Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

This is right at the Canada-U.S. border and there is also a Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan across the river. The two cities are connected by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge. The name comes from archaic French for "Saint Mary's Falls," but the pronunciation has been anglicised to "Sue sent Marie."

BACKPOSTING POINT

This is the start of some backposting, the point where I left off when I started feeling too sick to sort and post the rest of the photos. We've been sick for over a year now but are slowly recovering. It is now Oct 2008 and I hope to get everything caught up. I'll leave this message here as a reference point for you to know roughly where the old old pics end and the new old pics begin.

Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario - Trapper's Trail

When we got here there were two rangers from Parks Canada hacking at a beaver dam with axes. I got curious and asked them why. They informed me that they normally leave them alone, but this particular dam had caused some flooding on a trail back there. It was only after 10 minutes of heading down a trail in a different direction, as it got slushier and slushier, that I realized that this trail and that trail were one and the same. (It follows the shore of Rustle Lake.) Oooops.

This dam thing is broken


A dam shame


Rustle Lake






More of Rustle Lake


This is about how the trail looked when we decided, hmm, maybe we'd better turn back.

Lake Superior Provincial Park, Ontario - Old Woman Bay

Two chipmunks chased each other in circles all around the parking lot, then found a sandwich and took off with it. I managed to snap this before they disappeared. (lower right corner)




The cliffs that give Old Woman Bay its name

Wawa, Ontario

The name Wawa came from "wawagonk," an Ojibway name for a local lake, meaning "place of clear water." Wawa is said to have then been mistranslated to wild goose instead of "wewe," meaning "snow goose."

Wawa is in fact on a major migratory flyway from southeastern North America to Hudson's Bay and the Arctic. Each spring and fall, the familiar V-shaped flocks of Canada geese return to their traditional feeding grounds.

Wawa has Canada geese symbols everywhere:

Neon ones all along the main drive


On a restaurant


Marking local stores


And a big huge one, as you enter Wawa from the Trans Canada Highway. This monument was dedicated to commemorate the opening of the last link of the Trans-Canada Highway, as it was finally completed in 1960, linking Wawa to Sault Ste. Marie and Western Canada.


Nickie became startled by this large goose and made a run for the border. (She came back after I explained to her that she will not be in Mexico if she does this.)


A nice view of the aforementioned Trans Canada Highway, and Lake Superior to the left