Circle Tour - Day 7

As I write this, it is actually Day 8 but I am running behind on my tale.  I may have to finish when I am back home.

July 19

It was still sprinkling when I woke up but I hadn't brought much into the camper cabin, so I backed the car up to the porch and threw everything in.  I had the electric teapot with me so I boiled water for tea and oatmeal for breakfast before I set off.

I decided against using the shower room, a mistake as it turned out.  I wouldn't have a chance for a couple of days.  I also should have filled my water jug.

I drove west on the Trans Canada Highway. With all the rain, I decided not to go see that tall ships near the locks in Sault Ste Marie.

My first stop was at Chippewa Fall. There I met a fellow whose wife was climbing the side of the falls. He said they camped every year in a nearby campground but now their gear was waterlogged so they were heading home.  He had never seen the falls so full or the water so high. Still, he wasn't worried about his wife climbing on the slippery walks. Wouldn't do any good, he said, she would do it anyhow.

A woman walking her dog stopped to talk.  It is so easy to talk to people with dogs. "What breed?" and the conversation is off and running.  In this case it was a Heinz 57 dog. The heat was Rottweiler, we agreed on that.  But the feet and gait were basset.   Then there was the thick fur and curling tail.  Where did those come from.

At the Chippewa Falls visitor center, a couple pulled out a map to show me what was a head of me.  They said that Chippewa Falls is the midway point on the Trans Canada Highway.  Though there was an restaurant across the highway, they said to go to the Voyageurs at Batchawanna Bay.  As for them, they were heading back to Sudbury.

Just about every camper I met was pulling up stakes and heading east, which is where the rain had gone.  I was satisfied to head west, toward the sun.

At the Voyageur's restaurant, I couldn't see a place to sit, the place was so busy.  An old woman (79 she said, only ten years older than me) invited me to join her.  It turned out that her family owned the lodge, restaurant, gas station and gift shop -- the whole complex. Irene was from a village inland.  She and I shared experiences of going to a one room school with eight grades.  She wound up with a college education and taught at primary grades in a not much bigger school. She had four grades in one room at Batchawanna Bay, but that was years ago.

Irene was all dressed up, on her way to Sault Ste Marie to see the tall ships.  She said they had been delayed by the storm, so even if had stayed longer, I wouldn't have seen them.  Her son, the manager of the complex, was a voyageur enacter. All the decor in the restaurant dealt with that period of history.  There were Hudson Bay blankets and bales that would hold beaver pelts (but didn't, she reassured me). Her son was supposed to be on a big canoe that was to join the tall ships but the power was out from Heyden to Montreal River Harbor.  They were the running the complex with generators.   There was a big mess to clean up behind the lodge and restaurant so he had to cancel the voyageur canoe trip.

As I left the restaurant, I met a family of campers who were heading east, too.  A grandmother had her two grandsons who had never been west of Sudbury.  They told me about all the moose they had seen.  I am so jealous.  This is my seventh trip to Canada and I've yet to see a moose.  If I hadn't seen one in a zoo I would think they were making the creatures up. Anything that goofy looking has to be the figment of somebody's imagination.

More about Day 7 tomorrow.

Circle Tour - Day 6

Tours are never what I think they will be.

I woke up to rain at the Glenview Cottages.  I had to get out of my air conditioned haven and move out by 11:00 a.m.  I had brought all my gear in the night before.  I re-sorted and put things in order.  Two days before everything had gotten messed up when the passenger seat alarm went off.  I had piled too much stuff there without first buckling up the seat belt. I threw everything in the back.  Now I had several hours to re-organize.

I packed everything up and went to the office and signed up for one of the little camper cabins for that night, thereby saving over $60 Canadian dollars.  No shower, no air conditioning, no toilet. No TV either, but Canadian television is only marginally better than ours....and that is because the Canadian government has refused to allow Fox News.

All the cabin had was beds.  I could have set my tent up and saved another $20 but the rain kept on coming. A cabin was a better idea.

With only one or two intervals of blue sky, rain was the predominant weather.

I went into Sault Ste. Marie to see what I could find but other than a grocery store, a Dollarama (like the Dollar Tree) and a re-sale shop, there wasn't much to interest me.  In an hour, I bought two oranges.

I drove north on Highway 17 to see if I could locate a village post office to mail Evan's postcard.  No luck there, but I did drive through some back roads that general store clerks said would get me there. They didn't but I saw some mighty fine scenery.

Back at the campground, I did my laundry for something to do.

Finally, it was time for the evening's performance at a retirement center.  I'd been there a year ago and wondered if anyone remembered me.  Boy, did they!  They had been looking forward to this.  They were a wonderful audience, singing with me, laughing at the right places, and asking me about Gary whom they remembered waited in the van for me.  I'd had to rush off before they were finished talking to me.  No problem this year, I hung around for almost an hour.

By then, the clouds were really dark.  I drove home in sheeting rain.

At the campground, I drove directly to my little cabin that had been in an isolated area that morning. No more.  There was some kind of family gathering with tents, loud music, dogs and small children. A cacophony.  They had tarps all over the place and had no intention of going to bed, even in the downpour.

I drove back to the office where I got a key to a different cabin.  Luckily, I had never moved into the first selection.  After all, I only needed to  sleep there, no hurry.  While I waited for the rain to slow a bit, I sat in the office and worked on e-mail and business.  Damp campers came into the lounge and talked about the rain going all the way to Thunder Mountain.  They had abandoned their plans to sign the guest register at Glen Valley Cottages. Tornadoes had been spotted and that is rare in Canada.

An hour later, it was sprinkling. I pulled a sleeping bag and pillow into the cabin, went back out for a flashlight, a water bottle and my trusty overnight pee pot. 

The humidity broke.  I slept through the night.

Circle Tour - Day Four and Five

The Pickford Public Library is a "baby library", only 2-1/2 years old.  While it is still struggling for money, it has had some amazing accomplishments.  With the help of grants, there is extensive programming. There is a teenage writers group who have just printed out a collection of their stories and drawings. There's a heritage seed exchange. The librarian said they had no classics section to start with so she began one with contributed books.

Afterwards, I drove to find Jane's house which is even farther than the "boonies".  I worried that I was lost but no, I finally found her modern home, complete with hot tub, deep in the forest.  She and I sat on the porch with our feet up drinking wine and watching dozens of hummingbirds at her feeders.

There is a continuing saga of divorced librarians as I travel.  We have so many stories about the men who done us wrong that our time is mostly spent dissing ex-husbands. We all get along with help from our friends.

Next morning, after strawberries, blueberries and peaches, Jane sent me on my way.

I had to cash the checks from the night before, fill up with gas and get a cappuccino in Pickford, then I followed the signs to Sault Ste Marie.  The problem was that what should have been a short cut to the border entry didn't work out because a bridge was out. I had to fool around for almost two hours before I arrived at the bridge over the locks.  It was a quick entry.  Canadians are mellow when  it comes to letting US citizens into the country.  I know it is much worse going the other way.

I first stopped at the welcome center to change my US money to Canadian currency.  There are always fluctuations but at the moment the US dollar is worth more than the Canadian loonie.  A year ago it was just the opposite.

Then I drove to the Glenview Cottages and Campground where Gary and I stayed a year ago. The heat index was still at 98 degrees F. so I decided against camping.  Instead I decided on a cottage with air conditioning and was glad I did. It was cool, the bed was perfect, there was a full kitchenette.  There was cable television, too, but I decided that Canadian TV also has nothing worth watching.  They do carry our public television, but the Fox Network has been banned from Canadian airwaves.  It is propaganda, they say, and I think they are right. No matter what Fox broadcasters say, the Canadians like their health service.Oh, there are occasional problems but it could be worse.  It could be ours.  Obamacare should change that.

Check out the Glenview services at http://glenviewcottages.com/

I quickly changed to performance clothes, grabbed the autoharp and set off for the Sault Ste Marie library. After circling the area four times, I finally stopped for directions and arrived for the afternoon performance just in time.  I was scribbling my notes with a selection of stories and songs suitable for children when my audience began to filter in and I realized that once again, there had been some kerfuffle.  These were senior citizens.  So ever adaptable, I changed my performance as I went along.  Still, this is getting wearing!  I like to know what I am doing ahead of time!

That done, I drove back to my cottage, picking up a supper of fish and chips (but not poutine) on the way.  I spent the evening catching up with paperwork and my journals.  

Circle Tour - Day Four

Yesterday was a storytelling day at Drummond Island Public Library

at Cedarville

 and at Pickford.

Cedarville is the biggest library, but I was surprised that Jane, the district manager, is part time. The library is big but understaffed.  Jane manages by working more hours than she is paid for.

I wish I had taken pictures of the Pickford library.  It's a "baby library", just created 2-1/2 years ago by volunteers.  It's in a store front but there is so much thought put into every nook and cranny.  Teenagers have their own spot where they can create stories.  There's a heritage seed exchange.  There are comfortable places to sit and a small wi fi corner.  This is a struggling library that needs to find funding to keep going.

When I was done performing, I drove deep into the forest to find Jane's house. It is a dream house, modern yet part of the woods.  We sat with our feet up on the deck watching the dozens of hummingbirds at the feeder and trading stories from our lives.

In fact, almost all the women I've been meeting on this trip are divorced as I am.  So we diss the men in our lives and enjoy ourselves in the dissing.  

Circle Tour - Day Three and Four

Yesterday, I was to take the 2:40 ferry to Drummond Island to be met at the other end by Nancy, my hostess for the night.  It didn't work out that way.

I got the Suburu in the line at the dock, but almost immediately I was waved onto the ferry. It seems that sometimes the ferries "go wild" when it gets too busy and do extra runs, throwing the schedule off. I arrived at Drummond Island half an hour early.  No Nancy.

I turned on the cell phone to find messages from Nancy.  It seems she was on her way home to the island and was on the 2:40 ferry where she expected to see a green Subaru.  We got it all straightened out when she arrived.

Nancy brought me to her home on a Lake Huron bay after picking up Charlie, her little dog who should be in movies, he's so cute. He had been staying with friends while Nancy was on the mainland. We sat on the deck and listened to the gulls call and watched the cormorants fly by. Cormorants are not popular with the fisher folk in these parts.

Nancy fed me chicken and the trimmings then it was back to looking at the water and talking until we were both tired and went to bed.  Houses on Drummond Island are never air conditioned because the lake cools them, but there was a heat wave this week.  No quilts needed.  

This morning, Nancy called her friend Pooh.  The three of us are divorced so we happily dissed men over eggs and cinnamon toast.  Then we went for a drive around the island.  They showed me all the buildings a pizza tycoon built on the island, throwing his weight around until he became so unpopular he gave up and sold out.  The hotel and condos are still there. I told Nancy how much I liked cemeteries so we kept looking for a Finnish cemetery she knew existed.  We finally found it but it was very small and modern.

As in Door County, the lake frontage is covered with cottages, so much so that from the road, we could only catch glimpses of the lake.  

We got back in time for me to prepare for the program at the Drummond Island Library.  It was billed as a performance for children, but in fact there were only five little girls and many grandparents. I adapted my program for a senior citizen audience with asides for the little girls.  It worked wonderfully though I knew if it had been five little boys, it would have been a disaster.

Afterward Pooh, Pam and Nancy posed for a photo with me.

One of my biggest worries on this trip was making the ferry back to the mainland so I could get to the Cedarville library in time.  Not to worry,the ferries were still running wild.  I got onto the ferry half an hour before the schedule.  Trucks running double loads of logs were the reason for the extra runs.

So I arrived at Cedarville in plenty of time to get a cappuccino at the BP.  Rather than trying to find a good place to eat, I came directly to the air conditioned library. For lunch I ate chocolate chip cookies intended for the children who were coming to storytime.  I didn't eat them all and this time I had a small group of children for the afternoon performance.

My plan was to stay at a local park tonight but the heat index is 98 degrees.  Jane, the head librarian, offered me a bed for tonight.  I think I will take her up on that after my performance tonight in Pickford.

Circle Tour - Day 3

The plan was to spend the morning sunning myself beside Lake Superior.  At the campsite, the mosquitoes were horrendous, but surely down by the lake!  But with high humidity and no wind and a full scale charge by deer flies, the only way I could stand the shore would be by wading in up to my neck getting hypothermia from the frigid water.  

Time for a change of plans.  I would have other days on Lake Superior beaches. I packed up quickly and hit the road.  

I first stopped at Iroquois Point to look at the lighthouse.  Lighthouses are one of my great loves and here was one of the prettiest.  It was closed, as many attractions are on a Monday, but I could walk around it and along the boardwalk on the beach. For some reason there was a pleasant breeze here. 

At Bay Mills I saw a sign for the Mission Hill Cemetery overlook.  That sounded promising.  Photos I had taken of Lake Superior were uninteresting, just a lot of water. So I drove up and up and up the hill until I came to the cemetery. Yes the outlook had a good view but more importantly, here I was at another of my great loves, an old cemetery.  Cemeteries give the best feel for the history of a place and are a place for walking, better even than a park for exercise. 

Mission Hill is so much better than one of those bland Protestant cemeteries that seem to be set up more for easy mowing than memories.  Here were Native American stones that were painted in bright colors rather than engraved.  Elsewhere were marble stones that dated back to settler days.  Here and there were plaques that simply said

This monument speaks of the dangerous life of the sailors that work on dangerous Lake Superior

The bodies of the sailors of the wrecked steamer Myron are laid to rest here with no individual stones. 

I liked the individuality of the burials.  One family planted wildflowers that must have been loved by the couple that were laid here. 

That seemed right to me. 

I came down from the hill thinking it would be the most interesting spot I would see today.  But then I spotted another interesting cemetery, the Bay Mills Old Indian Burial Ground.  

The boxes were spread all over the burial ground.  What was that about?  I parked the car and went over to the surrounding steel fence to talk to a woman working there to find out what this was all about.  She was Paula Carrick, Bay Mills tribal historian.  She explained that her people believed that it took four days for the spirit of the deceased to reach the afterlife. Into these boxes, families placed mementos and things that the people in the grave might need to take with them.  It was much like the pharaohs in their pyramids.  Sadly the fence had been placed there because grave robbers had gone in with metal detectors and desecrated the graves.  

Paula also explained the "unknown" plaques up on Mission Hill.  She and her crew had cleaned up that cemetery, too, and using modern technology, found out there were unmarked graves.  Some day they might identify those, too. 

Paula and I started talking about other graveyards.  She had ancestors from Scotland and had recently visited there. We talked about Glen Coe and Culloden, two places where ghosts still walk.  We both felt them when we were there.

As I drove off, I had so much to think about.  

Tonight I am at Drummond Island...but that is a story for another day.   

Circle Tour - Day 2

I made my way last night to Lake 7 campground in Hiawatha National Forest, northeast of Rapid River.  I was greeted by the camp hosts who offered firewood and ice, neither of which I needed (no time for a fire and no cooler).. They said they come up from Texas every summer to work as hosts.  But wait a minute, I said.  In no way is that a Texas accent.

They are transplants from Scotland, it turned out.  We talked about Aberdeen, Gairloch and then got on the subject of ghosts.  There are more ghosts in Scotland than anywhere else, I said.  I had been to Culloden which reeks of spectres and Glencoe, where the Campbells massacred the MacDonalds is ghostly, too.

The hostess told me that the MacDonald corporation tried to sue a restaurant near Glen Coe, but it was owned by real MacDonalds and The MacDonald, the laird, stepped in.  End of lawsuit. After all, couldn't HE sue MacDonalds?

Lake 7 is another one of those lovely little lakes.  The sand beach stretches half way around it.

I took a dip just as the sun set. 

There was one problem with the campground.It was almost full.  It is July and that means family gatherings and beer parties.  At 12:30, drunks were shrieking behind my tent. In the next site, the guy ran his generator all night long. There were yapping little dogs everywhere.   Quiet time in the national forest starts at 10:00 pm. but you wouldn't know it.

I was tired enough to get a good night's sleep but at 6:30 I was up and at 8:00 on the road again. 

I didn't use Gary's GPS but was doing my usual zen driving.  Today it wasn't working.  Shortcuts turned into logging roads which intersected with more logging roads so I was going in the wrong direction much of the time.  That is when I discovered general stores. Not only did they have maps, they also had cell phone and wi fi coverage of a sort, and always.....Jilbert ice cream. Ah, zanzibar chocolate is whatever wayward soul needs.

I finally found my way to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge, 95,000 acres of habitat, established in 1935 by Roosevelt.  (Remember when politicians did good things?)  One of the species in danger that found a refuge here is the trumpeter swan, the biggest of the swans. The tundra swans we see in Shiocton are nothing compared to the trumpeters.

This is the best I could do with my little camera.  I couldn't catch a pair of swans with their three cygnets, but their future is assured because in several locations I saw dozens of swans . . . as Gary says, swanning about.

A ranger let me look through his telescopic lens to watch an osprey tend her young, but this was the best I could do for a photo.

Finally, I needed to find a place to write this blog.  I spotted an ice cream parlor and inside was a teenage boy.  You can trust a teenage boy dishing up ice cream.  I asked him where I could go and he directed me to the back of the community center.  So here I am on a picnic table behind the center overlooking Lake Superior.

Tonight, another campground.