Yesterday, we travelled from Coldwater to beautiful downtown Spanish ON. Where? Well, it is just down the road from Espanola. All I can say it is 378 km from Coldwater, but it featured a beautiful cabin for two, and some marvellous views of the North Shore of Georgian Bay.
First the cabin. It is rather ironic that we left a log home and ended up staying in a log cabin overnight.
The place was delightful and petite, with everything required. Now that I think about it, perhaps this is the right size of downsizing!
The hostess is an artist, and the cabin featured her acrylic work while she did her oil painting in her home. The walls were peppered with what she called "Primitive Art", which apparently sells well. She said she was willing to paint anything, and we saw everything from an oxen yoke to sawblades, driftwood and rocks embellished with colourful scenes.
Spanish has a population of about 700 people, and is on the north shore of Georgian Bay.
It apparently is famous for its residential schools--the boy's one has been torn down, but the girl's one is left standing as a monument (by its private owner) for the time.
At a local park, there is an attractive monument (real one) to the time.
When you stop to see these things, the depth of history always amazes me. Apparently prisoners of war were housed at one time in Spanish as well (were they in residential schools, or should I ask?)
Once we left Spanish, and travelled to Sault St. Marie, we embarked on a beautiful set of dramatic hills and valleys around the north shore of Lake Superior. The hills are rounded mounds of glaciated granite, with little in the way of flat stretches for 200 km.
If you do see shoreline of the lake, it is generally rocky, although there were some very sandy areas.
Highway 17, the main road over the northern part of the lake is merely two lanes, and the trucking traffic is huge. Our drive was fine, but I do remember the saying that Canada has only two seasons: (1) is winter, followed by the (2) road construction. We went through numerous areas of road work, with three main ones featuring flag people. The shortest was about a 5 minute wait; the longest was about a 20-25 minute wait (a passerby told us that they had counted up to 220 vehicles waiting to go in one direction). Having said that, the drive over the top of Lake Superior is truly gorgeous.
We have landed in beautiful downtown Wawa tonight (3700 people) and bagged one of the last hotel rooms in the town. Planning ahead for summer travel might be greater in the future!
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