It took us a couple of tacks to get out of the bay, and then we were on our way to the Blind River, on Lake Huron's north shore. Fog had formed overnight and by the time we were more than a third of a mile from land, we couldn't see any sign of it anymore. It got thicker farther away. We had one AIS target, plus two others that we picked up on radar, pass ahead of us. I barely saw the stern of the closest one at 0.2nm before they receded back into it. I'm hoping our fog signal at least encouraged them to pop out and have a look around for us.
The wind shifted and then built until we were pointing at Blind River on a nice, fast beam reach. As we neared the small harbor, which only had a handful of boats, we noticed several helpful people gathering at the end dock to help us tie up. Just before we got to the end of the west breakwater, we waved, turned left and anchored in the really shallow water just out of the entrance channel. Sorry, folks, maybe next time.
In the morning, Maryanne wanted to paddle the kayak up Dorothy inlet, the second branch of the main river that surrounds the town to make it an island. We didn't get too far before a low bridge that is basically a couple of culverts blocked our progress. We thought about portaging the kayak across the road and continuing, but then Maryanne said she would rather just go for a long walk instead.
The kayak trip soon took us away from the old logging infrastructure and meeting the local wildlife
We were thinking we would just walk on the road for a while, but it turned out we were at the entrance to Boom Camp Trails. These were mostly set up as cross-country skiing routes in the winter, but they make for some nice walks this time of year. We crisscrossed as many of them as we could manage, taking in a couple of viewpoints, a rocky beach and a lot of tunnels of green woods. The signs at the entrance cautioned us to be careful about sneaking up on any Timberwolves or Black Bears, but we saw no hint of either.
Boom Camp trails were a pleasant find
We decided to spend the next day in town. Since Blind River has about three times the population as Little Current (4,000 vs 1,500), we were expecting a commensurate increase in diversions. Not so. Blind River turned out to be about as interesting as a back road truck stop on a Tuesday.
We started with the Timber Village Museum, which mostly told the story of the giant Mississagi fire of 1948 (Ontario's largest ever fire). The story is interesting, but the vast bulk of the exhibit consisted of videos which are probably available on YouTube to watch at home. The rest was about a garage-full of logging artifacts from the rush to salvage the remaining timber before insect infestations ruined it all.
We then wandered into the town center, which has a block full of nice-looking shops, but none seemed to cross our threshold of seeming worth patronizing. We eventually found a nice place, where we had a tasty lunch and a good cup of coffee. It was Tim Hortons. There's over five thousand of them in Canada.
Afterward, we meandered home while trying as hard as we could to turn anything that we could find along the way into an attraction.
"Oooh, look! These concrete sidewalk slabs are so uniform!"
"Hey, Maryanne! Check out this picnic table. Part of it is unpainted!"
It was a tidy town, but without too much to entertain - but they did have a Tim Hortons!
We did see some tidy houses with lovely gardens, but it was with a little sigh of relief that we climbed back in the dinghy for the row home. The view out the cabin windows is really very nice where we are anchored, so taking the afternoon off didn't seem like such a bad thing to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment