It sounds dramatic to call our departure from Rainbow Falls Provincial Park an escape, but we literally all but peeled out of the place. The interior of the car had filled with blackflies, you see, so we needed some speed in a hurry to suck them out the windows. We wished them well, but didn’t linger over goodbyes.

Our next destination along the North Shore of Lake Superior was the Ouimet Canyon. The land in the area was carved by glaciers during the Ice Age, leaving steep-sided canyons and valleys that bisect the terrain. Ouimet Canyon is one spectacular example, with vertical walls that plunge down 50 meters or more to the shaded canyon floor. The shade and cooler temperatures maintain a biome that hosts plants found in the Arctic 1000 kilometers north.  You can’t walk on the canyon floor, but there are two platforms on the lip that show off the view.

Just down the road from the protected Ouimet Canyon is the wholly unprotected Eagle Canyon Adventures park. The people that run the place have turned their canyon into an RV park and attraction by adding two cable bridges across the height of the canyon, as well as a zipline down the canyon itself. They claim that one of their suspension bridges is the longest in Canada at 600 feet (1.82.8m). I find it ironic that they give their Canadian record-breaking measurement in imperial units.

ECA also say the zipline is the longest in Canada. Naturally I was lobbied hard by Those Johnston Kids to include the zipline in our adventure. They have no fear. I hesitated for show; I don’t want them to think I’m a pushover. Really though, they’re not clamoring for the Beeb’s latest album, or a toy cleverly tied into a blockbuster summer movie release. They want to jump off a cliff. Of course I said yes.

They jumped with aplomb. I think the technician was expecting more drama or hesitation, but they practically pushed him out of the way once they were secured to the line. The descent takes more than a minute, but they both thought it was too short and wanted to go again. At $45 each, I declined their request.

We had seen some signs for Dorion Fish Hatchery while looking for the various canyons and decided to check it out. We went to another fish hatchery out of curiosity last year sometime but that one had no fish and little to see, so we wanted to try again.

The Dorion Fish Hatchery was open, and full of fish. It’s a provincial government installation that breeds and raises fish, mostly trout and splake, to stock sport fishing lakes. The idea is that they supply the sport fishery so the lakes don’t get fished out. It’s not a tourist attraction, although the public is allowed to view the facility. One of the staff members, with decades of experience, gave us a really fantastic tour. I want to point out that he was not a tour guide or a public facing person, but just a staff person happy to share his knowledge and experience.

The hatchery is entirely indoors. There is a large room containing fingerling tanks, a number of labs and quarantine rooms, and the most impressive: a vast hangar containing dozens of tanks for adult fish. The tanks look like giant bathtubs, not aquariums. They keep the lights in the fish hangar low, the way the fish like it, with large hanging lights receding into the distance. It looks like something out of an X-Files episode. You could easily imagine the tanks holding the floating preserved bodies of captured extraterrestrials.

They held fish though. Giant, 80 cm, 15 kg fish. I swear my mouth watered just looking at them.

Gotta run – we’re going to miss check-out time at the campground. I will get some pictures up later today. I would like to post video as well, but I can’t upload those until I get a decent WiFi connection.

Thanks for reading us. We’re having an epic adventure, although I haven’t seen an elf yet! I wish you were here.

Those Johnston Kids were anxious for a little stability in their lives, and asked if we could stay at the infested Rainbow Falls for another night. I think the prospect of an afternoon on a paddlebike was a factor, but I acquiesced in order to give them the sense that this was their trip, as much as mine. The extended stay gave me time to realize that mosquitoes and blackflies work together in some sort of unholy alliance. The blackflies like to sleep in, so the mosquitoes do the dawn to lunchtime shift. Then the heat of the day chases them off to hide in the tall grass, and the squadrons of blackflies tag in to swarm anything still alive. We tried to count the number of bites on Short Pants’ torso, but gave up after 60. I would say he looks like he has smallpox, but that kind of humour might be too soon.

Yes, the paddlebike was got. It took 3 trips from the beach on one end of the campground to the office at the other, to get a) a key, b) a seat, and c) a working craft. I did not try it out, as I was still feeling sensitive after the paddleboat debacle, but Those Johnston Kids took off with a quickness and didn’t come back for almost two hours. They are not Olympic cyclists yet, so the paddlebike must be pretty efficient. They came back soaked in their hiking clothes. To a short person, all water activities involve immersion, whether or not a boat is being used.

It is blackfly season here at Rainbow Falls. As I type this, on Sunday morning, 2 or 3 drowned flies are doing lazy circles in the convection currents of my cooling tea, and the patter of little blackfly bodies on the screens sounds like rain. Sometimes I mistake the flies on my screen for punctuation, usually exclamation points, which is appropriate. Those Johnston Kids found a solution to the swirling voracious clouds while cleaning up the breakfast dishes. This is not even a gag – they walked around like this for an hour. This must be what it’s like to hang out with superheroes. The muffled voice, and the constant uncertainty as to what they’re actually looking at.

Everybody in our party shorter than me was still groggy when we arrived back in Sault. We visited the souvenir shop for a bit of memorabilia, but didn’t tarry. It was late and we still had a drive to our next campsite, already reserved at the Agawa Bay Campground in Lake Superior Provincial Park.

Well, what with the singing, and snacking, and chatting, we somehow completely missed the Agawa Bay campground sign on Highway 17. We were almost out of the Park and starting to get concerned when we passed the Park office. Before you ask, Sergey Brin was no help as we were far out of cell range. We were on manual.

The office was closed and unpopulated, but the map board outside revealed our error. We had passed the campground an hour back. Luckily, there was another campground just a few kilometers up the road so we made for that instead. That campground, Rabbit Blanket, was also unstaffed, but there was an empty campsite that even had a power outlet. Yay!! We set up camp and made ourselves at home.

I met two fellows in the campground, who had themselves met on the road, literally. One was from BC, and was cycling across the country as a personal challenge. The other was from Perth, Australia and was cycling across the  country as just one stage of cycling around the world. The Australian had simply grown tired of his desk job and was riding (all) around until he decided what he wanted to do next. He was younger than the Canadian, but neither of them looked like athletes. The takeaway is that anybody can do it. Go get that bike out of the garage, you lazy bugger.

Those Johnston Kids were torturing marshmallows over the fire when I made a discovery near the comfort station. Two baby rabbits had come out to explore in the early evening hours. As most juvenile prey animals will do when confronted with a potential predator, they froze in place and were easy to gently pick up. I could see that the kids were very careful to move slowly and speak quietly, but I thought Baby Girl in particular might literally explode from the cuteness overload. New trip highlight. They were still chattering about it over breakfast the next day.

There were a few places we could have stayed next, but we settled on Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. The decision was made with lightning speed when we hit the part of the info centre brochure that said “paddleboats”. It was a drive of a few hours, livened up with sing-along to Lindi Ortega, and a double moose spotting along the highway. This bull and a cow were within 10 meters of the highway, munching on water plants, but beat a retreat when we circled back to get a photo.

Oh, Pooh. We also paused in the bustling burg of White River, the birthplace of Winnie the Pooh. See, A.A. Milne’s inspiration for the Pooh stories was a black bear named Winnie in the London (UK) zoo. Winnie was a Canadian, found as a cub at the White River train station, and eventually given overseas. There’s a shrine of sorts to the fuzzy honeysucker at the town’s entrance. While we waited our turn to approach after a busload of retired Quebecois tourists, Baby Girl amused herself taking pictures of the landscaping.

While I was checking in at Rainbow Falls, I was urged by Those Johnston Kids to ask about the paddleboats. I did. The boats weren’t ready. While we set up camp, I was urged to go back and ask about the paddleboats again. I did. They still weren’t ready. During a hike out to see the eponymous Rainbow Falls, we stopped in at the office to ask again and were told “any minute now”. Baby Girl remarked that that saying didn’t really make any sense, but I explained that when a grown-up says it, it means any minute except this one. Around mouthfuls of dinner, I was asked to go back and check yet again. I did and the @#%$ paddleboat was secured. I mean, geez. You would think they had never been in a boat before.

I was afraid to tell them that they also had paddlebikes.

It was no good trying to hide it though, as the paddlebikes were parked on the same dock as the paddleboats. The harangue for a paddlebike began even as we laboured our paddleboat down the length of the lake. I will just say it: calling a paddleboat a boat is a lie. They are about as efficient as logs. There’s a reason the paddlewheel isn’t a valid means of marine locomotion any longer.

We had a good campfire, but the bugs drove us indoors to play SkipBo. Amusingly, Short Pants’ math isn’t as good as Baby Girls’, but he is cunning. He grasped the game tactics almost immediately and played adeptly even while making goofy faces. The game was abandoned before his victory was declared, however, as everyone was too tired to pay attention and sleeping bags were needed.

The nights are cold up here on the north shore of Superior. We were down to single digits Saturday night and our breath hung in the air. Our sleeping bags are warm, but we may need to purchase some jackets for the cool evenings.

Of course, spending the entire day at Science North meant that we would have to drive late to Sault Ste. Marie. We spared ourselves enough time to scrounge up food, fuel, and toiletries and headed west. We were bound to go because we had reservations for Friday morning on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train. Those Johnston Kids were asleep when we rolled into the Sault KOA campground around 11 PM. They woke up for a snack and we went out to look at the near-full moon through our telescope. We’re still working on the whole inside-voice-in-campgrounds-during-sleeping-hours thing. Kids have the interesting ability to whisper and shout at exactly the same volume.

I think it’s a bit misleading to call a KOA a campground. KOA campgrounds are aimed at the RV crowd, and it works. To me, it looks like a parking lot with trees between the spaces. Every site is what I’ve learned to call a “pull-through”, where you drive in one side, and out the other, no time-wasting turning or reversing required. Hook your land-liner up to the on-site electricity and water connections, point the kids at the in-ground swimming pool, connect to the complimentary WiFi, and relax in an insect- and animal-free natural setting. Ah, this is camping!

I don’t mean to sound ungenerous. As much as I’m put off by the sterilization of nature, the KOA was ridiculously clean. The washrooms were better than some hotels I’ve stayed in, the WiFI is actually a nice touch (this page wasn’t published by telegraph), and a pool sure buys a little down time from entertaining bored kids. We plan to hit one again when the wilderness needs to be scraped off and batteries recharged. Not yet though. We slept for about 6 hours then packed up and took off again for the train. The pool remained unswum.

We were seated in car 3, despite our tickets saying car 2. This was an upgrade of sorts because while car 2 had standard coach seating, the seats in car 3 were arranged in quads with tables. It was a mixed blessing because the crew had obviously deemed car 3 to be the family car. We found ourselves seated next to 3 or 4 other families with children of various ages. My favourites were the crew cut, 10 year old brothers named Travis and Luke who pointed out everything we passed loudly and redundantly.

The train had screens in every car, showing the view from the front of the train looking forward. It was amusing and worrying to observe that children often preferred watching the grainy video of train tracks, to looking out the window at the actual terrain.

The train tour takes you through a good example of Canadian shield geography. Along the way, it passes over a couple of impressive trestles that make for good photos, and stops in Agawa Canyon park, which is still only a third of the way along the full passenger route. You could still go another 8 hours north if you were looking for the really antediluvian mosquitoes. Agawa Canyon Park isn’t all that big but serves to stretch your legs in a picturesque location. It has a circular trail that visits the Lookout, at the top of 300+ stairs, and two waterfalls, the Black Beaver Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls. It’s an easy jaunt on a gravel trail. The signboard promised a 40 minute round trip hike to the Lookout, for example, but we easily finished it in under half that time. They must be estimating for septuagenarians. Slow ones.

So Lake and I were talking about septicemia and I was explaining how some bacteria excrete compounds that are poisonous to us. That led to an explanation of excretion as something all living things do. Some bacteria excrete methane or poison. Plants excrete oxygen (or is that correctly called respiration?) and people poop. “That’s just one way people excrete,” I said. “Can you think of another way that people excrete?”
“Um… By talking?”
That’s my boy.

I have actually been to Agawa Canyon on the same train. Back in 2003, Steph, a couple of teammates (one sane, one not), and I raced in EcoChallenge North America. The race started in Sault Ste. Marie with the train ride up to Agawa Canyon. The railroad line was even a race sponsor. I spent a good part of our hike telling Short Pants and Baby Girl race stories, so I got quite excited on the way back when they played a short doc about the race on the train’s screens. I’m sure I saw myself in at least one of the race pictures they showed. That’s so cool. I thought the world had forgotten about that race.

Those Johnston Kids were running on fumes by then, having had only 6 hours sleep the night before, so they crashed hard, sleeping most of the way back, despite Travis and Luke’s best efforts.

First, if you’re not a member of the Ontario Science Centre, go fix that, right now. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Not just because science and rational evidence-based decision making is the only way forward, and Canada has been lagging in its support for pure research ever since Harper was elected. You should also join because it’s fun, interesting and sexy (there, I said it) to learn and know things. Science Centre membership also includes free entry to Science North, where we came to spend the entire day.

Now, as much as I like the Science Centre, Science North is even cooler because you get to touch every damn thing. Their motto seems to be something like “if you can’t touch it, it’s not real”, and I wholeheartedly agree. Coincidentally, that’s also why I don’t believe in pandas. It’s also great for Those Johnston Kids. The opportunity to touch science, I mean – not the panda myth.

We love Science North is the point, which is why we dedicated an entire day to plumb it’s mysteries. Not a lot of a day, or even most of it – all of it! We packed up our camp pretty darn quick in order to get from the campground to Science North by the time the doors opened.

We were careening – seriously, the road is awful – down to the highway when we spotted a red fox lazing on the side of the road. I slowed down to a crawl in order not to frighten it away, but I really think I needn’t have bothered. It didn’t look like it was going anywhere. It just sat there scratching itself and looking at us exactly like an old rez dog. ” You gonna go by, or what?” Short Pants even got out of the car, but that only got the fox to sit up.

Then, while we juggled cameras trying to get a picture, another juvenile fox popped out of the woods and joined the first. I think it was a mother/child relationship or, more correctly, a bitch/kit relationship. Insert your humour here. Eventually the adult sauntered down the road toward us so I hustled Short Pants back into the car. The fox continued on passed us and down the road as if we weren’t there. The juvenile fox was not so sanguine and clearly did not want to get anywhere near us. After a few fruitless attempts to get the adult’s attention, the juvenile slipped off the road into the bush and made its way parallel to the road. Of all of us, Holly took the best shots.

Later, while the kids were distracted, we came around a corner and surprised the biggest black bear I have ever seen. It ran off the road before the kids saw it or I could get a picture, so you don’t have to believe me. It was huge though, like a polar bear spray-painted black.

Despite the morning’s excitement, Science North was not in the least anticlimactic when we arrived. Those Johnston Kids built a mastodon to kill time before the planetarium opened. The movie playing in the planetarium was about the obvious likelihood that life exists on other planets in our galaxy, but the interesting part was that it was narrated by Rupert Grint, the actor that played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter ™ films. Now, he did a fine job, but narrating planetarium films in Sudbury can’t be the sort of thing he imagined doing after a co-starring role in one of the biggest movie series of all time. Some child actors just don’t age well I guess.

We spend most of the day on the 4th floor which is devoted to machines, physics, and the human body. We built racing cars, magnet structures, delivered the news,  and took brains apart. We watched a “4D” movie about fighting forest fires in Northern Ontario. We saw all the special demonstrations that are held in the central theatre: air pressure, chemistry, and flying squirrels were a hit.

The 3rd floor is plants and animals of Ontario, and it’s full of live exhibits, all with their own quirks. They have a blind snapping turtle, a somnolescent beaver (save the jokes – this is a family site!), and a de-scented but flatulent skunk called Spencer. I can tell you firsthand that a skunk fart is not a sniff easier on the nose than skunk spray.

The 2nd floor is rocks and insects. Those Johnston Kids aren’t at all squeamish about holding bugs, even big ones, or eating them. The staff, eponymously called Bluecoats after their lab coats, keep a dish of toasted crickets and mealworms on hand for the brave or, in our case, merely peckish. I prefer the nacho flavour.

In the end, they had to literally throw us out of Science North, the last visitors in the building. That was only after we had begged another 15 minutes in an attempt to finish our Le Mans race on the slot car track. Frequent mechanical failures and hasty rebuilds to eke out a bit more speed kept us from the finish, but hey, that’s Le Mans.

We left Parry Sound in a pretty good mood, so the drive to Sudbury, and Fairbank Provincial Park on its outskirts, was well-tolerated. The park is 10 km down a pot-holed and decaying road, so I wasn’t expecting much. We were pleasantly surprised by the orderly park and well-maintained facilities. Our campsite had electricity and potable water but was a sort of ledge on a hillside only accessible by one entrance from a narrow lane. It was … interesting … getting the large (for me) trailer backed into the site with the space available. I did not have 40 acres to turn my rig around. There was much drama from my spotters who swooned every time I came too near the edge – meaning within a few meters.

With the tent safely erected, Those Johnston Kids walked their bikes up the steep gravel road adjacent to our site and bombed down in a most unsafe manner. I’m not sure Baby Girl even knows she has brakes. She gets that from Steph. We took advantage of the warm showers afterwards to get clean for the first time in a few days. I waited outside the shower for Holly to finish, while she sang Danny Boy inside at the top of her lungs. She gets that from me.

Post-shower, I threw together a good little fire and we ate roasted marshmallows until we didn’t want any more. That’s a lot of marshmallows.

With dawn on Canada Day came revelation. The Cyprus Lake campground of Bruce Peninsula National Park is situated largely on wetland. The campsites are islands between deep breeding pools of generations of exsanguinating monsters. There are fields, endless fields, where mosquitoes are no longer born, they are grown. I saw them with my own eyes. We folded up the trailer and hustled out of there pretty quick.

We had decided to circumnavigate Georgian Bay, but swung by the ferry dock anyway, just to see if there was any chance of getting on the first boat out at 11:20 as a stand-by booking. The surly dockhand said we were welcome to wait in line, but it didn’t look like the boat was going to be ready for 11:20 in any case. We snickered at the people waiting in long lines and drove on.

The drive to Sudbury was pretty, and thick with adventure. Every little town we rolled through was having a Canada Day celebration. I lost track of the number of firemen and old dudes in kilts we saw. It’s like nobody else can be bullied into being the public face of Canada Day.

We pulled off the highway in Parry Sound around lunchtime to stretch our legs. Completely by accident we ended up on the waterfront, which was really lovely. I am ashamed that I’ve never been there before. I think I always equated Parry Sound with lumber jackets and beer parties, but their harbourfront is quite vibrant and modern. And naturally they were having a Canada Day celebration.

While strolling along the piers, I noticed several signs for tour boats of the hundreds of low rocky islands that the area is famous for. I asked Holly to go into the info centre to get a brochure with the tour schedule and she came back with a bush plane tour pamphlet. Well, that’s way more fun! The office was just at the end of the dock, so off we went to check it out.

$320 (sorry Mama!) and 10 minutes later, we were getting a safety briefing on the dock from one of the company’s many female pilots. Another 10 minutes later and we were taxiing out into the harbour, with one of the company’s co-owners as our pilot. Keith and I had an interesting, albeit staccato, conversation in between the screams of Those Johnston Kids over the intercom. It didn’t matter that they were wearing headsets, or that they were sitting beside each other – certain things had to be yelled in order to communicate the appropriate gravitas. The flight was brilliant and landing on the water was as exciting as it sounds. I must squeeze flying into my list of things to learn.

Giddy after our singular experience, we wandered over to the Canada Day fair, hoping to catch some guys in kilts or something. No luck with that search, but we did see the ubiquitous firemen. We chatted with a fireman and woman and the kids climbed into the very fancy ladder truck which was not out putting out fires or rescuing cats. Canada Day is not only a day of celebration for Canadians, but also arsonists.

But wait, there’s more: even better than firetrucks, and arguably as exciting as low level bush plane flying over Massasauga Park, are free bouncy castles! Free, and with the kind of generous time limits that you can only get from bored teen operators texting about how bored they are. Awesome. Parry Sound has rocketed to the top of our list of favourite places. I didn’t even tell you about the fresh kettle corn we bought on our way out. It was still warm, as if it had just been born from some sweet and salty womb.

Honestly, our first day really didn’t go that well. Maybe it was because we all stayed up after midnight to test the axiom that the only rule of vacation is that there are no rules. Maybe it was the cold realisation that home and creature comforts that didn’t include actual creatures was far away. Maybe it was the mosquito bites. In any case, none of us got along too well. Every attempt to do something other than sitting in the car with a book was met with sullen complaints about far/hot/boring it was. Yay, vacation.

We did manage to agree to ride down to the shore for a swim. Of course the water at this time of year is freezing. I waded, but the polar bears rolled in the water for a bit before shrieking for the warmth of the grass.

The Chi Chi Maun ferry to Manitoulin runs out of Tobermory (“Tub” to locals). The ferry, if you’ve never tried it, is a lot of fun. It’s quite luxurious, and the views of Georgian Bay are magnificent. No whales though, strangely. We had a reservation for 7 AM today, but the ferry requires cars to arrive an hour early. Rather than get up at 4 AM to break camp and drive to Tobermory from Cape, we elected to stay in Tobermory for the night.

We drove north to Bruce Peninsula National Park, which was almost completely full up owing to the national holiday. My winsome ways and Clooneyesque smile won us one of the last two spots in the park from the intimidating lady at check in.

She also let us know that the Chi Chi Maun was busted and all 7 AM reservations cancelled. Sad face. They aren’t even sure when it will be fixed, so waiting isn’t really an option. Besides being disappointing, it also seriously impacts our schedule. After some debate, we’ve decided to drive around Georgian Bay to Sudbury and Science North.

With a long drive ahead, we made it an early night. Dinner was campfire hot dogs, Kraft dinner with Kimchee No Moto, and fresh strawberries. We enjoyed our campfire as best we could in the light drizzle and swirling mosquitoes. Short Pants literally slept in his bug jacket. The wilderness is not for everyone.