I left Michigan Sunday thinking I'd left the rain behind. The Internet radar was showing no serious rain approaching the area I was traveling to, and the sun even started peeking through the clouds as I drove into the northern reaches of Michigan's lower peninsula, across the upper peninsula, and across the border into Ontario.
Not long after that I realized that I had no Internet service on my phone. I had thought that my SIM card would work in Canada, but apparently I was wrong. That meant, among other things, that my phone's map app wouldn't work. As I headed up the Trans Canada Highway that curves north and then west along the northern shore of lake Superior, several times I wanted to use that app to double-check my progress toward my destination at Lake Superior Provincial Park; but the only way I could do that was to stop someplace that had free wifi so I could access the Internet. And such places are few and far between in this part of the world. This is not a heavily-populated region, and this part of the Trans Canada Highway features lots of 80-mile-plus stretches with no gasoline or other services. The last place I drove that was like this was the heart of Nevada.
At least it was a scenic drive, with fairly frequent views of Lake Superior. The Great Lakes truly are a majestic marvel of nature. I thought the same thing during my time along the shores of Lake Michigan even though I didn't get to enjoy it fully because the weather was so lousy. If this were a warmer climate, I believe the shorelines of Michigan and Ontario and Minnesota and Wisconsin would be the hottest tourist destination in the world. Maybe in another hundred years...
Connectivity difficulties aside, I drove along thinking all was well. But then, as I moved within 60 miles or so of my destination, it started to rain. My heart sank. Having spent four straight nights camping in the rain, I really didn't want to do it again. I hoped maybe it was just a small cell and I would be out of it in another ten or twenty miles, but it just kept on.
I knew Lake Superior Provincial Park was somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Wawa, Ontario, but I didn't know exactly where, and I was unable to check on my phone. As I drew closer to Wawa I saw some public-looking signage, but it was hard to read in the rain, and I'm pretty sure I did not see anything that said "Lake Superior Provincial Park." Finally I reached Wawa, and I found a place with some wifi and checked the map. It turned out I had passed the park almost 30 minutes back. Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall, and it was quite chilly as well. I pulled up the Internet radar and saw a huge blob of precipitation parked over the entire eastern portion of Lake Superior. I don't know where it had come from--there had been no sign of it on the radar earlier in the day--but I had had enough. Reservation or no reservation, I was not going to drive back to the park, pull out all my soaking-wet gear, and spend another night in the rain. I found a nice down-to-earth-looking motel in Wawa, and checked in.
I had my first hot shower in five days, and enjoyed a good night of sleep. Monday morning the rain had stopped and a dense fog hung over the town. As I departed Wawa the fog was burning off, and it appeared I finally had a lovely day with some sunshine and pleasantly cool air.
I was still on the east side of Lake Superior, and the Trans Canada Highway runs north for a while. North of Wawa it veers away from the lake, and between the lake and the road likes a huge roadless wilderness area that includes, but is not limited to, Pukaskwa National Park. Though I don't know for sure, I would guess that this area is the setting for much of Bill Mason's films like "Waterwalker" and "Song of the Paddle."
Eventually the highway curves around to head west, rejoining the lake along its north shore. It was here that I stopped at the town of Marathon and paddled for a while in Carden Cove. I was still tired from Saturday's race and just paddled a relaxed pace. The wind seemed to be blowing from the south, but it wasn't so strong and the water's surface was small bumps.
After paddling I continued west for another couple of hours until I arrived at the town of Nipigon. As I mentioned in a post last week, Nipigon is the site of a park that honors the story of Paddle-to-the-Sea, and I made sure to stop and check it out.
Just a few miles south of Nipigon is a little lakeside town called Red Rock, and here I had a reservation at the Red Rock Inn. I'd found the place on Expedia or some similar site and I didn't think it was much more than another motel, but it's a sure-enough old fashioned inn. The innkeeper is this old dude who might have been around when the town was founded, and the place is basically a museum for early-to-mid-twentieth-century technology:
And there's also a lot of arts and crafts by First Nation people. It was hard to get good photos of the visual art because of the reflection off the glass, but here are a couple of my favorites (because they've got canoes in them!).
This morning I checked out of the inn and went down to the town's marina to paddle. How did it go? Well, what I thought would be no more than a two-hour session turned into three hours. The weather was sunny and calm when I set out; the forecast called for a 15-mph wind from the west, but it wasn't blowing anywhere near that, and I've paddled in my fair share of 15-mph winds anyway. My plan was simple enough: paddle east (with the wind at my back), go around LaGrange Island, and return to Red Rock. On the way out there was just enough breeze to create some small bumps, but nothing for a downwind lover to get excited about. As I approached LaGrange Island the bumps grew into the sort of rideable-if-you-work-hard swells, and in the last ten minutes or so before I made the turn to round the island, there were some small but fun downwind conditions. I was sorry to be leaving them behind as I entered the lee of LaGrange Island.
As I rounded the island, I suddenly felt several gusts that seemed a lot stronger than 15 mph. I hoped they would be short-lived, but as I came around the island to where I could see the Red Rock water tower, I was greeted with easily a 20-25 mph wind and some good-sized swells coming from the northwest rather than the west. Again, this was nothing I haven't paddled into before, in places like South Africa and the Columbia River Gorge and even my own Mississippi River at Memphis. But by this time I'd been in the boat for more than 90 minutes and I was getting tired. I paddled up and over one swell after another, and while my skills were up to the task for the time being, I wondered how long I would have to keep fighting.
After a while I stopped trying to paddle directly toward the water tower and went over to Burnt Island, where I took about a 10-minute break. Then I aimed for the shortest path to the mainland shore. Once there I would then have to paddle another couple of miles along the shore to where I'd put in, but at least I would have some shelter from the wind. I just hoped I still had enough energy to get over there.
I told myself to relax and not try to set any speed records. In this case, "slow and steady" would win the race. At last I made it back to the mainland, and even though I was now running on fumes with a lengthy paddle back up to the marina, at least I knew that if nothing else I could just go to shore and collapse for a while, and be on the same landmass that my truck was parked on.
Lake Superior commanded my respect today, and it was a lesson to be more careful about paddling any distance away from shore. One of the things that had lulled me into a false sense of security is that this part of the lake is enclosed in an archipelago of islands--it's actually the prettiest part of Superior I've seen so far, and I was excited to get out among those islands.
I am unsurprisingly dead-dog tired this evening. I'm staying in a motel up near Nipigon and I hope to get a good night's rest. I will most likely stay on dry land tomorrow; a bike ride is a strong possibility, as is a hike on one of the local trails.
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