Day 7 - Sault Ste Marie, Ontario to Rossport, Ontario

Friday 10th June (Eastern Time)

The weather was amazing this morning, lovely sunshine and we were actually able to just wear tee shirts and shorts. As we neared Rossport - our home for the evening - the temperature dropped and the skies turned black, and as we arrived at our B and B, right on the shore of Lake Superior, the thunder rolled in and down came the rain. All thoughts of spending the evening kayaking and walking the beach had to be forgotten!
Todays drive was long and monotonous. Road, trees, rocks, a lake, trees, more trees....... we stopped a few times at waterfalls and look offs. We also peered into the forest in the hope of spotting a moose or a bear - in fact a skunk or rabbit would be good - but we haven't seen any animals at all. 
We visited a couple of settlements/towns along the route. I cannot imagine living somewhere so remote - and I know there are remoter places. We wondered what employment the inhabitants have, what young people do for entertainment, and where children go to school! There are a lot of closed down businesses, motels and hotels all shut up and homes looking as if they need a lot of maintenance. Whole towns seemed quite run down, it's so sad seeing whole communities appearing to be so depressed. Maybe we are wrong and the people are quite happy but as someone travelling through this is how it appeared.
We found several 'big things' and some nearby geocaches but we weren't as successful as yesterday. For miles and miles we didn't have cell phone signal and so couldn't use the internet to show us where to go. I'm sure we missed visiting other places of interest too.
Lake Superior is huge. We knew it was big, but it really is enormous. It's like looking out to sea and the wind when we arrived had it white capping. But it really is beautiful and the rivers flowing into it are very picturesque. 
The whole hugeness of everything really reminds you how small and insignificant we all are.

2479km since leaving home

We stayed at a Delta Hotel on the water front in Sault Ste Marie - our first chain hotel but we did have limited choices last night!

Our journey along Lake Superior begins

Trees and lakes and lakes and trees!

And waterfalls - this one had 2 geocaches. An earthcache - about the rock types and a normal cache

Is it a moose? Is it a bear? No it's Gary getting a cache!

The Canadian artists "The Group Of Seven" painted this waterfall several times and this is a copy of a painting by one of them

This is where the centre of the Trans Canadian highway is if you began your journey in St Johns, Newfoundland! Unfortunately the plaque has disappeared but I found a photo of it to post here.

The road goes on - with some amazing views.

Wind turbines look stunning on the top of some of the hills/mountains

There were more geocaches by this waterfall

The road disappearing into the distance!

We stopped at Wawa. They built this huge goose to attract tourists!

It is really big, but this is a replica of the original goose.

The original one is outside the General Store

We couldn't believe that this place was real but it was!

The one on the left is a moose! - this was in the General Store!

Hmm - and you could buy moose hats!

and scary moose statues!

And yet another Wawa goose!

We got stuck behind this slow moving vehicle for ever!!!!!!!!

At White River we discovered Winnie the Pooh!
The bear who inspired the stories was purchased in White River by a man from Winnipeg. The bear was taken to London Zoo and named Winnie after the city of Winnipeg!

On the way to White River I was reading to Gary from the book "Canada's Road" by Mark Richardson. In the book he states that White River recorded the coldest ever temperature in the country in 1935. A young boy called Walter Spadoni passed Rumsey's general Store on the way to school and noticed the temperature was -72 degrees Fahrenheit (-58 Celsius). The author on the book went to visit the older Walter in the local old folks home.
By chance we went to find a geocache in the cemetery in White River. As we pulled up we noticed a head stone to a Spadoni - and newly made behind it was Walters headstone!
What a coincidence! 

A typical town scene from this part of the Trans Canadian Highway.

Guess what? There was a cache behind that sign

The station Winnie the Pooh would have left from

hahaha! More big things! It had to be done!

The road goes on and on and on!

Selim near Rossport and our home for the evening

We were hoping to kayak on Lake Superior but as we arrived so did a huge thunderstorm