“Why not just drive through Northern Ontario?” I said

21 though 23 July 2014

Who says government people don't have a sense of humour?

Well for starters it’s the equivalent of driving through 3 good sized provinces. Or put another way – if you go the southern route to get to Manitoba through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and probably North Dakota it’s 5 states. Is Ontario that big? Oh yeah it is – from our last long stay at Orillia it was 1115 miles (1794 km) to the Manitoba border. Over 1/3^rd of our planned journey to the west coast was spent just getting to the western edge of Ontario. That same distance east gets you to Halifax.

You will tire of rocks, lakes, and trees she had warned.  She, to her credit, was not smug. Just right.

The Wawa goose

Terry Fox Memorial. His marathon dwarfs the efforts of most of us. Humbling.

Not to say that northern Ontario isn’t beautiful and often impressive. And the highway surface is great. If you want to sort of travel the highway with us take a look at the slide show here.

This photo sums up summertime in Ontario:

Rocks, lakes, trees, bugs (on the window), road construction

It’s very hilly. The highway seems to descend to every lake on the route and climbs as you leave the water. In between lakes it goes up and down a lot and around a lot of corners. You will not bored driving this route. 

 

Even though Harvey and Smiley were well behaved all the way I admit I was kind of glad to see the Manitoba border and the promise of flat land to come.

But at that point I wasn’t even thinking about the giant mosquitoes that defend Winnipeg.