Another nice bright and sunny day. We had one of our earliest starts to date and we only had an hour’s drive into Thunder Bay. Ah well, we enjoyed a good breakfast in the room, loaded up and got underway.
It was interesting to come into Thunder Bay from the west—something new for both of us as our orientation had been to Port Arthur to the east.
We both had the opportunity to revisit some of the old memories. For Ron it was Bay Street and the Finnish community and for me it was Hillcrest Park and those wonderful old cabins that are no longer there but the park is as beautiful as I remember it and the view of the sleeping giant is exactly as I remember it. The Sleeping Giant on Lake Superior is part of a peninsula extending into the lake from the vast forest area to the NE of the city. The rock formation is 7 miles long and 1,099 feet high and resembles a giant sleeping figure.
It was interesting to come into Thunder Bay from the west—something new for both of us as our orientation had been to Port Arthur to the east.
We both had the opportunity to revisit some of the old memories. For Ron it was Bay Street and the Finnish community and for me it was Hillcrest Park and those wonderful old cabins that are no longer there but the park is as beautiful as I remember it and the view of the sleeping giant is exactly as I remember it. The Sleeping Giant on Lake Superior is part of a peninsula extending into the lake from the vast forest area to the NE of the city. The rock formation is 7 miles long and 1,099 feet high and resembles a giant sleeping figure.
We had our lunch at the Hoito in the centre of little Finland. What a good deal it is—good food at a great price. The Hoito originated because the loggers could not find a reasonable place to eat when they were in town so made their own—in 2010 the building will be 100 years old. The translation of hoito is care. Next time Ron and I will share a meal as the proportions are lumberjack size. Mind you, I had liver and onions and they were delicious so I cleaned up my plate. Our dinner was at the Finnish public Sauna and we enjoyed Finnish pancakes just like Mumma made. Tomorrow we will go back to the Hoito for breakfast.
Ron was also able to track down his Aunt and Uncle’s grave stone at the Riverside Cemetery—it was something that he had wanted to do our last visit but was not able to check in with the office. They are resting in a nice quiet area with a birch tree nearby among many of the other Thunder Bay Finnish community.
I had a chance to talk to an old school and ski school friend—we had hoped to visit in person but it was not to be this trip. Ron also talked to one of the Victoria curling snowbirds, Gerry Vanderwees. Gerry does plan to return to Victoria even though we showed him a pretty wet winter which was a big disappointment to his wife.
We had a wonderful walk after dinner along the waterfront near the hotel. The sun is still very high in the sky so it was warm and enough breeze to keep the bugs at bay.
WE have decided to go to Timmins the long way rather than do a ten hour stint in the car. That means that we will go to Longlac and refresh the old childhood memories for Margo. I just found out that in 2001 Longlac, Geraldton, Nakina, Beardmore, Jellicoe, Caramat, Orient Bay and MacDiamid joined to form a municipality that was called Greenstone. It was named after the ancient belts of lava. It encompasses 3000 sq. km along 200 km of Trans Canada hwy 11 and is home to over 5600 people. I had no idea that this had happened. I wonder how long it will be before we won’t see Longlac on any of the maps.
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