Ontario is Sort of Like Golf...or Fishing...

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I am starting to get this Ontario thing. Well sort of. I remember hating fishing on the ocean and then dropping a line off of Campbell River with a good friend. I opened a beer, felt the sun on my face and realised that fishing wasn't about catching fish. I remember living on a driving range, collecting golf balls and doing my best to hit them (and not the horses then residing on the field in front as I hooked or sliced balls in every direction). I was fairly entrenched in my disdain of chasing these little balls around large over fertilized lawns. I then went golfing with friends at the Long Beach Golf Course and had a blast inventing a new system of par. (Maybe I'll call it Pargavie, but that is another story).

I have already mentioned what my Western Canadian perspective on Ontario is/was. I am getting that Ontario is like golf and fishing: it's about people, specifically hanging with people you love.

We are now at Janet's cottage. Life is good and full of love.

Lotus flower (actually it's a lily pad, but I love the Bhuddist analogy)

The buds

Happy wife, happy life

Who said you can't go home?

The lake where we are staying

The Janster

No fun allowed. More like fun aloud!

Sunsets are cool!

Life is hard (NOT!)

Eating Ontario Crow

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So for years, I have trashed Ontario. It's the western thing to do. Providence being what it is, I end up marrying a woman from Ontario. I glibly admit now that OK, maybe there are SOME good things that come from Ontario. Part of our year off has been dedicated to Maura showing me that, in actual fact, Ontario actually has some positive qualities. This video is taken on our first night in Ontario. I humbly admit that it is time for me to 'eat crow' and admit that yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, and that Ontario IS quite beautiful. I open the video saying "This is me eating crow", and close with saying "I like the taste of crow". For more on eating crow, see this link.

After several attempts I couldn't get this video load as I think it was too big. I have loaded it on youtube. The video is from our first night in Ontario.

Click here to watch. This will take you to youtube. I have in addition embedded it into the blog below.

Ontario!

So we've made it. We are in Ontario. I have a wonderful video of our first campsite. It was one of the prettiest places I have been. I am trying to post it but it is too frigging big. When I find a way to shrink it I will post. Maybe youtube? Regardless, here are some photos of our time travelling across this HUGE province. Right now we are hanging with our good friend Janet at her place in cottage country, north of Toronto. Next week we're off sailing with MW's dad, Don in the North Channel. Just us and Tom Thompson's ghost!

This is the way we start off each day. Kind of nice.

Katherine's Cove on the shores of Lake Superior. The Lonely Planet said "...even if you are on a whirlwind tour, make time to stop here..." So cool. One other couple at the rest stop eating their dinner. They were from Vancouver Island.

This canyon was a bit of a drive off of the highway but worth it. Because of its orientation to the sun and the time it was formed (eons ago) it shares characteristics with the Arctic. Its ecosystem has many of the same plants etc. We ran into a fellow from Thunder Bay that hadn't been there for over 30 years. He asked if the old car was still at the bottom or had it rusted away?

Our last night along the shores of Lake Superior, just outside of Sault St. Marie. On my last trip across Canada we drove this section with valve cover gaskets made from some old corn flakes boxes. Thankfully this trip has been WAY less mechanically inclined. The only hassle has been the weather, as to turn the heat on and off, I need to crawl under the van and wire the heater boxes either open or closed. We turned the heat off in Merritt, on in Edmonton, off in Saskatoon and on again in northern Ontario. Waiting patiently to turn them off again...

Prairie Shots (New Pics Added)

This is outside of Yorkton Saskatchewan. We ended up pulling over and staying at an old cattle ranch that was converted to a golf course. The club house was the old homestead house. It was $10 to stay on a knoll over looking the valley. It was perfect, sunset at night sunrise in the morning.

Sunrise, look in my eyes...

Perfect place for a beer after a hard days drive.

Note the sign on the truck. They have combined the local Food Bank and Alternate School in Saskatoon. Now there's some good thinking.

We're camped at the Gordon Howe Campground using the wireless internet connection. Turns out all of Saskatoon is wireless. Later that day when the van wouldn't start and I had to replace the starter relay I was able to find a shop recommended by www.roadhaus.com. How cool is that?

Grain elevators, trains and big sky. Oh, Canada! Our home on Native land!

More Canada. This train track has about the same amount of bends as the road we were driving on.

Skeya's new passion! Gophers rock! Either that or her inner ostrich is coming out. OstriDoodle, the new and upcoming breed out east...

Canada Day 2009 Rocked! (More like rolled. We're in the Praires)

On the eve of Canada Day we fall asleep to the sound of giant 4x4's booting around a prairie town interspersed with the sound of a mouse chewing our food cache in the van. We wake up to a glorious sunrise have a Kicking Horse Coffee and giant cinnamon bun from a small town bakery. We drive on side roads and gravel roads to a National Historic Site and end up in Saskatoon at the Gordon Howe Campground. We eat at a roof top deck drinking flat land micro-brewery beer, have a nap and go watch Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan's production of A Midsummer's Night Dream performed by a cast of 1930's styled characters, then go to watch Gypsy Jazz at a small concert hall attached to a gay friendly Anglican Church. We drive back to Gordie's campsite under an approaching full moon over the North Saskatchewan River, place our chewable food in a rough tote and fall asleep to the sounds of a train moving quietly in the distance.

My oh my we ARE in Canada! (And all the better for it)

Random Pics from Alberta and Saskatchewan

Hard to get more Canadian than this!

Canada by train. This train looks like it goes from one horizon...

...to the next

So we start asking when we hit Edmonton, "Where can we find the best perogies?"

Kind of perfect, they sent us to a place called M and M's in Mundare, Alberta. Here is M chowing down. After all that Maura says Aunt Helen's still are the best! I would hope so.

Here is our camp Macklin, Saskatchewan.

Reminds me of a building behind the Likely Hilton...

I can see for miles and miles...

The world's largest sausage in Mundare, Alberta

and miles...

can you imagine a stampeded of Bruce's?

Happy Canada Day from North Battleford, a National Historic Site.

Happy Canada Day!!!

The only way this could be more Canadian would be if we went a litlle north to Batoche and found some Metis role playing kicking the North West Mounted Police's butt!!!

Happy Canada Everyone!

(We've made Saskatoon for the Jazz Fest!)