By JOHN LILIES & LANA CARBON
NOVEMBER 10TH, 2019
[John] We knew we would be in Thunder Bay for only a few days but that did not make it any easier to leave. Each time I leave this place, a part of my heart stays behind. I love being able to visit but it is always so hard to leave this place and these people behind. Kim, Tina, Nia, and Sia are such important people in our lives that it was particularly difficult to drive away on this day, having so enjoyed our stay and exploring so much with Kim.
Alas, our time came to depart and our first stop was only five-to-seven minutes from the hotel. Sia had insisted that we stop at a little coffee shop called The Persian Man, to experience a seriously sweet treat called a Persian. I suspect that for most people this pastry would taste sweet but as Lana and I have cut out 95% of processed sugar and desserts from our lives, this novelty was extra intense for us. The Persian is a sweet cinnamon pastry doughnut with a sort of strawberry flavoured cream icing.
It kind of tastes like a pumped up soft cinnamon bun. It was really yummy but it was oh so sugary. Lana managed two or three bites and left me to handle the rest.
[Lana] WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! THAT WAS REALLY GOOD! THAT WAS REALLY GOOD! THAT WAS REALLY GOOD!! MIGHT BE A BIT SWEET BUT IT’S TASTY! IT WAS A GOOD CALL TO STOP HERE! I THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE MORE! I THINK I'M DONE! Okay I Think I'm Crashing Now. Okay I'm just gonna... I'm just gonna... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
[John] Yeah. That. I finished it, but not without the sugar sweats after. I was grateful for the super strong coffee to counteract the sweet taste. Having said all of that, when in the Thunder Bay area, if you enjoy a sweet treat, we highly recommend visiting The Persian Man and tasting this unique dessert. This is so coveted in the area, I was amazed that despite my previous visits no one had told me about it until this trip. It was worth the sugar rush and I do wish that we could have them in the city so we could share the experience.
With sugar and caffeine speeding through our veins, we pulled out and began our trip back across the province; our final destination for this day was Cochrane, Ontario. Originally, the plan had been to drive to Kapuskasing (approximately six-and-a-half to seven hours east of Thunder Bay) but due to serious flooding in some of the remote First Nations communities north of Kapuskasing, the residents from those towns had been flown into Kapuskasing and surrounding areas to stay indefinitely. Hence, while in Thunder Bay we had received a call from our Kapuskasing hotel, telling us they had cancelled our reservation because they could no longer accommodate us. They helped us find the last room available in the area, but shortly after booking it we decided to cancel and instead we moved our overnight plans slightly further east to Cochrane (about another hour-and-a-half east of Kapuskasing), where there was a little more availability. A little, not much.
[Lana] I did feel bad for the victims of the flooding and it also showed us how fortunate we could be to find a room with only a couple of days' notice.
[John] Yes, this was definitely not something we had anticipated but we were grateful to find a room and know we would have a safe and secure roof over our heads for a night after a long drive. I could only imagine what it would be like to be forced from my town for an indefinite time and have to live in a hotel hundreds of kilometres away - and on average it happens every year.
So, upon leaving Thunder Bay our original plan had been to stop at Ouimet Canyon - a place that Kim had introduced me to some years ago and I instantly fell in love with it. However, as we mentioned in our previous installment, road construction and an unreliable detour forced us to defer this plan to our next trip. Instead, we made our way towards Nipigon, enjoying the ride and keeping a lookout for interesting things along the way.
[John] One of the roadside attractions we were specifically looking for before reaching Nipigon, was a wildlife mural in Dorion. We didn't know exactly where to find it, which should not surprise you by now, so we turned onto the one road (we think it was the main road) where we thought we may find it but guess what?!? No mural.
While finalizing this article, we happened upon this notice from the Dorion website. We were actually looking for something completely unrelated, so we laughed a bit when we saw this.
[John] So, we decided to continue on to Nipigon to revisit La Luna Café and hopefully show them our sassy deer photos.
La Luna was closed.
[Lana] Probably for the best - I would have made him pay an exorbitant fee for our sassy deer photos and he never would have sold that original sassy deer photo again. (Just teasing!)
[John] So, we walked around and took a couple of more photos and then hopped back in the car to top up Lucy's fuel tank and get ourselves some caffeine from the local Tim Horton's. We will visit La Luna again another time.
Our next goal was Beardmore. On the way, we passed Orient Bay / Lake Helen and the scenery was magnificent. It was hard to consider that we were driving east again, to make our way south and would be back in Toronto in just three more days.
[John] Arriving in Beardmore, our goal was to find the Giant Snowman. The Giant Snowman was really easy to find on the main strip and we even found a bonus Sasquatch! Ten points for Beardmore!
[Lana] At least! I'd give them 100! It is Sasquatch, after all.
[John] Moving on to Longlac, we went searching for the Coureurs de Bois (Canoe) which we found relatively easily, and a large horse statue which we did not locate (surprise!).
[John] From Longlac we travelled to Hearst. We briefly stopped for a stretch at the Pitopiko River rest stop and not long after continuing east from there... BEAR!
As we were driving along, I was noticing just how many uprooted trees there were on the north side of the road and just how dark the soil/root combination was. Suddenly, I saw a large, dark formation that I noted to be much darker and realized it was moving. "Bear!! There's a bear! It's a bear! Baby, there's a bear!"
Just west of Nagagami River, there was a large black bear grazing on the grassy narrow north of the highway - not right next to the road but close enough for us to take some zoomed-in photos from the car... until it noticed us and took a couple of steps towards the highway. The last thing we wanted was to be responsible for harm to an animal and/or human, so instead of risking harm to the bear should it continue to the road, we moved on and expressed our gratitude, wishing the bear a happy day as we headed to Hearst.
[Lana] This was the closest I'd ever been to a wild, free bear. Um... it was big... and I was glad for the distance between us. But it was very cool to see.
[John] When we sent the pictures to our TBay family, Kim and Tina both exclaimed that it looked like a very healthy bear. As they are familiar with bears up there, I understood this to mean we had an encounter with a significant fellow.
In Hearst we were searching for a display of two massive moose statues with two giant wolf statues. These were relatively easy to find as they were on the property of the tourist information centre. We first became aware of these sculptures a handful of years ago, when Ma, Pa, and Brother Carbon did a road trip through the area. Sadly, years later when we made it there, the wolves were gone. From the vague details we were able to gain from one of the employees at the centre, the wolves had possibly been removed for maintenance and repair but the employee wasn't too sure about them so it seemed to really be just a guess.
[Lana] I did email the town afterwards and the wolves were definitely out for regular maintenance at the time.
[John] We also found the giant saw we were looking for, and the big tin man. The tin man was not what I was expecting... it was a large tin man to be sure, but was really just a big tin hockey player on a store front.
[John] We had planned to check out Naja Trading Post Plus but you should know us well enough by now to know that the shop was closed when we got there. Like La Luna Café in Nipigon, the Naja Trading Post in Hearst is closed on Mondays.
After our little exploration of Hearst, we drove on to Kapuskasing. On the way, we stopped in Mattice to see the Voyageur of Mattice. Then we stopped in Opasatika for the big walleye statue.
[Lana] This will be a big shock for everybody... we found them both!!!
[John] Arriving in Kapuskasing, we were trying to locate Muskwa, the big bear statue. From our research, we were certain it was supposed to be at the information centre but we didn't find it there. We did, however, find the Passage Through Time display at the information centre. Kapuskasing was busy and there was a fair bit of road construction, which made driving around a bit awkward. Between that and fighting the clock to make another few finds before landing in Cochrane, we decided to push on and abandon the Kapuskasing exploration.
[John] We drove on to Moonbeam to find the UFO monument we were determined to visit. We happily found it easily, though sadly but not surprisingly, the information centre/gift shop was closed. Lana was so upset because he so badly wanted to get a proper Moonbeam UFO souvenir but he had to be satisfied with pictures looking in through the windows.
[Lana] This was supposed to be the highlight of the trip for all roadside attractions! And, while yes, the attraction itself was awesome, not one plush alien stuffed toy... not one extraterrestrial key chain... not one baseball cap with antennae... not even a UFO postcard... damn you, gift shop!!
Wait... do you think they were abducted?
[John] Probably.
Leaving behind the flying saucer, we made our way to Fauquier to find the giant groundhog, which looked a bit scary. We know it's supposed to be a groundhog but, well, maybe one of nightmares?
[Lana] Are you sure that was a groundhog? That looked like something that got hit by a nuclear attack!
[John] Well I wouldn't go quite that far...
[Lana] You should!
[John] From the groundhog of your deepest and scariest rodent night terrors, we travelled to Smooth Rock Falls to find the moose at the Moose Motel. We found it fairly easily but it had seen better days; it only had one antler. Smooth Rock must be a tough place to exist.
[John] And on to Cochrane, where we didn't realize we had booked a room at a wee motel. Not a big deal at all, it just wasn't what we'd expected. The motel was clean enough but the other guests were all seemingly a group and were chilling loudly with a lot of beer - for the entire evening. They were quite a rambunctious lot and not at all what we had thought we'd signed up for.
But, it was only one night and they did quiet down at a decent enough time. Though, it was a little unnerving when they were pounding around so loudly that we thought a couple of them would end up through our wall or into a window of our car. They were neither a coordinated nor graceful group of drunken men.
Closing out our day of (mis)adventures, we watched hockey as we settled for the night - me falling asleep relatively quickly from sheer exhaustion and Lana working furiously away on the laptop, uploading and organizing the many photos from the day. We were quite excited for our planned morning adventure.
Thanks for coming along with us, friends! Stay tuned for Day 11!
