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.