Wednesday May 17 – Thunder Bay to Kenora

Thunder Bay seems to be a little disjointed from the merging of Port Arthur and Fort Williams 30, or whatever, years ago. The old section of what was Port Arthur is nice, and the downtown is typical of a small city anywhere, and while I don’t think we found “Main St.” Fort Williams it also felt pretty familiar. But these two are separated by several miles and a large big box and fast food area. Despite this, the lakefront scenery is beautiful and the grain elevators are impressive. Elly was at the vet for her shots here. We toured town waiting for the appointment and afterwards were off on highway 17 by 11:45.

Kakabeka Falls was a great stop about 30 minutes west of Thunder Bay. We walked the boardwalks across and around both sides of the 100 foot falls and gorge. A beautiful site and full of plaques about the nature, the natives and the fur traders portaging around the falls. All with the roar of the falls to accompany it.

We hadn’t intended to travel this far but we are now in Kenora, about 230 km from Winnipeg. Thunder Bay to Kenora is another 500 km of forest, lakes, bog and rock. That makes close to 2,000 km of forest from Ottawa to here, and counting. The highway was good, a mix of sun cloud and a few sprinkles and it was a fine day of travel. The last half has the more impressive rock outcroppings and larger lakes but it was all good.


I’m now looking out the window of our Anchor Motel room as the sun sets. Right on the Lake of the Woods but also only about 500 meters from the railway line. Seems to be a train about every 30 minutes. Norah and Ely are snoozing but I think I’ll edit some photos to finish this even if I don’t post it until tomorrow.