Trans-Canada road trip: Brandon to Nipigon

Trans-Canada road trip: Day 3

August 16, 2012

Click for larger image (link to map)

We woke up and got on the road early in the morning. Pretty soon into our drive we noticed a really interesting, really long cloud bank hovering right along the horizon. If we hadn't been in the middle of the country, we might have thought they looked like a long line of crashing tidal waves. As we drove toward them, the clouds lifted a bit off the horizon, but they stayed low and long, stretching to the north and south as far as the eye could see.

We zipped through Winnipeg along Hwy 1, but about an hour and 15 minutes further east we made a scheduled stop in Prawda, MB at a gas station/truck stop/restaurant right beside the highway.

I had been introduced to this place in early summer 2008 while driving with my mum, grandparents, and sister from Winnipeg to visit my aunt and cousins in Ear Falls, ON for my cousin's grade 12 grad. The relatives had told us to make sure to stop in Prawda for some amazing homemade perogies. We took their advice and didn't regret it in the slightest. In fact, we enjoyed them so much that we had to stop again on the drive back to Winnipeg a few days later to get some more!

So on this road trip, I made sure that we made the same stop as well. We both bought a serving of perogies, and quickly devoured them. There's just nothing like homemade perogies made by people who still know all the secrets of making this delicious Eastern European dish!

RCMP friend at the restaurant in Prawda

Wildlife pal at the restaurant in Prawda

As we drove closer to the Ontario border, we started leaving the prairies behind and the scenery gradually changed from flat fields to wooded areas, small lakes, and granite rock walls beside the highway. We soon were in the midst of the region of Lake of the Woods, a giant, many-armed lake that spans the border between the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario and the US state of Minnesota.

Small part of Lake of the Woods visible from the highway

We hadn't been able to take a photo of the Manitoba sign the night before since it was dark,
so I turned around and caught this one as we passed it going in the other direction.

The actual direction we were traveling in

We stopped at a small gas station and store a little way into Ontario to grab a picture with this large Inukshuk.
(I have photos with it from 2008, so I made Jonathan get in the picture this time.)

Terrible photo (as so many of them are while using a point and shoot from a moving vehicle),
but we wanted to document entering into the Eastern Standard Time Zone.

We made another stop in the evening when we arrived in Thunder Bay. This is a city I've long been dying to visit since my grade 3 social studies textbook made it sound like one of the most alluring places to see. Although we didn't have much time to spend here, we enjoyed our first view of Lake Superior in the gathering dusk.

After some photos of the lake, we drove a few more minutes east to another stop I have long been wanting to make, the Terry Fox memorial outside of Thunder Bay. For Americans (or anyone who doesn't know), Terry Fox is kind of a big deal in Canada. After losing his leg to cancer as a teenager, Terry decided to run across Canada in his early 20s to raise money for cancer research. He started his trek in 1980 in St. John's, Newfoundland by dipping his prosthetic leg in the Atlantic (there's another memorial at that site as well) and ran an average of 26 miles - the equivalent of a marathon - a day west towards British Columbia and the Pacific Ocean. Sadly, Terry's Marathon of Hope ended in Thunder Bay after 143 days and 5,373 km (3,339 miles) when he had a relapse of cancer, and had to return home to BC where he died nine months later. Although he wasn't able to complete his marathon, he has never been forgotten by Canadians, and never will be as each September schools and communities across the country and around the world celebrate Terry Fox day by running for a cure for cancer.

I have been to the memorial in St. John's and it was meaningful to see this one as well. Such an inspiring life to remember!

View of Lake Superior from the memorial

Our truck and trailer pointed eastward

Although daylight was waning when we left the memorial, we felt we had a few more hours of driving in us, and continued east through the forests of Northern Ontario. An hour and half later, we were quite tired and were very happy to find a room at a little motel in the small town of Nipigon on the northern tip of Lake Superior.

- Ali

Daily driving total: 1,019 km (633 mi)

Next up: Nipigon to Ottawa