and was part of the original North West Company post at Sault Ste. Marie. Both of which were right beside our hotel.  Of course, I don’t think too many elites stayed in this block house. That was for the lessers.

This area of North America where Lake Huron and Lake Superior meet, including Sault Ste. Marie, Ignace Michigan, the Mackinac Straits, and St Joseph’s Island, were vitally important in the fur trade. There were many varied First Nations, and the French and English, and later the Americans and Canadians. Barbara Huck called it “The Crossroads of Humanity.” Often they fought each other; at other times they lived together peacefully. As Huck explained,

“For a half-century. Michilmackinac [a little south of Sault Ste, Marie] flourished. Living at a crossroads of humanity, the people of the straits were at home with diversity, unfazed by racial, linguistic, or religious  differences. A multilingual, multiracial community evolved as French traders married local Odawa and Ojibwe women. Prefacing the Metis community that would grow up around the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in Manitoba a century later, their mixed blood children soon became the dominant population of the straits.”

In Manitoba as well the Métis people became dominant, for a while.  When Manitoba became a province of Canada in 1870, 80% of the people were Métis. A lot of Manitobans have forgotten this. Some of the Indigenous people had left and the hordes of European immigrants, including Mennonites were not yet there.

It was also interesting what happened after America declared its independence from England. As Huck said,

“In 1775 the New England colonies rebelled, and the British turned to their new-found native allies.  Weighing the situation, the Odawa, Ojibwe, Winnebago, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, and Sioux decided that as rigid and obtuse as the British might be, they were not as bent on clearing and settling the land as the American rebels were.”

 

Where many nations live together, they have to make serious efforts to recognize each other and not assume, that all wisdom resides in their own community. They did learn that in the area around Sault Ste. Marie. Sadly, such lessons are sometimes hard to learn and too often not passed on to the next generation. I am a great believer in pluralism. It breeds humility, something always in short supply. Live and let live. We can all learn from each other. None of us have a monopoly on the truth. Pluralism is not always easy, but it sure beats warfare.

As Sally Gibson wrote in a chapter of Huck’s book,

“Sault Ste. Marie has long been a stopping place for travellers. Once a seamless zone of trade, the area is now separated by the Canadian-American border and twin cities name Sault Ste. Marie on either side of the St. Mary’s River Rapids. The rapids drop almost seven metres over less than three kilometres, draining Lake Superior. Travellers today can enjoy the natural beauty of the area and find remnants of the fur trade that stimulated early European settlement.”

 

Of course, once European countries arrived on the scene it did not take them long to make claims on the land. That’s what Europeans (later Canadians or Americans) do.  As Gibson said,

“The territory around Sault Ste, Marie was claimed for France by Sieur de Saint Lusson in an elaborate ceremony…recognizing the importance of the location, New France granted a seigneury on the St. Mary’s River to Chevalier de Repentigny in 1751.”

 

Of course, Gibson did not say by whose authority France did that because none of the people from Europe had any authority to make such grants. Americans always claimed land by conquest, but the locals in Canada had never been conquered. And the locals had never ceded the land. So there really was no basis for the grants. France could have used some humility.

Chevalier de Repentigny farmed the property and fortified it but he left within 5 years as soon as the 7 Years War broke out between France and England. After the French fell in that war, the English took over, but they really had no authority either. Of course, that did not stop the English from granting exclusive rights to the land in 1765 to an English trader Alexander Henry. He was given authority to the Lake Superior area. What did mean? I would say, as a recovering lawyer, that such a grant would be void for uncertainty. What area was covered by the grant, if the grant was otherwise valid?

I have always wondered what would be the legal effect of the United States placing a flag on the moon?  Would that give the Americans ownership of the entire moon?  Half the moon?  The light side of the moon? A square mile? An acre?  Or no part? How can you make such a decision? When you get right down to it claims of “ownership” are usually dubious at their root. Once more that should generate some humility.

Take another example. Indigenous people roamed the North American continent for thousands of years. Many of them were nomadic. Others were more sedentary farmers. What part did each First Nation own? How can you tell? By what right?

Really all claims of ownership are dubious?  Whether you are talking about the jungles of the Amazon or the plains of North America or the city of Steinbach?  All of them are fundamentally dubious!

I taught real estate law at the University of Manitoba Law School for about 10 years and nothing I learnt or taught there gave me any more certainty.

Life of the Elite During Fur Trade

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, History, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

Ermatinger House, Sault Ste, Marie, Ontario

Without realizing it, when I last read Barbara Huck’s book, Exploring the Fur Trade Routes of North America, she was writing about Sault Ste. Marie! In fact, about places right next to our hotel. Was this coincidence or miracle? And our hotel was minutes away from what she talked about in the book.

Within a couple of blocks of our hotel in Sault Ste. Marie we visited some of the places referred to in the book by Barbara Huck that I was reading that very morning. Huck even had photos in her book of the same buildings I photographed like the one above. There were some weird coincidences on the trip and this was clearly one of them.

First, the stone house of independent fur trader Charles Ermatinger was built on the shore of the St. Marys River, is obviously not an ordinary house. As Sally Gibson wrote in Barbara Huck’s book on the Canadian fur trade, the house was ‘constructed in a classic Georgian style, with ground sloping to the water, it was an imposing sight for early 19th century travellers on the waterway.”I  accept that. I certainly was impressed. Thousands of visitors go to see the house each year. It has been completely restored and refurnished.  She wrote that the house is underpinned in the basement, which I did not see from outside, by cedar logs at least 38 centimetres in diameter and “has stone walls almost a metre thick.” It was built to last through dangerous times.

This house was part of the North West Company post at Sault Ste. Marie. The Ermatinger family lived there until 1828 when they moved back to Montreal. But Ermatinger was an independent fur trader after he left the company in 1808. No doubt he and his family, consisting of a wife and 13 children, enjoyed life there.  His wife was Mananowe (Charlotte) and was the daughter of a prominent Ojibwe policy maker by the name of Katawabeda. The occupants were the elites of 2 of the founding nations of this country; Indigenous and French. That too was impressive.

As Gibson explained, “In this gracious environment, the Ermatinger family offered hospitality to both area residents and weary travellers.” Apparently, invitations to the annual caribou dinner at the house were keenly sought by locals. I know I would love to have attended one of those. It was established as a National Historic site in the 1960s.

 

Success at last: Michipicoten First Nation

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

 

I want to briefly consider one more treaty that affects the region we travelled to around Wawa Ontario. But this one has a happier ending.

This area we travelled through on our way to Nova Scotia is incredibly interesting. Particularly, because I learned so little of this going to school from Kindergarten to Law School I now find it very interesting to fill in at least a few of the gaps. And there are many gaps.

There are many Indigenous groups across Canada and I have discovered that they all have interesting stories. At least as far as I now know. Frankly, I have only looked at merely a few of them.

One more interesting area in the region Chris and I drove through this autumn was the Michipicoten First Nation. I have obtained information from the Michipicoten First Nation website.  According to them the history of the Michipicoten First Nation is

“a history of forced relocations that were endured by the First Nation as a result of “mistakes” and unfair actions taken by the Government of the day. From the time of the first contact in the early 17th century the Michipicoten First Nation had an established presence at the mouth of the Michipicoten River, on the northeast shore of Lake Superior. In 1850 at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Chief Tootomenei had asked that the reserve be from the mouth of the Michipicoten River and the Harbour to the mouth of the Dore River. Instead, the Crown did not survey out the proper location but set aside the reserve of Gros Cap (Indian Reserve 49) which was located several kilometres west of the mouth of the Michipicoten River and harbour. As a result, Michipicoten First Nation did not live on Reserve land for most of its history between 1850 and 1970.”

 

As a result, they see their own history as a history of the displacement of their people. Involuntary displacements are a recurring theme in the history of Canada. It is no exaggeration to say that the history of Canada since the arrival of Europeans is a history of Europeans and their successors displacing the people they encountered here. In different ways, it happened over and over again.

By mistake or perhaps caprice, the Michipicoten First Nation were forced to settle on land that was not of their own choosing. Instead, the “best land” was sold to a development company and the Algoma Central Railway Co. (‘ACR’). Those transfers took away their best land and as a direct result they were cut off from their traditional camping grounds and waterway route. The coastal land they always used was cut off from them. There was no road into the site. Consequently, “Michipicoten First Nation did not live on Reserve land for most of its history between 1850 and 1970.”

Unfortunately, the land they were given was unsafe for a sanitation system and once again they had to move. They negotiated a deal with Ontario Hydro for land they currently occupied and Hydro agreed to build a road to their land as part of that deal.  In exchange, Hydro had the right to put a transmission line across their land. Another group attained a reserve elsewhere and occupied it until the fur trade dropped off.

Now the Michipicoten First Nation advises that,

“Michipicoten First Nation Gros Cap IR49 today and its surrounding lands include extensive coastline along the shores of Lake Superior, the addition of lands settled through various land claim settlements, including the reserves as Missanabie and Chapleau and boasts a pristine and eco-rich environment of unparalleled wilderness beauty, unpolluted waters and an abundance of wildlife, birds and indigenous plants. Fishing, hunting, and trapping are still practiced by the people and children can be taught the ways of their Ancestors.”

 

This now looks like a success story. But clearly it was an uphill struggle to obtain this land. Now (as of October 2024 when we drove nearby), in their own words,

“Michipicoten First Nation is a vibrant community with approximately 1,442 (October 2024) members dispersed around the globe, building on socio-economic independence and with a strong sense of community and cultural identity, Michipicoten First Nation strives to maintain harmony and balance with Mother Earth, neighboring First Nations and surrounding communities.”

 

In their own words, it is clear that the Michipicoten First Nation are a proud people who have created, after some sever challenges, a vibrant community.

Success at last.

Magpie Scenic High Falls.

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, waterfall

 

 

Just past Wawa on the way south, we stopped at a fantastic view of the Magpie Scenic High Falls. There we found a gorgeous waterfall. I love waterfalls.  Along with lighthouses, wild flowers, autumn colours, and churches waterfalls are among my favourite photographic subjects. I won’t bore you with all of my photographs. I will just bore you with some of them. We stopped at this little falls for about an hour or so photographing it and reading the plaques and talking to fellow travelers.

 

The falls stand 75 feet (22.8 m) and 124 feet (38 m) wide as the locals claim, “its magnificence is definitely worth the visit.”

 

In this area, the Magpie River is a likely remnant of an ancient glacial spillway caused when the massive continental ice sheets that covered most of Canada started to recede. The ice here was at least 1 mile deep at the time it started to melt about 10,000 years ago.

 

At that time the shoreline of Lake Superior was much higher than it is today. When that massive ice sheet melted a great weight was lifted off the land and that land, and huge rock base started to rebound upwards. This is called isostatic rebound and is still occurring to today and will continue for thousands of years to come. It rises approximately 10 inches per year.

 

It will continue for thousands of years more.  A few years, an organization of which I am a member, Native Orchid Conservation Inc. had a members’ night at which we invited Professor James Teller to speak to us.  He is the world expert on Lake Agassiz the massive lake that was created when the continental ice sheets melted and I talked to him about Lake of the Woods where we have a cottage. He told me that eventually the south end of the lake, where we have a cottage will be swamped when water from the lake comes over the top as a result of continued isostatic rebound He assured me though that when it happens I will be long gone, because that won’t happen for a few thousand years more. Those who have cottages on the north end of the lake won’t have this problem, but depending on where they are they might be a long way from the shore line.

After a short stop at Magpie Scenic High Falls we kept on travelling south along the Trans-Canada Highway.

 

Quite Boasting: Canada’s Most Famous Pianist

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Music

Glenn Gould at High Falls

There was another attraction to this area of High Falls, just south of Wawa—it was favoured by Glen Gould Canada’s most well-known and respected pianist. But he was also its most eccentric.  According to Heritage Canada, Gould “revolutionized the way the world listens to the classics.”  Apparently, he had perfect pitch at age 3.  Compare that to me.  Imperfect pitch at age 75. He appeared with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at age 14 to rave reviews and international acclaim. After that his fame spread world wide.

One of his more interesting concerts was with the New York Philharmonic on April 5, 6, and 8 of 1962 when it was conducted by Leonard Bernstein.  According to the Canadian Encyclopedia “Bernstein delivered a pre-concert speech to the audience noting his disagreement with Gould’s interpretation, which featured unusually slow tempos, departures from Brahms’s dynamic and phrase markings, and the highlighting of counterpoint and motives.” It was a case of two eccentrics facing off against each other. The Encyclopedia also called it “his most notorious concert.”

In time, he found that the instrument of his choice was the recording studio. He despised concerts, but produced many recordings. He was also famous for his eccentricities. He wore a trademark heavy overcoat, with cap, scarves and fingerless gloves. He was also a deep hypochondriac.

To my surprise I found out he frequently came here.  He always stayed at the same Hotel, the Wawa Motor Inn and always stayed in the same room, 102. And as the photo above shows, he came to High Falls.

 

It appears that one of the things he liked here was that even during the height of his fame, few people recognized him despite his odd attire. That attire drew little attention in Wawa.  According to Heritage Canada, Wawa was “a place where he retreated to enjoy the solitude and beauty and restore his soul and revitalize his creative muse, all in virtual anonymity.”  Who knew?

I don’t really agree with Gould on this point but this is what he said, “solitude nourishes creativity and collegial fraternity tends to dissipate it.” Gould was brilliant and I’m just a ‘wannabe from Wawa.”

The land south of Wawa is spectacular. Of the 8030 kms (4,990 mi) of the Trans-Canada Highway this area south of Wawa through Algoma County is considered one of the finest.  I agree. It has been listed as one of the 9 greatest drives in Canada.

Those are fine words. Not so modest words. Well, there is a time for some quiet boasting, even in Canada.

Modest and not so modest

2024 Trip to Eastern Canada, Nature

 

 

 

 

I have taken meandering to new levels.  People might think we stayed in the Wawa area for 2 weeks. That might have been interesting but actually we kept moving after a stop of a couple of hours.  The above photo is actually west of Wawa and East of Gloria’s motel which I blogged about earlier.

East of Gloria’s motel I stopped to photograph another of the islets I love so much. Again, the islet is a modest island. A few trees on a small pile of rocks jutting out of a lake. But I think they are magnificent. Not really modest at all. But modest in words. They don’t brag like our neighbours to the south. Humility is not a bad thing. I find it becoming. This islet had just a splash of colour. Here the turning of the leaves was just beginning.

The land south of Wawa is spectacular. Of the 8030 kms (4,990 mi) of the Trans-Canada Highway this area south of Wawa through Algoma County is considered one of the finest.  I agree. It has been listed as one of the 9 greatest drives in Canada. Those are fine words. Not so modest words. Well there is a time for some quiet boasting, even in Canada.