July 4 Chutes PP (Massey, ON ) to Driftwood, PP on the Ottawa River

Although we still have a week before we arrive home, this is our last full day on the road before we full circle back to Ottawa tomorrow. Tonight is our last Provincial Park.

We have modified our plans slightly. We had originally planned to spend some time in Sunbury at Science North and the brand new Dynamic Earth Museum and do a tour of the nickel mine. However we have done this before, and given that this is our last day in this area, we are going to take our time and just enjoy the day. The weather has finally given us some heat.

We will be travelling across the imaginary ‘boundary’ between Northern and Southern Ontario leaving behind the Great Lakes but following a fur trade route through Sudbury, ON (north of Georgian Bay of Lake Huron) across to Lake Nippissing and North Bay, down the French/ Mattawa Rivers to Mattawa finally meeting up with the Ottawa River and Driftwood Provincial Park. This is all familiar territory for us.

We had reservations for Samuel de Champlain PP  near Mattawa but there was a last minute cancelation at Driftwood PP further east along the river and we took it. It gets us closer to Ottawa tomorrow and this park holds many memories for us. We would camp there at least twice a year for many years with my husband’s parents. It marks an almost halfway point between Montreal where we were living and Kirkland Lake where they lived. On the first weekend they would go back home with our 3 daughters for several days with Grandma and Grandpa in their log cabin on Lake Kenogami… canoeing, sailing with grandpa, berry picking and jam making with grandma. The second weekend would be the reverse ‘kid swap’.

It’s another beautiful morning but now warm enough to have a lazy breakfast outside. We have had so few of those. Last night we were able to sleep with the back doors open for only the second time.

On travel days like this I start off thinking that there won’t be much to write about and then we come across all kinds of interesting things, to me anyway. We have no plans for today other than driving to Driftwood because we scrapped the ones we had. What will the day bring?

The roadsides are beautiful with purple fireweed and cobalt blue cornflower. Will try to get some pictures.

Greater Sudbury, ON

The Sudbury region was inhabited by the Ojibwe people of the Algonquin group for thousands of years prior to the founding of Sudbury after the discovery of nickel ore in 1883 during the construction of the transcontinental railway.

The population resides in an urban core and many smaller communities scattered around 330 lakes and among hills of rock blackened by historical smelting activity. Sudbury was once a major lumber center and a world leader in nickel mining. Mining and related industries dominated the economy for much of the 20th century. 

French Jesuits were the first to establish a European settlement when they set up a mission called Sainte-Anne-des-Pins, just before the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883. Ste-Anne is the Patron Saint of Miners.

During construction of the railway in 1883, blasting and excavation revealed high concentrations of nickel–copper ore at Murray Mine on the edge of the Sudbury Basin. This discovery brought the first waves of European settlers, who arrived not only to work at the mines, but also to build a service station for railway workers.

The ore deposits in Sudbury are part of a large geological structure known as the Sudbury Basin, which are the remnants of a nearly two billion-year-old impact crater; long thought to be the result of a meteorite collision, more recent analysis has suggested that the crater may in fact have been created by a comet. Sudbury’s pentlandite, pyrite and pyrrhotite ores contain profitable amounts of many elements—primarily nickel and copper, but also platinum, palladium and other valuable metals.

During the Apollo crewed lunar exploration program, NASA astronauts trained in Sudbury to become familiar with impact breccia and shatter cones, rare rock formations produced by large meteorite impacts.

Notable people from Sudbury include television game-show Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek (which he hosted from 1984 to his death in 2020).

Greater Sudbury is home to three postsecondary institutions: Laurentian University, a primarily undergraduate bilingual university with approximately 9,000 students, Cambrian College, an English college of applied arts and technology with 4,500 full-time and 7,500 part-time students, and Collège Boréal, a francophone college with 2,000 enrolled. Laurentian University is home to the Sudbury campus of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. 

Between Sydbury and North Bay we were back into farm country: canola, wheat, alfalfa, soy beans. Along with a fair amount of road construction. Hwy 17 is in dire need of resurfacing along here.

We switched drivers in Sturgeon Falls, west of North Bay. The drive through the Bay was just painful, as always. Too many shopping malls each with its own several sets of lights. It was bad 50 years ago. Worst traffic we’ve seen since Winnipeg.

We stopped in Samuel de Champlain Provincoal Park for a picnic lunch, still cleaning out the fridge. We were informed a few days ago that our permits from the night before are good in any provincial park until 2 pm the next day. Long enough for us to find a place for lunch providing there is an available park along the way.

S de C also has memories from a long time ago. We camped here a few times on our way to visit my husband’s parents before children number 2 and number 3 came along. Child number 1 cut her first tooth in this park. Ask me how I remember that!

We are still eating the cherries we picked in our campsite in BC on June 17th. They are still delicious!

The park is almost the way we remembered it except the trees have grown. When we started camping here in the 70s, a wildfire had destroyed the trees sometime in the late 60s. The stripping trees from the 70s are now fully grown. Mother Nature at her best.

It’s hot. Hmm. This park has horse flies and Deer flies, both of which like water and human flesh. We have both.  Into the bug tent we go after our swim.

We have a special meal, in a manner of speaking, to celebrate both the 4th of July and our last night in camp: lamb chops on the BBQ, corn and potatoes in foil with a nice bottle of red wine and Ice cream for dessert.

Our neighbours at home gave us a special drink to celebrate something, somewhere along the trip. We have been saving it. Tonight it will be appropriate to set our chairs up on our own beach, watch the sun go down and have that celebratory drink… to the country we were born in, the one we live in and an absolutely wonderful trip.