Fort William Historical Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, and the dry land, which His hands have formed. ~ Psalm 95:4-5
We met our Prevost neighbor on our way out this morning. Nice guy. The nicest part? His light accent, which I think was Scottish, and pleasantly deep voice. Wow! I could listen to that brogue for hours and hours! Don’t tell Blaine . . .
There’s a big golf tournament in the area, sponsored by the Staal Brothers Foundation. I’m guessing it’s a charity event? Anyway, ‘Mr. Scot’ said the Staal brothers are his nephews and they come every year to help out. It appears that if you’re hockey fans, you’ll most likely know these four brothers who all play professional hockey and at least one of them has won a Stanley Cup. Their foundation supports kids and their families battling cancer.
We’re chasing down another waterfall today. This one is called the Kakabeka Falls and can actually be found in the same river that’s in our front yard. Now here’s the weird thing. As we walked along the Park area there, came across a sign that told us the proper pronunciation, and it’s Ka ka pee ka. If that’s the case, why did someone decide to spell it with a ‘b’? Shrug . . .
Some have compared this water fall to Niagara, but we’ve now been to both, and I have to respectfully say . . . they’re wrong. This is really nice, but it can’t hold a candle to Niagara – not the American side and not the Canadian.
It’s a pretty good-sized Park and they’ve built a bridge and terrific viewing areas all over, but you can’t get to the bottom to look up or stand near it. (another perk of the American Niagara)
The Brule River
It reminded us a bit of the ones we saw in Alaska – wide, shallow, rocky.
Taken from the bridge
We spent some time walking around and even considered a trail, but it was too muddy.
This snowy owl was inside the Visitor Center.
Beautiful!
We walked this short trail that took us to more views.
Somehow, it didn’t quite transport us into the past. Maybe a little too well-maintained?
Not sure I’d call this a trail. . .
This marks the entrance to the other trail we were considering. It goes to Little Falls.
This is what the trail looked like – and worse – after we checked to see if this was an isolated instance.
Hydroelectric plant.
We couldn’t quite figure out where the water was coming from, since they’re on the other side of the river.
See the top of that picture?
That’s an actual piece of rock! We’ve never seen that on a sign before.
Pretty!
Look how far away we are!
Well. This is directly across from where we were standing . . . .
Don’t know where they were . . .
They need to remove the dead tree . . .
Once we were done viewing, we scoped out a picnic table with a view and I took possession while Blaine went after lunch. I considered taking his picture crossing the bridge, but it was too far away to see him.
Next on our tour of town today, was a stop at the Hillcrest Park to see the Sleeping Giant. Which also happens to be our next home base. It was a nice view over the city of Thunder Bay.
The Sleeping Giant
After this little adventure, it was time for a reality check and we went in search of a laundromat – which was nice and colorful, but not air conditioned. Whew-wee!! Blaine walked around town.
And groceries (since we couldn’t get them yesterday) at a Super WalMart nearby, but not near home. Blaine had to make a second stop at another store to buy ice cream. The same one that we had to evacuate the other day. 😊 I certainly hope the WalMart is undergoing re-structuring because the groceries were everywhere, no rhyme nor reason to the placement. It took us for – ev – ver to shop! The buy of the day? They had packs of chicken breasts of all different weights – $10. Regardless of the weight! Naturally, we dug around and found the heaviest one!
You’d think we’d be done for the day, but we had one more adventure in us. Before I get into that, you need to know that the sun barely sets around here. It’s already way up in the sky by the time we wake up around 5:30-6 and it sets sometime long after we go to bed. Now, just in case you decide to look it up, I just did and I don’t understand it. They will tell you 6:12am and 9:50pm. But I’m telling you true – it’s still very light around here at 11pm and I can see the sun ball, so bright when I get up that I can’t look out the window. So I just don’t know what to make of it. And yes. I’m on Eastern Time and so are “they”.
Anyway, back to our final adventure. We left at 8pm to go kayaking! We could either head towards Lake Superior or the waterfalls. The direction didn’t really matter as far as the river was concerned, it’s perfect for kayaking as there’s little in the way of current. We wanted to see the Fort from the river though, so toward the waterfall we went.
Blaine had just commented that “You’d think there’d at least be turtles around here.”
Well, there USED to be.
This one didn’t smell too good.
Sad when the only wildLIFE you see, is dead . . .
Made me give up my aspirations to work for CSI.
Look! Up in the sky!
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!
It’s . . . . just a plane.
The brochures said you could dock here and explore the island.
We think that hasn’t happened in a very long time.
And now, the highlight of our day!
Blaine spotted a beaver!
We followed him . . .
. . . getting closer and closer, until he got irritated and smacked his tail at us!
Actually three different times!
Guess he was really aggravated.
Views of Fort William.
They must play a recording in the evening, because it kept repeating. Why? The only conclusion we had was to discourage people from docking here and coming inside after hours.
We left the water at 9:20pm. And it was still very light out. 😊