Alongside the Great Lakes

Today's journey takes us alongside two of the Great Lakes. The lakes are a series of large interconnected areas of fresh water on the Canada–United States border, which connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River. For those of you who have forgotten your school geography lessons (I remember being taught them by the mnemonic HOMES) they consist of: Lakes Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. We had previously seen Lakes Ontario and Erie, which are famously connected by the Niagara River with their amazing falls, on our visit to Toronto in 2015 and have seen, and travelled on, Lake Michigan on our visits to Chicago, the last time also being in 2015. Today we come to the two lakes we had not visited before Lake Huron and Lake Superior.

Our route was from the Comfort Inn, Sudbury to the Beaver Motel, Wawa. The map includes a clear view of both lakes:

Sudbury to Wawa - Beside the Great Lakes

But first a brief review of the early part of the day.

Breakfast

Typically, after going to bed later last night, I woke up earlier than usual this morning!! So I was up at 3 and wrote the blog post about Ottawa.

I made Coffee at 5.00am and we both did our ablutions before going down to Breakfast.

Today I had the breakfast Drew had had yesterday. That is scrambled Egg, turkey (possibly) sausage patty, beef sausage and sauteed potatoes.

Haydn's Breakfast, Comfort Inn, Sudbury

Drew supplemented his with a malty current muffin and a coffee donut (NB - The Canadians have adopted the American spelling of donut, you'll notice me dropping into the British Doughnut every now and again!!)

Drew's Breakfast Dessert

On the Road

At 8.23am we were on the road, the temperature before the sun had come into effect was 68℉ at this time in the morning. 

The instructions for today's route were even more simple than those for the day before. Go a few hundred yards, turn right, left at the traffic lights then go onto the ON17 - the Trans-Canada Highway for 183 miles. 

It rained for about an hour of the journey this morning. It was steady but not heavy rain, so it didn't cause any difficulty to Drew driving. 

We were surprised to find that this part of Ontario have place names like Spanish River, Espanola and even Spanish. It is not clear why these places have such names. They are taken for granted locally, so don't seem as interesting in local posts as they do to an hispanophile like myself

Spanish, Ontario 

After the rain cleared the temperature rose to 72℉ and at 9.50am we arrived at the North Channel of Lake Huron. There were some wonderful views of the Lake here, but unfortunately for those who like photos most of the views were on the driver's side of the road, so not easy to take from the passenger seat. 

Blind RIver Lake Alongside the Trans-Canada Highway

We come to Blind River which has its own beautiful lake, this time on my side of the car, so we have plenty of shots of it on Flickr. This is part of the Mississauga First Nation reserve. 

Mississauga First Nation reserve

Having seen the Spanish sounding places earlier in the morning we seem to have gone Greek for Thessolon, though as the town was six miles off the Trans-Canada Highway, we saw signs for it, but not the town itself. 

Thessalon on the Trans-Canada Highway

At the end of this part of the route, just west of Thessolon the road takes a right turn as we see Lake Heron now in front of us and can see the land territory of the USA, just a short distance across the lake. 

At 11.15am we pull into a Tim Hortons in Sault Ste Marie where I have a Multigrain Bagel with Cream Cheese and Drew opts for an Iced Cinnamon Roll. Drew has driven 185 miles since we left Sudbury this morning. 

12 Grain Bagel with Cream Cheese

Iced Cinnamon Roll

After Salut Ste Marie we began to travel alongside Lake Superior, Drew made the joke about it being the best lake in the world because it is Superior - boom, boom! Again it was on the driver's side, so the photos are few and far between. Yet it is a remarkable body of water.

Lake Superior from the Trans-Canada Highway

We noted on the car thermomter that there were strange temperature fluctuations from 66℉ by the lake to 82℉ at the times we moved a little inland. Clearly this is the chilling effect of the lake with its vast quantity of water, but the radical change felt a bit X-files. The sun kept shining throughout, so the only variation to the temperature was the effect of the Lake. 

As soon as we left Sault Ste Marie we had a countdown for Wawa. This town with a population of less than 3,000 people was given a countdown in road signs every 20 kilometres from 200 down to 20!

We past a few small places Pancake Bay with the service centre called Agawa Crafts advertised its existence for many miles before, and was really only a little more than a petrol station and shop.

The beautiful Aloha Bay headland followed and then Katherine Cove which had large crowds on the lakeside beach.

We arrived at Wawa at 3.20pm, filled up with Petrol at the oldey worldy Young's General Store and found our accommodation for the night, The Beaver Motel, a few 100 metres down the road.

Young's of Wawa

Up the street to the Beaver Motel

Wawa's name comes from the local First Nation language for Goose. When the ON17 was upgraded and bypassed Wawa, the town's trades folk built a giant goose station to draw people in to the town. It seems to have work, as apart from about five streets the town is largely a strip of motels, petrol stations and food stores.

WAWA

There are no chain hotels in Wawa, so when we had decided this was the sensible place to stop between Sudbury and Thunder Bay, it being too far to do that whole journey in one day, I had to phone the motel, as it had no long term bookings. When I asked about a reservation number I was told to announce that Therese had put me in the book. And, as it happened, it all worked fine. As we arrived and were checked into room 113 almost straight away.

I say almost, because in the motel reception is a phone which says on it - For Service Pick-up Phoone. So I did and someone replied and promised to: "Come over straight away." A novel checking in process.

For Service Pick Up Phone

Mass

One of our reasons for choosing Wawa over some of the other possible stopping places (though there aren't many) is that is has a Catholic Church and we would be here Saturday Evening/Sunday Morning. So at 6.15pm I left the hotel to make the half mile walk to St. Monica's Church. 

St Monica's Church, Wawa

St Monica's Church, Wawa

The Church couldn't be more different from last weekend's visit to Our Lady's, Marblehead. The Church was tiny and with little decoration outside or in. Even the tabernacle had no frills, nor a cover, but at least the sanctury lamp was shining to evidence the Lord was here. Though I found the bowl of flowers in the centre of the area behind the altar somewhat odd. It seemed this was the focus of the eyeline rather than the Crucifix above!

There were 43 of us here for Mass on this Saturday Evening, but as well as myself there were another 15 people from out of town many of them, including four guys from Texas, visiting for the Wawa Drag-racing which was taking place this weekend. 

The Ghanaian priest, Fr. Michael Asorgoe, who serves the community here and in the district around was very enthusiastic in his celebration. During the homily he burst into song, as part of his preaching, it felt more like a revivalist meeting than Catholic Mass. But other than the sung sermon (Father sang two verses of My God Loves Me in what I would have called a Caribbean style with hand gestures with his focus on the God who leads us through the things which "threaten the day") it was the Mass. 

Today's reading from 1 Kings 19:4-8 says: 

"Elijah went into the wilderness, a day’s journey...‘O Lord,’ he said ‘I have had enough. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down and went to sleep. But an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’" 

A reminder to me that all of this great journey of ours is done only by the power of God's love and blessing. God has been so close to me for so much of my life, that I come today to give him thanks and praise for all he is doing in and through me. Thank you Lord.  

Mass finished at 7.50pm and I was back at the hotel at 8.05, then Drew and I walked the 0.2 of a mile to the Restaurant called The Viking. Don't ask why it is called the Viking, the only Viking link is in the statue in the entrance to the restaurant.

The Viking Restaurant

The Viking - Thorfinn Karlsefni

Otherwise the food is an eclectic style of European traditions including Pizza, Pasta, Steaks, Burgers, Wings and Fish. But we are in Wawa, so there were not many other options!  That being said the food was really nice, though the setting and decor was like some 1970s working men's club.

The Viking Restaurant, Wawa

I started with one of the specials which was written up on the whiteboard. This was Salt and pepper pork riblets. The half ribs were seared in a Mug with a tub of BBQ sauce beside. It sounds strange but was perfectly delicious.

Salt and pepper pork riblets

Drew opted for Onion Rings and these were nice, warm and crunchy. Drew's was pleased.

Onion Rings

For mains I went with Veal Parmesan with spaghetti marinara. A large flattened piece of veal with parmesan on top with a large amount of well cooked spaghetti in a tomato and basil sauce this came with two pieces of toasted garlic bread. Both would have made large meals, together they were enormous, but I worked my way throuh it all, feeling warmed and filled. It might be basic food but it is excellent.

Veal Parmesan and Spaghetti Marinara 

Drew had Pork Loin Chops with fries and carrots which he found perfectly nice.

Pork Loin with Fries and Carrots

It was a 2 minute walk back to the motel and we were in bed just after 10.00pm.