Cross Canada and Back, Part 65, The End!

Saskatchewan to home

Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia

Go to Part one of this trip here

27th of September 2011

Early in the morning we leave Rose and Allan's place. We had a great time, thank you to both of you!

Great Road all the way to Jasper.

Our goal today is to drive to Jasper, Alberta for us. A drive of approximately 800 km. It is a beautiful day on the prairies.

The sun is shining. There is some dust in the air from all the harvesting going on. The driving is easy, Highway 16, the Yellowhead is all freeway.

We do not have headwind, so we make good time. We have driven this road quite a few times, so we relax and and put on some country music.

We arrive at our destination Jasper National Park of Canada. Jasper is a great place to camp right up in the mountains at over 1000 meters or 3400 feet above sea level. We stay in the Whistlers Campground.

Jasper National Park of Canada

Some crazy people have to go close.

Around this time in the mountains it is "Rutting Season". We are warned to stay way clear of the Elks, especially the  the bull Elks.

We decide to celebrate the end of our "Cross Canada Trip" and treat ourselves and go downtown Jasper for a prime rib dinner and a bottle of wine. So good!

Later we also shop just a few supplies.

Next day we continued through the mountains on the Yellowhead Highway west and soon enter our home province of British Columbia.

A little rain, a little sunshine, a little fog, we got everything.

Temperatures varied between - 2 and - 10 degrees Celsius. We stopped at the Mt. Robson Cafe and Store in Mount Robson Provincial Park. We refilled our travel mugs with coffee and had a little sweet.

The scenery here was spectacular, cool and crisp. We were a little surprised, even though we traveled

Mount Robson, British Columbia

early, we did not see any animals. I guess it was too cold to graze.

Five hours later we arrived in the city of Kamloops. We filled up Diesel in our truck and drove on toward Merritt in the Nicola Valley.

We always love this stretch of the road. Merritt is pretty in summer and in winter.

The Nicola Valley looks very gentle with all the rolling hills. We made good time over the Coquihalla Hwy all the way to Hope.

As soon as we come into the Fraser Valley around Chilliwack, Anders starts to smell the ocean, and smiles from ear to ear.

We reached Fort Langley at about 5pm. Good drive.

We camped at the Fort Langley Campground. This was convenient. We unhooked, and the next day we drove just with the truck into Vancouver.

Vancouver, British Columbia Canada

Back in Victoria, British Columbia Canada.

Cruise ship coming in to dock in Victoria

We got together with Jenny and Josh at a Japanese Restaurant.

It was so nice to see them after such a long time. We finally got some family hugs.

On Friday the 30th of September 2011, day 138 of our trip, we took the ferry to Victoria and home.

It was wonderful to see Lisa, Mark, Sarah and Ryan again. More hugs, that was great.

Linda and Mathew were at that time in Africa.

Our Canada Cross Country trip was more then we expected, it was an experience of a lifetime. We certainly would do it again.

Concentrating on areas we missed, or ran out of time. Every corner of our beautiful country has its own special beauty.

We came back from this trip appreciating where we live and all the place we had enjoyed while travelling from coast to coast to coast.

Canada, yours to discover!

More pictures from this part of the trip in our on line photo album.

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Cross Canada and Back, Part 64

Jackfish Lake, Saskatchewan

Sept 20th to 26th, 2011

At Rose and Al's Place.

We had our 5th Wheel set up on the hill overlooking Jackfish Lake right next to their house. This is a very beautiful part of Saskatchewan. Around this time of the year thousands of migrating birds congregate on this lake.

Rose and Al's new house on Jackfish Lake, Saskatchewan.

We are camped right by the house. Fantastic view.

From Pelicans to Snow Geese and everything in between. One morning Al called and said to come and have a look on one of his harvested fields.

When we got there, thousands of birds were eating some of the left over wheat kernels on the ground and sprouting seeds.

We visited Anders' mom Ruth. She lives in North Battleford. She likes the convenience of this prairie town.

Ruth recently had a hip operation, but is doing extremely well. Anders took her to Saskatoon for a check-up with her surgeon. She is in great shapes!

North Battleford, as the name suggests, has quite a history. In North Battleford we also visited the Allen Sapp Gallery.

Allen Sapp is a native artist who paints from his child hood memory.  His images are very interesting. The gallery is well worth a visit.

One of four combines going

Anders just had to go for a ride

While the harvesting is going on, Rose is fully busy cooking and taking the food to the crew on the fields. The men work often very long hours on the combines and hauling trucks.

Some of Al's fields are quite a bit more north. One evening we went along with Rose to take the food into the fields. Very interesting.

Anders could not resist, he took a ride with one of the man in one of these monster machines called combines.

Harvesting has changed since Anders had his ranch. These machine are guided by GPS, the cabs are air-conditioned, but still, it is a hard and dusty job. While Anders did his farmer thing , I photographed the Bison herd two fields over.

Buffalo grazing in a nearby field

Naturally, around the kitchen table we discussed farming , the increases of the property prices, and if it would be a good idea to own farmland.
Well, now in hind-site ( 2013 ) it looks like we missed the boat. So we will be content to just visit from time to time.

We will not have to worry if it hails, rain, or no rain, or bugs have damaged the crops like all farmers have to do. Canada is very lucky to have such wonderful prairie farmers growing food for all of us.

Saskatchewan Sunset

For more pictures from this part of the trip, check out our photo album.

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Cross Canada and Back, Part 62

Neys Provincial Park to Kenora, Ontario

Sept 17th 2011, day 125, Saturday

Time to change drivers

This was a eleven hour driving day. We drove all the way from Neys Provincial Park on Lake Superior to Kenora, in eastern part of Ontario close to the Manitoba border.

Again we started very early.Beautiful sunshine and cold weather. Terrace Bay has a smelly pulp mill, but sits pretty on the hill overlooking the bay.

Rainbow Falls and Rossport are gorgeous. Anders and I switched drivers about every 1 1/2 hours, but Anders took the longer hours.

Liz's turn to drive.

Fort Frances Area

We by-passed Thunderbay and headed for Hwy #11 toward Fort Frances, all the way along the US / Canada border.

Lucky that Anders took Diesel in Thunderbay. There was not a gas station, village, or supplies for the next 250 km +/_ until Fort Frances.

This Hwy # 11 was great, not too many up and downs, no pot holes, and basically no traffic.

We were surprised that there were Bell Towers along this stretch of highway, yet along Hwy. 17 we often had no reception?!?

Along this stretch of the highway it is called " Mom's Highway". But I think there are mostly dads travelling here. Maybe it should be re named?

It looks like fishing and hunting country. There are a few native villages. The area is remote with no street numbers. The odd driveway and homes are marked as : "Sue and Craig Bell" or " GrandPa Joe".

Fort Frances is a dusty border lumber town in the Rainy River District. It has a very interesting

Anders love this area.

history:

From Fort Frances we took Hwy 71 north through the Lake of the Woods area toward Kenora. The Lake of the Woods area is amazing. It has over 14,000 islands.

In other words it is a paradise for water sports, fishing and hunting. Nestor Falls and Sioux Narrows are resort towns along here. We stop at Sioux Narrows and talk to the visitor information agent.

They have a lot going on: Spring BBQ and Oktoberfest celebrations and in Nestor Falls, residents enjoy the Annual Pig Roast on August Long Weekend. They also have a very popular Winter Carnival.

Each summer, this cottage town hosts an Arts Festival which draws local artisans as well as exhibitors from far and wide to display fine art, woodwork, pottery and more.

When we arrived in Kenora, we had just over 30,000km showing on our Cross Canada Trip mater.

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Cross Canada and Back, Part 61

Manitoulin Island to Neys Provincial Park

Sept 16th 2011 , Friday, day 124

Anders woke me up at 6 am. We just made coffee, packed breakfast and lunch, broke camp. At 7 am

7 am, sun is just about to come up.

we were rolling over the Little Narrows bridge direction Espanola. Not a cloud in the sky, minus 3 degrees Celsius, a beautiful crisp autumn morning.

The mist and fog was steaming off the ponds as we drove Birch Island and Whitefish Falls.
After Espanola we were heading west toward Sault St.Marie.

The drive along the North Channel, Lake Huron, between the mainland and Manitoulin Island was spectacular that morning.

Wonderful drive and beautiful landscape.

We drove up steep hills and down again, in and out of fog and sunshine. From time to time we could see distant views of the lake.

Then all of a sudden we were right down by pristine beaches, like in Culter and Blind River. In Serpent River it is minus 2 degrees Celcius.

We drove through Sault Ste. Marie, then north along gorgeous Batchawana Bay, Pancake Bay, Montreal River. This is a great drive that should not be missed.

Camped right next to the beach. Just wonderful.

Liz for a walk on the beach. Feeling much better now!

Anders and Liz  on the beach at Neys Provincial Park

We stopped from time to time to admire the lonely and raw country side.

We continued through Lake Superior Provincial Park, Wawa, and Marathon to Neys Provincial Park.

We liked this park a lot when we drove east in early summer, so we decided to came back here, right on Lake Superior.

I was a little woozy from the long drive and all the up and downs through the rock cuts of Highway 17.

I was soon feeling better. Amazing what a bit of food and some wine can do.

After supper, and we went for a nice walk on the beach in a golden sunset.

This park is very special and if you travel this route you just have to visit here.

We were camped right next to the beach and it is just so wild and wonderful. Ontario at its best.

For more pictures from this part of the trip, check out our on line picture album.

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Cross Canada and Back, Part 60

Manitoulin Island, Ontario

Thursday 15 September 2011, day 123

We went for a long drive around Manitoulin island. Small villages, small farms, some cottages and a lot of bush land and grass. Manitoulin Island is the largest lake Island in the world.

We drove from Sheguiandah to M'Chigeeng. We dropped into some arts and crafts stores. In one they had all kinds of original native art and handicrafts.

They also had a small museum in the back mostly with porcupine quill baskets and cedar baskets. I

Anders going shopping

just bought some trinkets like all tourists.

Quill baskets with native birds and animals they had behind a glass enclosure were exquisite. I loved one with a Blue Heron on a small box with relief tail feathers. But it was way  over $350.00, so we drove on.

Yesterday we looked at some humorous native paintings at the Ten Mile Point Gallery. We loved one of the paintings, but decided that we do not have the space to display more paintings.

Today we continued our journey through Kagawong to Goore Bay.

This area of the island seams to have more agriculture going. Some of the field are looked after and dairy cows or cattle are grazing.

Getting late in the day. Happy Hour anyone?

We drove back over Honora and Aundeck Omnikaning to Little Current. There we shopped for some food and Anders washed the truck.

I visited Manitoulin Island in 1968 and looked at a very colourful Pow Wow. The dancers were incredible. Anders and I were too late in the season this time to see any special presentations.

Just looking at the 2013 calendar, all the Pow Wows were from June to the 1st of September. Too bad. A good reason to go back.

This was our last evening on this island.  We made supper and prepared sandwiches for the road next day.

The next day we started driving west towards home.

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Cross Canada and Back, Part 59

Manitoulin Island Bound

September 14th 2011, day 122 Wednesday

We are working our way back home, still travelling east bound in Ontario. Yesterday we went to the Tobermory Ferry Terminal on the Bruce Peninsula. Our plan was to take the ferry from Tobermory to South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island on the other side of Georgian Bay.

The ferry attendant was very helpful, but warned us that the ferry may not run or be a very rough ride because of the high winds. He even called the captain of the sailing that morning. It did not sound good, the waves were a good 6-8 feet with the wind blowing from the south west, which is the worst for this crossing. The captain warned: "It is not for the faint at heart".

Driving around Georgian Bay

Anders was very nice, I am the faint at heart, I am getting seasick in the shower as he says. So we went for a coffee and made a tough decision. The ferry ride would have cut off about 600 km of driving with our "pull-shack" vs a the 2 hour ferry ride. We did not want to wait for better weather, so we will drive around Georgian Bay.

Late last night we drove back to Owen Sound, Collingwood and all the way to Parry Sound. We arrived late at the Trailside Park RV Park. I think we woke the park attendant up, oh well he get over it. He gave us a spot and took our money. I think this park would be very nice, but we arrived late and left in the early morning fog.

Liz at the wheel

We had a beautiful drive on Hwy 69 through the Ontario forest turning to fall colours, along rivers, and scraggly rocks toward Sudbury. Sudbury itself was kind of ugly, or at lease we did not like it.

It rained like crazy when we drove through. They are still working on the highways. The factory chimneys were spewing out smelly stuff.

We turned west onto Hwy 17 to Espanola and from there south on Hwy 6 to Little Current on Manitoulin Island.  Manitoulin Island is the largest freshwater island in the world.

We booked into Batman's Cottages and Campground just past Sheguiandah. This is a very nice park .

Wonderful views

We liked our wooded spot on the lake.

After setting up camp, we visited Unceded Wikwemikong Native Reserve. Here live 3 native bands which never signed a treaty. It is an interesting place.

There are signs of started projects. We hoped to find an art or gift shop, but did not find one. Their history is very interesting. "ahnnii" in Odawa-Ojibway, it means" welcome"

We have more pictures from this part of the trip in our Picasa Web Album. Have a look.

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