Day 6 Blue Lake

Today was relatively uneventful. And that’s a good thing since it was a travel day! We left Sleeping Giant early this morning shooing deer away like they were flies! Apparently they didn’t want us to leave since they were in the way every time we moved to strike camp!! Hilarious!

The trail from Thunder Bay to Kenora is wooded with average driving conditions. I include this for those of you following the blog that I know are considering the trip. No gas station scarcity, no adrenalin producing hills or turns just comfortable driving through the northern forest. We did drift into the Central Time Zone and remain somewhat puzzled as to why the provincial government felt the need to mark that with a significant highway stop and large billboard?? Nonetheless we have a 25 hour day and that’s always nice!

We did pass a very interesting sign though that I wish we could have grabbed a picture of. The trouble with hauling a 33 foot brick down the highway is that you don’t really stop or turn on a dime, no matter how many times I shout STOP at the last minute!! Apparently though, just past the turn to Fort Frances, we passed the Northern Watershed. That’s the point at which all streams and rivers flow north. Makes sense I suppose. I just never really thought of it before so anxious to find the next internet hotspot where I can start to google and learn more about some of the things I’ve learned!

Blue Lake Provincial Park is lovely but in a very different way from the others that we have visited. The primarily pine and cedar forest is quite tall but the trees sparse. The green forms the canopy high above us but from eye height we exist in a world of vertical logs! Great spacious sites but the roads between them are quite narrow … a little tension getting into the site but it’s all good … now!!

We ventured onto one of the hiking trails today – a spruce “fen”. Never knew of such a thing but it’s essentially a peat bog. Described in the park book as, “a fascinating world where land floats on water, plants eat animals and creatures of the water fly.” Although no flying fish were evident, we were thankful for the boardwalk that kept us dry and managed to grab some lovely shots of Picture Plants!