Of wilderness, wireless-ness and near moose experiences

There are some amazing benefits to being out in the wild, the northernmost part of our journey for the whole year. Chipmunks, red and black squirrels play right next to you in the pines and you can sit under the stars listening to the wolves howl in the distance. It is stunningly beautiful in the north of Ontario, with lakes and limited opportunities for I spy …

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with l, s, r.”

“Ermmm, long straight road. Again.”

“OK, something beginning with l, c, l”

“lorry carrying logs.”

We have discovered the joys of provincial parks. OK, so maybe the kids aren’t as impressed as with the big commercial campsites – no mini golf and heated swimming pools here, but they have swum in arctic lakes and rivers, stayed for £13-15 a night, had log fires next to the lake and been amazed by the wildlife. We passed the arctic watershed, meaning every river running from here goes into the Arctic Ocean. But its still 27 degrees outside. We are wayyyy north, but Canada just stretches on, and on … wide open spaces and states like Nunavut look so tempting on the map, but we are also becoming aware of the length of time it takes to cross these vast distances. We have crossed a time zone but are still in Ontario, after 11 days! We amble along a leisurely 90kmph … just under 60mph … the speed limit here, but as the road varies between sublime and a potholed rollercoaster with no notice, that’s no bad thing. There is almost nothing on the roads, except for warning signs for moose. More of that later …
Probably our favourite Ontario park was Rene Brunelle, just off highway 11 west at Moonbeam. As at many of the parks this time of year there are no staff, and you are trusted to register yourself, leave your credit card details and find a site (we tried three before deciding) and just get on with it. We stayed right on the lake shore, with the pines towering above us. Rene Brunelle, like many of these parks, is renowned for moose … everywhere along the road are “warning, moose on the loose” signs, but as yet we have seen not a sign and are beginning to suspect these are put there only for the tourists. But we’ve apparently been pretty close. We were walking down a forest path when some cyclists came past … “you’d better be real careful down there, there’s a huge moose right on the path.” “Yeah! It’s a monster!” chirps the kid. Ooooh, we think, and quietly hair down the path as quick as possible for the next couple of miles. We meet some walkers. “Did ya see the moose?” they pipe up. No, we didn’t see the bloody moose. Haven’t seen one yet, in thousands of kilometres, thanks. No, we haven’t seen the northern lights, either.

One close encounter we were quite glad NOT to have had was with a wolf. The night we stayed on Lake Superior at Sleeping Giant (large rock formation/peninsular shaped like a oversized woman lying down), about three families in a provincial park on the lake were attacked by a rogue black wolf, which bit five people and tried to drag a small child into a bush before being shot. Apparently this is incredibly rare … no one in North America has ever been killed by a wild wolf. But it made us slightly more reticent about letting the kids down to the lakeside by themselves, and perhaps a tad more edgy when we heard the wolf howls getting closer.

On a domestic front, Jenna wrote her name for the first time at the start of September! She is suddenly really interested in spelling and also wrote moon, on request, along with pages of gibberish, of course. It was an amazing milestone and shows something is going in there. She is still incredibly happy, as are the big two, who seem fearless, and incredibly adaptable. Doris is now very much home, and they don’t complain about 10 hours in her a day, nor about moving on each morning, nor about not meeting ANYONE else, or seeing no form of habitation for 200 miles on end … its just what we do these days!

Infact the only downside is being almost completely incommunicado. There is certainly no wireless internet here, and no mobile phone signal in most places. We spent a very frustrating September 2nd trying desperately to get in contact with mum, to wish her a happy birthday. My phone simply would not charge and was out of batteries, none of the stops we made had internet, and none of the three adaptors we bought that day would charge the phone. We eventually worked out it had got wet at Niagara, but not until it was way past the end of the day in Wales. Many hours wasted, and frustration all round. So, mum, hope you got the very brief cut off message, and had a truly wonderful birthday.

And now we’re in Winnipeg, feeling like we’re almost in civilisation again. Onwards and marginally upwards to Sasketchewan … then into the true West.