Summer Odyssey Part 1 - Canada

As promised, here's a small sampling of the photos I shot on our summer family vacation. To summarize the trip : we drove from Winnipeg to the Thunder Bay area (about 8 hours drive) and spent 5 days at some friends' cabin. (In Manitoba, we call them 'cabins'; in Ontario they call them 'camps'. Go figure.) From there the intended route was to drive all the way around Lake Superior to Sault Ste Marie and cross over into the US through southern Michigan, around Lake Michigan passing through Chicago and Milwaukee, then on to the fabled Wisconsin Dells for a few days, then back through Minnesota, North Dakota and home again.

Things didn't go exactly as planned, due to a road accident near Marathon Ontario. There was apparently a fatality, so the officials decided to close the one and only highway through the area for 6 to 8 hours. Not wanting to drive through such unpopulated territoy at night, we decided to backtrack about 4 hours back through Thunder Bay and cross into the US north of Duluth Minnesota. From there we ended up going south through Wisconsin to Wisconsin Dells and then back home the way we planned.

Although I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get to see Chicago or any of Michigan at all, I'm glad it turned out the way it did. We had a blast. We had tons of fun swimming, fishing, hiking and boating at the camp (ie: cabin, see above) and had a great visit with our friends out there. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the land and (especially) the people in the Thunder Bay/Northern Ontario area are amongst the finest in the world. Thanks again guys! You know who you are!
Add to this the beauty of the Canadian North Shore of Lake Superior, and you've got one hell of a vacation. Lots of wildlife, mountains, waterfalls, lakes and rivers. Couldn't ask for more. And this was only the first week!

So here are a select few of the pics. Part 2 will be all about the US leg of the journey. Enjoy!

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So... I guess this isn't exactly a 'small' sampling of our vacation photos, but I tried to pick some of the best ones. There's a slightly more complete collection on my facebook page. What I did try to show here is a glimpse of the beauty of the Northern Ontario landscape and what a great time we had during our visit there. We will definitely be going back.

Oh, and since I took almost all of the above photos, I'm not in a single one. I did, however, manage to capture a single shot of myself with my camera's remote control while I was hiking in the bush. It seems that I dropped it somewhere along the trail, and said remote is now lost forever in the wilds of Ontario.

Remember, this is only Part 1. Part 2 is soon to follow. Stay tuned!

May the Force be with you...