The RVers Guide to Navigating Northern Ontario | Ep. 38

Driving through Northern  Ontario is unlike no other road trip you’re likely to take in your RV. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t think twice about hitching up and towing down to Florida on a whim, each thousand kilometers is a completely different experience. 

Wildlife, traffic, bumps, winding roads and fatigue all play a part in making Northern Ontario a little more difficult to travel – but well worth the trouble. On this episode, we give you the tips you need to get through Ontario in one piece. Specifically:

• Where to stop for gas
• How to navigate places to pull over
• The beauty of boondocking
• Why nighttime is no time for driving
• The astronomical price of gas
• The best things to see along the way

This episode isn’t a trip guide to Northern Ontario as much as it is a trip guide through it; so click that seatbelt and hit the road with us as we head to Banff.

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Transcript

1 (5s): Everyone. And welcome to episode 38 of the RV Canucks podcast this week. Dan and I are going to detail the first leg of our journey from Ontario to Banff and more specifically surviving the never-ending trip through Ontario. If you’re new to the show or to our viewing in general, welcome we’re Dan and Molina and together with our two teens are the RV connects and we travel all over north America to bring you tips, trip guides, and stories from the road to help make your next adventure a great one. Make sure you stick around to the end of the show for some listener mail that made me smile. And we’ll give you another great item to add to your must have packing list, but first Northern Ontario, a vacation destination in its own, right. 1 (45s): Ontario has a lot to offer campers and our veers. However, it can be a little bit tricky and even downright dangerous to drive through. So let’s talk about some of the tips you need to know that are unique to Ontario in particular when towing through with your trailer or RV. 2 (1m 1s): Yep. So I think the first thing that we want to talk about is that on the leg, through Northern Ontario and keep in mind, we left from Oakville and we traveled all the way up through thunder bay and finally made it out of Ontario and landed in Winnipeg. When you make that drive, we would not advise driving late at night, you know, moose, deer, fatigue, other animals, they all play a role into it. And it can also be hard to find gas at the same time in a lot of these small towns. And we’ll talk about this more as we talk through the podcast, I think the point we’re trying to make is if you’re the kind of family that has no problem doing the epic road trip through the night to drive from Ontario to Florida, this is not the drive from Ontario to Florida. 2 (1m 42s): This is going to take a lot more out of you and you’re not going to have the same facilities 1 (1m 46s): For sure. So let’s talk maybe on that note gas, because gas and bathroom breaks, it’s a little bit different when you’re dealing with up north. 2 (1m 55s): Yeah. So in the past, when we’ve talked about a lot of our road trips, many of them have been down through the United States. We’ve traveled the interstate system. You’re on a divided highway. There’s lots of signage for truck stops. Rest stops. If you need to stop and get gas, you kind of need to think that one through because you’re likely going to have to pull off the highway to get gas at a truck stop. Northern Ontario is not a divided highway for the most part. It’s a two lane highway that is part of the trans Canada highway system. That goes all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But you can get on and off that highway at thousands of different points, there’s no controlled access to the highway is what I’m trying to say. 2 (2m 36s): There’s no on ramp or exit ramp. You can pull off into parking, lots gas stations and so on. So getting gas, probably not a problem as you go from the Toronto area up to Sudbury and probably Sudbury across to the SU the further north, 1 (2m 53s): When Dan says the Sue, he means Sue Saint Marie, for those who aren’t familiar with Ontario. 2 (2m 58s): So as you travel north and west on this particular trip, you’re going to find less and less gas available. And as you’re traveling west, as we are out of the SU that’s when I think you really need to pay attention to where the next gas stop is, that’s a job that usually falls to me. I know exactly how far we can get on a tank of gas. I know how far the next two or three towns are. And I kind of plot those out in my head to make sure that we’re going to get gas. And I generally tend to err, on the side of caution, by the time we hit a half a tank of gas, I want to know that we’re able to get the next tank of gas and where we’re going to get it. 1 (3m 32s): I think probably the best tip is just kind of every time you stop, but if you’re going to stop to let somebody use the washroom and there’s a gas pump where you’re stopped, just kind of gossip, even if it’s only a quarter tank and just assume there won’t be services for a long time, and you’re never going to be in this situation where you have to use that emergency gas can strap to the front of your trailer or call CAA or call a tow truck in the middle of the night or an area that we’ll likely see you waiting for many hours to get help. 2 (4m 1s): The one thing I’d like to say is that this area has a lot of truck traffic. And so a lot of these gas stations are set up to service trucks. So I find personally it’s a little bit easier to get in and get out of a gas station. I worry about that a lot less than say traveling through the United States where that’s always on my mind, can I get into this gas station? Is it going to be a tricky turn? That’s on my mind in the U S I worry about that a lot less traveling through Northern Ontario, because generally speaking, you know, the pumps are oftentimes not always, but oftentimes running parallel to the highway. So I’m just pulling in taking the outside lane, gas it up and moving. 1 (4m 35s): And I would say in terms of your trip timing, we talk a lot about, you know, strategic watering of our children, making sure we’re monitoring how much they’re drinking. So like, we’re, we’re eliminating some of maybe those inevitable toilet breaks, but normally I can pin it down. Like we will not spend more than say like an hour, an hour and a half longer than what the GPS says it will take to get there. So I know normally if we travel, if the GPS says it’s a 10 hour drive, we’ll get there. And probably 11 and a half hours. This is not the case with something like Northern Ontario. One, because it’s easy to pee. 1 (5m 16s): So, and, and everybody in the car knows it. So they keep saying at different intervals that you need to pull over because I need to use the washer. And a lot of the times we would just use the facilities in our trailer and just pull off at the side of the road. But we did that a whole lot more this trip than probably we ever had before. And just be aware that because of the nature of the road and because of the fact that, you know, there is not a lot to look at and you’re going to have to pull over for, to stretch your legs a lot more than you maybe would. If, if you’re otherwise engaged, looking at a city, you flying by you, like it is going to take a significant amount of time longer than what the GPS says. So if we normally plan an hour and a half, like it took us hours longer than what the GPS told us on the first day when we went a thousand kilometers, which is a fair clip, that’s a, that’s a fair amount to go in a day. 1 (6m 5s): But I was actually surprised given, you know, the fact that we are very well traveled by this point. And we kind of have things down to an art. It did take us a whole lot longer than I expected. I feel 2 (6m 18s): Like that first day that’s probably ties our personal best in terms of mileage. It felt like that day went really, really smooth. We probably doubled or tripled our number of stops, but because we could get off the highway so easily, that wasn’t a problem. We did get hung up a little bit on construction along the way, because it is the trans Canada. You know, if they’re going to fix a bridge, it’s down to one lane, you’re going to have to wait for construction crews to wave you through all in all though, I felt like it went really smooth and that’s probably why we haven’t been so disciplined in it. You know, it usually goes with, we pull out from gas, we get 20 minutes down the road, dad, I have to pee. I’m like, you’re kidding me. And then we find a spot in the next 45 minutes for somebody to use the washroom or stretch there. 2 (6m 59s): So 1 (6m 60s): I think probably like the turning point of the trip is usually if you can make it to the SU like whether you were coming from Southwestern Ontario or whether you might be heading east, you know, from Manitoba or from further up in Northern Ontario, I think the SU is probably, or Sue Saint Marie is probably a great place to stop either to refresh yourself, to take a break, to have an overnight. So we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the amenities in Sioux St. Marie when you’re traveling through that you might want to see. Yeah. 2 (7m 29s): So there’s at least one good opportunity to boondock in the PSU. And that’s at the Walmart. Now. We didn’t stay at the Walmart ourselves. We pushed on a boat, another 300 kilometers to do our boondock, but as we drove through Walmart or past the Walmart, you did a quick count to see that there was people in there for the evening and there was, and then we have some good friends that are actually making their main voyage in a rented RV with a family of three kids on their first trip ever. And they boondock there last night, no problems. 1 (7m 60s): So another thing in Sioux St. Marie that we think is a great place to stop is the Strath Claire sports complex. So it is a massive, massive, massive sports complex. It looks like there’s an arena or a pool or in there or something, but a big playground, tons of grassy area, probably a perfect spot. If you’re going to stop and have a picnic and stretch your legs and maybe, you know, take the football out and throw it around just so everyone feels like they were able to get out of the car for a decent amount of time. And that happens to be pretty darn close to a place called the lock city dairies, which has a great ice cream shop right on the property. So if you wanted to take an hour, take some food out of the trailer, you know, have a picnic and just really take a break and feel like you’re actually refreshed to be able to handle the next, however many hundred kilometers that you’ve got in front of you. 1 (8m 48s): I would say in Sioux St. Marie, those are probably two of the best places to stop. Let’s talk the flying J maybe in the suit, because I found that to be really tight. When you hear flying J you think, Ooh, truck stop. It’s going to be huge. And this one was a little bit tight for us. 2 (9m 0s): Yeah. Keeping in mind, if, if you’re a new listener, we’re driving an F-150 with a six and a half foot box, and we’ve got a 29 foot trailer. So, you know, if you’re driving something smaller than that, it might not be such a big deal. This is the kind of gas station where we have to pull in. We have to take the outside lane so that we can make the wide turn around and out of the fueling pumps. And fortunately for us, there was nobody parked in front of the store. So that made that turn a little bit easier, but I just be a little bit cautious because I talked about it before most places have the pumps run parallel to the highway. These one, these pumps run perpendicular to the highway. So it was a little bit tight, I suppose. We’d probably do it again if we had to, but if we had another option, we’d probably go with that as well. 1 (9m 45s): Okay. So those are that kind of rounds up the Sioux, I guess the next item on my list that I actually just wanted to mention if you’re driving by so up in Botswana bay, which is closer to like pancake bay and lake superior, provincial park, both amazing parks. If you’ve listened to episode one, our very first episode, we do talk about pancake bay. So this is right in the vicinity of there, there is a place there called Voyager’s lodge and they are famous for their apple fritters. So if you want a quick stop to get a treat, that is where to go. So let’s talk about our first stop. Then in white river, 2 (10m 16s): Our first day we left Oakville. We skirted Sudbury on a bypass on the TransCanada. We continued onto the SU. We rolled through the SU and we pushed on to white river where we boondock. I really don’t remember where I found out that white river had boondocking services, but we probably pulled into one of our best boondocking experiences. And it’s at the white river tourist information center. And if you Google it, it may come up as the white river unofficial cyclists campground, because one of the things we’ve come to realize is there was a lot of people cycling across north America. And so they camp there as well for free. So when we pulled in, it’s a great loop design. 2 (10m 58s): There’s a traditional tourist information, booth, a playground for kids. And we pulled in there. And I think that night we counted seven different families and trailers and motor homes. And I mean, big fifth wheels, there was even one fellow with a crew cab pickup truck, a big, big fifth wheel. And he was towing a boat. So we pulled in there, great experience. It actually has a free dumping station to dump your tanks. We didn’t use it, but it’s there. And then I’m very close to a and w so Robin’s donuts to get coffee snacks and all that kind of, yeah, there 1 (11m 31s): Was actually a really great little pub and grill right across the road. What time did we get there in the evening? And we were one of the last two to get a spot, like probably eight o’clock we rolled in and somebody else rolled in maybe about nine, just before it got dark. And the rest of the parking lot was full, but we, we parked and we went over across the street to the little pub and grill, and I forget the name now, but all of the food was fantastic. We had everything from nachos to pizza to, I don’t, I don’t remember what everybody got something different and it was all fantasy. Yeah. 2 (12m 0s): I think there were the Aila got chicken fingers. Fiona got fettuccine, Alfredo nachos, potato skins. It was all really good. Yes. We got the last spot, but there was another gravel lot just adjacent to the, so that had more room for more trailers. Yeah. 1 (12m 16s): And, and in white river to where this tourist information center is located, it’s directly across the street from the opp station, from the local police station. So, I mean, it was great. It was safe. It was well lit. It’s literally right on the highway. So, I mean, we were hooked up and gone within 20 minutes of getting our coffee the next morning. It’s just, it’s a fantastic place to play. The park is really great. If you’ve driven by it or have, or heard about it, you can find it easily because there is a gigantic statue of Winnie the Pooh in that park. It’s called Winnie the Pooh park, which I think is just lovely. And for those of you who follow us on Instagram, you can read my post about Winnie the Pooh because Winnie the Pooh was actually Canadian. Long story short. He was, he was bought in white river by a soldier coming from Winnipeg bound for England in world war one. 1 (13m 3s): And he purchased a live black bear from a hunter for $20 and took him to England. And that bear became the mascot of his regimen. And when he found out that he was going to the front, he gave the bear to the London zoo, and we all know the story from there. That’s where the writer AA Milne took his son, Christopher, and they fell in love with Winnie. And so a star is born. So I just thought that was a really neat little history that they’ve paid homage to Winnie the Pooh there, but fantastic place to stay. 2 (13m 30s): I think one thing about white river, it had a great essentially family run bar and grill it. Wasn’t a chain restaurant. And so that’s one thing I would recommend if you’re trying to make trips go a little bit smoother. Yes. You can hit your standard. McDonald’s Tim Hortons, your chain restaurants. I think sometimes if you make the effort to look ahead and see, is there a family restaurant or a fry stand or a local favorite? That’s something that you can look forward to. And I would encourage you to invest the time to stop and get that rather than just rolling into fast food and getting that because I think it just breaks up the trip and gives you a little bit more of a break in it. It makes it move a little bit smoother. The other thing I would say is there’s a Winnie the Pooh statue in white river. 2 (14m 11s): We have passed the world’s biggest Muskie statute. We’ve passed goose statues. We’ve passed the mosquito, carrying a man statue. What I’m trying to drive out with all these statues is chances are somebody has built them to attract you to stop. And chances are, there’s a good spot to park your trailer near there. So keep an eye out for the world’s biggest, this or that, because it’s probably a good spot to stop and stretch your legs. 1 (14m 32s): Okay. So I want to talk a little bit about the road between white river and thunder bay, because unfortunately I decided to drive the majority of that portion of the day and oh my goodness, what a change. So that portion of the road between white river and thunder bay requires so much concentration. The road becomes really, really windy. It’s up and down. You know, there’s really not a lot of spots to pass on that road. And there’s everything from like smart cars to truckers to two RVs using that road. So you run into a lot of times where it’s just, it’s slow going. It’s a slog. You really have to pay attention. 1 (15m 12s): There’s just forest and forest and forest, because before you come to like, maybe like the world’s most beautiful lake, but all of the forest really like the scenery doesn’t change a lot. So it’s really fatiguing. So just be wary of when you’re choosing to drive that chunk of highway 17 or the trans Canada, because it is exhausting. 2 (15m 30s): And that’s the reason I mentioned earlier in the podcast. It’s not something that you want to do to drive right through the night. You know, you might not find gas at three o’clock in the morning, but set that aside. It’s really not a great drive to do when you’re tired or maybe you’re the only person in the vehicle that’s awake. So Hey, probably good to just pull over and get some sleep, which I know most of you. 1 (15m 50s): So let’s talk pullovers then, because there were a lot of pullovers, but not a lot that we could take advantage of. So maybe explain that. Yeah. So I’ve worked 2 (15m 60s): A lot in Northern Ontario and snow removal is big business up there. Highways are big business because that’s how you get places. And one of the features that they have in Northern Ontario that you’re not going to find in Southern Ontario is snowplow turnarounds. And essentially what it is is it’s an area of the highway that’s been widened, not quite a rest stop. It’s really just a immediate, yeah, it’s a pullout, a medium-sized parking lot where a snowplow can make a wide turn and turn around and go back down the other way. They’re wide enough to pull your trailer in and take a break. And sometimes they’re actually advertised as that. There’ll be a no parking sign, but you will find a garbage can as you approach these. Pull-outs the challenge with them is they’re not consistently signed. 2 (16m 41s): I have seen them use green signs with a garbage can. I’ve seen them use blue signs with the garbage, garbage cans. I’ve seen them just pop out of nowhere. So you really have to have your eyes paying attention for one of those, but it feels like it passed one. What like every 20, 30 minutes maybe. Probably. 1 (16m 56s): Yeah. And one of the things I would say is, you know, we talk a lot about using Google maps, satellite view, if we’re not sure if we can get into somewhere or how, how far it’s going to be to a gas station. And if that gas stations pumps are facing the right way right way. And if we can get in or out, the problem with Northern Ontario is you go through a huge chunks of sections where you have literally no service and you can’t use that option to say, oh, it looks like there’s a pullout in five kilometers. It just, it doesn’t exist. So yeah, you really kind of have to be beware. There was one pullout that we chose to use that we had to exit into very quickly. And unfortunately you are always going to get people who follow you so close behind that you don’t even know they’re there. And that’s another risk that you’re taking as well. 1 (17m 38s): Like if you slam on the brakes and, you know, put on your four ways or whatever, and try to get over into this pillow before it disappears, chances are somebody might be following you a little too close behind, and that’s going to create a problem in the middle, nowhere where you don’t want it either. And on the same vein, I would talk about picnic areas. So there are legitimately signed picnic areas every so often, which is great. I love that the government does it. There are some that do say cars only, or no trailer, but there are others that are silent on the matter. And having checked each and every one of them as we drove by, there are some that you have no business being in. If your trailer is say more than 20 feet. So you really had to kind of have to watch for those as well. And see if you can see kind of the access and egress points to see if your trailer would fit. 1 (18m 20s): That being said, Dixie lake was one. If you pass Dixie lake, which is right after caca, Becca falls, there is a fantastic, fantastic picnic area. You know, maybe if you wanted to have an early lunch or something, it’s a great place to stop. They have clean bathrooms and RVs of all sides will fit. 2 (18m 36s): Can you might wonder why we’re hammered away at technique areas, rest stops and pull out so much. If you’re not familiar with traveling through Northern Ontario, you have to understand that the minimum distance between two significant villages and a significant village being like 600 people, the minimum distance is a hundred kilometers, not uncommon to be 180 to 200 kilometers to the next spot. So these things become really important because if somebody needs to use the washroom, chances are, they can’t hold it 150 kilometers, or you need to pull over and check something, or you want to grab a snack. You’re not going to make it that distance. That’s why these are so important. We chatted at dinner tonight and we kind of wish we’d been making better notes of which ones you could get a trailer in. 2 (19m 18s): And out of, as we went, I feel like I remember this as a kid when times were great and there were never any problems, but it felt like there was more of them and they were better signed, but maybe that’s because I was 11 years old in the backseat and didn’t know any better. 1 (19m 32s): Maybe on the way back, we can just start a checklist or something where we can kind of make a guide or something. I don’t know. Okay. So the second day we only went as far as thunder bay. And one of the reasons was because it was Island’s birthday and she didn’t want to spend, you know, another 13 hours in the car and fair enough. So we decided to have a relatively easy, if not mentally fatiguing four and a half hour drive from white river to thunder bay. And we opted to stay just outside of thunder bay at a place called the happy land RV park, which was right on the highway. I would say it is clean. It has definitely been there since the beginning of time. It is, it is, it is old, but well-maintained like, and similar to the vein of like, when we talk about the Koa and Niagara falls, it’s it’s, you can tell that it’s of a certain vintage, but it is, it is well-maintained and it is clean and it is a great place to stay for an overnight. 2 (20m 27s): And I do all the check-ins. This was a really quick check and this was like 32nd check-in. They were ready for us. Everything was set, went down to our site on his level didn’t set up. Okay. 1 (20m 38s): I think almost all the trailers sites were pull throughs, which was great. We wouldn’t even have normally unhooked probably cause we were only there for the night, but we were going back into thunder bay, but really nice. All of the sites are in kind of a pine Grove. So you have like the soft pine needles on the ground. There was a small soccer field, right in front of where our trailer was. There was a pool that the girls used a park, traditional teeter-totter is like, you don’t see those anymore. Even Dan and I took a turn on the teeter-totter and one of those like vomit comments, what do you call them? Like the little carousel wheels that you like to spin around on until you don’t feel well. So, you know, there was enough to keep you busy for an overnight and just a great place to start. Yeah. The 2 (21m 17s): Girls had the pools to themselves, so they burned off lots of energy. So I definitely use that spot again, if we needed to pull over. Other thing I jump in here too and say is because we’re recording this during COVID times and there are still restrictions here. I think a couple of the places that we’ve stopped have only taken self-contained units where you have your own washroom on board because they’ve closed their washrooms because of COVID. So, you know, if you’re a Tenter or you’re a pop-up person, I guess if you’re a pop-up you’d have to bring a potty, but unless you have a washroom, they won’t accept you as a runner. 1 (21m 47s): Right. Good point. So initially, when we were doing our trip planning, we had decided that we wanted to stay at Fort William. There is an RV park right at the Fort. Unfortunately at the time that we booked it was closed because of COVID and they weren’t sure when it was going to reopen. So we booked it happy land RV park. I’m super glad we did, because I think it was the far superior choice. Once we rolled up to the Fort, I mean, it can handle big rigs. It can handle buses, it’s fully serviced, but there is not a tree to be found. Like they have basically just leveled the field and put insights, which is great. If you’re visiting, you know, this great historical landmark and spending your time there and it’s right on the river, but it is not shady at all. And it’s basically just a big open field with a bunch of hook-ups, which is fine. 1 (22m 29s): It’s cheap. You can sign in after hours. I saw an after hour sign in when we walked through the door there. So also great if you’re going for the purpose of visiting the Fort and maybe a quick overnight, but not certainly I wouldn’t spend a week a week there. No, I 2 (22m 42s): Think probably the campground that they’re developing is being set up for, you know, festivals and, and things like that. Yeah. What I stay there absolutely would if you were rolling in and rolling right out, but under our circumstances, I don’t think it was the right choice. And, you know, I wouldn’t, when we looked at it, there was what, maybe three, four people, you know, I don’t even think it was a matter of being, pulling her back in, like you literally had an acre to turn your own trailer around, but you know, I’m sure non COVID times it’s going to start to fill it for sure. 1 (23m 11s): And I would say the Fort was pretty quiet as well. You know, normally if you’re going to visit Fort William, I say absolutely visited. I think it’s a fantastic interpretive center. You’ve got costume guides talking about the fur trade. And that was like the halfway stopping point for Voyagers to like trade their furred goods and, you know, have a bit of a party before they paddled back home. And I think it was really the girls really enjoyed it. I think it was really well done. Having not been there before the time recommendation was an hour and a half and we had exactly an hour and a half before they closed. Just the way that the timing worked out for us. And you have to keep in mind shuttle buses aren’t running right now because of COVID. 1 (23m 51s): So it literally took us probably 15 minutes to walk from the administration building where you kind of sign in to the actual forum, which is really cool. You go through like a Fern for us and it feels like you’re literally walking back in time and then you arrive at this indigenous village and then go inside the Fort and find out all about it. It’s really well done that way. But had I known that it took that long to walk there and walk back and we had to be out by five that really took a half an hour out of exploring the inside of the Fort. So be aware if you go there you’ll you’ll want some extra time, I would say maybe at least two hours, two and a half hours. Yeah. 2 (24m 26s): I think if this is your destination or one of the things that you’re doing in thunder bay, it’s probably a place that you want to hit in the morning. Yeah. I would agree 1 (24m 33s): With that for sure. And it was hot at the end of the day as well. One thing we forgot to talk about, which I think that, you know, whether you’re Canadian or not, you should know who Terry Fox is. And based on the number of Terry Fox runs that happen all over the world, but coming into thunder bay, make sure you take a stop at the Terry Fox Memorial. I found it. It’s a beautiful view. First of all, of thunder bay and the Harbor and this Memorial is just absolutely stunning to Terry Fox. I w I even got a little bit emotional behind my sunglasses and none of my family saw reading the plaque and mentioning his hometown, which is my hometown. So Terry Fox to us is he’s not only a global hero for cancer research. He’s our hometown hero. And you know, when we were kids, I remember vividly every year his mom would come talk to us or his brother Darrell would come talk to us about what Terry had done in his mission and raising money. 1 (25m 21s): And we were always just like so eager to get out of that gym and run our Terry Fox run for Terry, you know, like, and it’s just, it’s really beautifully done. And it gives you chills. It’s a beautiful way to see the Harbor and just, you know, pay homage to a great Canadian. So 2 (25m 35s): I did this trip all the way out to Saskatoon, but 20 years ago when my mom moved out west and we were just driving in a car, staying at hotels, and I remember stopping at that monument and it was really well done. Then I could see the effort and the improvements that they’ve made to it since the landscaping is just impeccable. All the facilities are impeccable. So, you know, from a logistical standpoint, absolutely no problem pulling a big rig in there and getting out to spend a few minutes. And if you’ve got kids, who’ve all done. The Terry Fox run, I’m willing to bet you they’ve all been taught at in grade school. This is where you get to show kids. What it really is. This is where he had to end his run. So I, I find that this is one of many things that we’ve been able to show the girls of this is actually what something looks like in this case. 2 (26m 21s): This is as close as I think we can get to showing them Terry Fox. 1 (26m 25s): Yep. So the last note on thunder bay is we have to talk about Persians. Everybody who knows anything about thunder bay knows about Persians and the Persian man or new cheese bakery. There’s a number of places that make these treats that are, that are authentic to thunder bay called Persians. And essentially what it is it’s, it’s kind of a cross between a cinnamon bun and a donut, but it has this really, really unique icing on it that nobody can decide whether it’s, you know, strawberry or cherry at some kind of Berry, but it just the way that the two flavors come together, it is legendary and they are sold everywhere. Dana and I both heard in that week, several times, people saying, oh, when you go through thunder bay, you have to get the Persians. You have to go to the Persian man note though, on the weekends, they do clothes very early. 1 (27m 9s): Unfortunately we missed out on her Persians this time, but we have full plans on our way back plan around it and stop. Unfortunately for us, that was supposed to be Island’s birthday treat. So we had to kind of pivot and we had to go to the grocery store and buy her a cake, which luckily she’s a very kind heart and was very happy with, but we had to miss the Persians because they closed at four and it just wasn’t going to work with our time. So we have it marked on the calendar to make sure we’re timed, right? When we come back through thunder bay to get them, 2 (27m 35s): Do you want to talk a little bit about Keck Rebecca falls as well? Yeah, 1 (27m 38s): I would say caca. Becca is like 25 minutes from thunder bay proper. And it was like five minutes from happy land RV park where we stayed. So we plan to visit it, even though it was only five minutes from the gates of where we were saying, because one it’s a really beautiful set of falls. It does not take long to visit. And with our seasonal Ontario parks pass, it didn’t cost us anything. I would say either direction. It’s a good place to stop it even better if you can time it for like a meal, cause it’s a great place for a picnic. But if you’re only there to see the falls, it won’t take you more than 10 minutes. 2 (28m 8s): Yeah. It won’t take you more than 10 minutes. I think what’s really impressed me about Keck. Rebecca falls is they have done some improvements to it in the sense that there’s a walkway in some railings and they’re tastefully done so that you can get pictures and nobody’s going to fall down. But the falls itself has not been modified. There there’s no hydro dam. There’s no lights into it. It’s as it would be if none of us were here, that’s what I kind of really appreciated about it. Yeah. 1 (28m 34s): Yeah. It’s great. And the parking lot is maybe what, like a hundred meters from the falls. That’s really not far at all, just behind a Grove of trees, but definitely doable, really easy walk. Yeah. And the parking is nice and big to kind of come in and swing around. Yeah. 2 (28m 48s): And you’re going into a provincial park. So Hey, the whole on and off the highway is built for taking a trailer, an RV through. Yeah. 1 (28m 54s): Yeah. And I would say that’s definitely a must do for sure. Between caca Bucca falls and Canora do you want to talk about Dryden? 2 (29m 1s): Yeah. I think what you have to know, or one thing that I observe a lot is that there’s a lot of people that camp on crown land or they camp in hunt camps, or they’re not in traditional campground areas. And so I talked about a dump station at white river. There is also a municipal dump station in Dryden. So if you’re, even if you’re not going all the way across Canada, you’re not going all the way into the Prairie’s. If you’re just traveling that area, camping in the back country, there are spots where you can dump your trailer, your, your black tank pretty easily. And we saw that right from the highway. So just keep that in the back of your mind, if you’re boondocking and you need to dump your tanks. At some point, you can do that. And I will 1 (29m 39s): Reference again, the apps that we use. So Santa dumps.com is one that shows a lot. They’re actually probably the best for sanity finding sanitary dumps. But it, if you look it up, they’re dried in, it will give you the GPS coordinates. It will tell you exactly where it is, where to turn to get there. It is free. They will list if something is paid or free, it’s a free website, just go ahead and search on it. And you’ll usually find something coming up. RV park is another one that we use that has it. But Sandy dumps I find is like, if you’re looking specifically for dump stations, they’re the most thorough guide. So go give that a look driving to Kanora. I would say between thunder bay and Kanora the highway definitely takes a shift again, it’s it’s not as taxing to drive. You have a couple of spots where it’s a divided highway, two lanes, either direction, which is like luxurious. 1 (30m 21s): By that point, you can travel a little bit faster than you normally would. I mean, that highway, that entire stretch of highway is, is max 90, the whole way. And a lot of the times max 90 is all you can safely do. You might be able to add a couple of kilometers an hour here or there, but in that stretch, you can kind of put the pedal to the metal a little bit and make up some time and it’s not as taxing. Yep, absolutely. 2 (30m 42s): I was the one who picked us going into Kanora to take a look because I’ve heard about it. I’ve also been through there 20 years ago as well. And I feel like looking around that this place is about to become the next Muskoka for people from Winnipeg. 1 (30m 56s): Sure. It already is considered the, they don’t call it cottage country. Cause that’s Muskoka. They call it cabin country or something cabin country of the north or whatever, but there is a gigantic fish there. Husky the musky is in Canora. So if you have a moment, we did not. And Husky, the musky is located right on the waterfront. It’s a cool picture. Don’t get me wrong. But because of its location, if you are traveling with a larger trailer, it’s going to be really hard for you to find somewhere to stop. It’s like as soon as they, as you get spit out of a roundabout, it’s right there. So there’s not you, it would take some planning to actually stop and get your picture taken in front of Husky. So I would say that’s the one place that we’re maybe trailers aren’t so welcome or easy to maneuver, but it was a little more difficult. 1 (31m 38s): So we waved at Husky and we drove on by one thing about Cora. I will mention they do have a dairy queen, a great little vintage walkup style dairy queen. And we were all jonesing for some ice cream. So we all wanted to stop. However, the parking lot is fairly small. You can probably temporarily stop at the side of the road with your four ways on, but you are blocking a bike lane. And as Dan mentioned earlier, given how many people bike across that highway, you probably don’t want to be blocking the bike line. However, we did choose to gas up maybe 15 minutes down the road in lake of the woods. There’s an echo station there and kind of a country market. And they have the most fantastic scoop ice cream. I forget what brand it was, but man, it was amazing and like super huge portions for 3 25 scoop of ice cream. 1 (32m 23s): So that is your place to stop for ice cream is just a little bit west of Kanora on your way out. One final note I will make about Kanora because it is cottage country for people from Winnipeg. And we got this advice from one of my colleagues who lives in Winnipeg is that you need to get through before 5:00 PM or you are going to be stuck in one lane, traffic, cottage, country, traffic going west. And I would say the same if you’re coming east, you kind of need, you know, don’t come through Friday after work or you’re going to be sitting in traffic until at least Kanora, which is, you know, two and a half hours from Winnepeg. So avoid that if all possible. 2 (32m 57s): Yeah. I think you covered it pretty well. Couple cool things. I saw float planes, one tied up at the docks and one taxing in. So that’s kind of cool. Especially if you’ve got kids. I mean, how often do you see a float plane? We saw a bald Eagle. Oh, we saw a bald Eagle too. The other thing I would say is I’d strongly endorsed the black cherry ice cream cone that we got that day it’s it’s Dan approved. No idea who makes it. So obviously I’m not compensated for my endorsement, but that’s the first black cherry ice cream cone I’ve ever had. And I was really pushing my comfort level and I really enjoyed it. I get another one. Okay. Because I sent them in there for strawberry or chocolate. 1 (33m 34s): Well, they didn’t have strawberry, so I chose black cherry. I’m glad you liked it. It was good. Good. So that’s pretty much it that’s, that’s the stretch until you get into Manitoba. I really, and, and the road from the Ontario border to Manitoba is pretty easy. It’s pretty, fairly easy to S to pull over at the Manitoba sign. If you want to take a photo, there there’s enough room at the side of the highway that you can do that, but it’s kind of uneventful. Like you kind of sense a shift in the, in the road signage that you’re in a different province, but the road certainly widens up and it, and it becomes a little bit easier. 2 (34m 7s): Yeah. It’s a roundabout that stage that God got out his levels and straightened out the roads and flattened out the Hills and, and it got to be a little bit easier to drive and keep an eye it’s COVID times. I don’t know if their visitor center is going to be open. So I’d probably check ahead for that. The other thing I would say, if you’re going to make this trip and we’re recording this in the summer of 2021, the price of gas is really expensive. So, you know, I feel like gas when we left the GTA, the greater Toronto area was like, what dollar 35 a leader? I think I took a picture of the pumps at one point it was a dollar 55, a leader. And I think I saw one more place was where it was more expensive. So, you know, Manitoba seems to be the place where we get down to the terrible price of back into the dollar 30 a liter, but just know that you’re going to get some sticker shock when you go to fuel up. 2 (34m 57s): Sure. 1 (34m 57s): And Dan’s only mentioning that because he likes to remind me of that when I try to drive a little too fast to make up time. But it was impossible on this trip because you literally couldn’t, or we would have flipped on a curve in the highway. So absolutely. Nope. You did a great, that’s some good fuel mileage, this trip. So listener mail, we got some listener mail sent to us actually, while we were driving through Northern Ontario. And I thought it was absolutely adorable and it made me smile because it reminded me a whole lot about our kids and what they used to do. So this message came on Facebook from a listener Stacy and Stacy writes hi there. First of all, I would to tell you that my husband and I love your podcast. 1 (35m 39s): We bought an RV for the first time. At the beginning of July, planned an Ontario to BC road trip for August like you, and then found your podcast just before leaving. We’re all caught up. Now, perhaps listening before we left would have been good, but my whole family of four, myself, her hobby, two daughters who are 13 and 10 have learned a lot and have actually stopped to purchase items or do things you have suggested along the way. So thank you. Anyway, we would like to add something to your essential items list as well as advice when traveling with children on day one evening of our trip, I opened the slide to find the floor of our fifth wheel ripped in front of the table. After examining it, my hubby found a beautiful rock from our ten-year-old rock collection in the hole. 1 (36m 19s): It turns out that she had it in her bag, in the bunk room without us knowing that she had even brought it along. Of course, and it escaped, it found its way under the door and under the slide causing an expensive mistake. We keep teasing her. The poor kid will never live it down. So advice parents checked for sharp objects in your kids’ bags and object to add to the list, which is what they use to fix this problem. Temporarily, at least was duct tape. We got some cammo duct tape that is surprisingly close to the collar of our floor. And on we went, we are now continuing our travels, trying to ignore the repair bill that is awaiting us when we get home, take care and enjoy your trip so far. We are. So thank you Stacy, for sending that message. I laughed and laughed when I heard it. 1 (37m 1s): Not because you have an expensive repair, but because our kids both had insane rock collections and Dan just had to lay down the law at one point that they were allowed to bring one rock home from every place we visited. Otherwise it would just literally be, I would open up my laundry machine and there would just be rocks that were in pockets that nobody found and like rocks, rocks everywhere. So I totally get it. I understand little kids want to collect these beautiful rocks and I love it, but I love that they can face adversity with humor and just kind of keep trucking on. Cause that’s what you do in the RV world. 2 (37m 31s): Absolutely. It’s it gave me a good chuckle too. And we found another use for duct tape today. You know, we’re traveling with a full load of hockey goalie equipment, which is a story for another day, but I got an earful for my ELA because we don’t have any stick tape in the bag because she really needed tape. And it turns out she was making some friendship bracelets and this listener mail kind of jogged my memory to go dig out the duct tape. And she’s now got friendship, bracelets, duct tape to the picnic table, outside the trailer. And that’s keeping her pretty busy and happy. So thank you for that and keep it coming. 1 (38m 2s): All right. So that’s it. If you have messages you want to send suggestions, just general advice about your own travels and little tidbits of information you want to share. You can always do that on Facebook and Instagram at RV connects, or you can send us an email. hello@rvconnects.com. That’s R V C a N U C K s.com. That is it for us. Hopefully you will all decide to plan a trip to Northern Ontario one day and you too will be able to survive with these hips. And we will talk to you again in two weeks when we bring you leg two of our journey, which is when we’ll probably, I think we’ll focus on maybe Saskatchewan, maybe a little bit on drum Heller in Alberta. 1 (38m 42s): We’ll see, we’ll see how our legs go, 2 (38m 44s): Working our way up to Banff. And then we’re coming all back the same way to pick up the places that we missed. All right, we’re rolling with it. Okay. 1 (38m 51s): Talk to you all later. Bye. Bye.