JUNK BOAT TRAVELS: Day 26 - Nipigon ON to Sault Ste. Marie ON

Monday, October 2, 2017

Day 26 - Nipigon ON to Sault Ste. Marie ON

September 2017

It is 0 C and extremely foggy as we head to Tim Horton's for breakfast in the dark at 7:30.

This is a long day of driving on a single lane highway with lots of construction.

The river originates at Chorus Lake and empties into Lake Superior near the community of Terrace Bay.

The Aguasabon is 70 kilometres (43 mi) in length, and plunges down 30 metres (98 ft) at the Aguasabon Falls. The river follows fractures in the 2.6 billion-year-old bedrock, and the exposed rock is granodiorite.

White River and Winnie the Pooh!

World-famous children’s character Winnie the Pooh was inspired by an orphaned bear cub, which was purchased from a trapper at White River by Captain Harry Colebourn, during WW I. He was a veternarian and his troop train had stopped at this Northern Ontario town enroute from Winnipeg.

Colebourn named Winnie for his home city (Winnipeg) and took her on to England as his troop's mascot. Before shipping on to France he left Winnie at the London Zoo where she was discovered by author A.A. Milne’s delighted son Christopher. Winnie inspired Milne to write the children’s stories for his child.His son, Christopher Robin, added the Pooh.

Wawa's history is rich in mining, forestry, and the fur trade. Mining attempts began as early as the late 1660s.

William Teddy discovered gold on Wawa Lake in 1897. The population of Wawa village quickly grew with 1,700 claims staked in 1898. However, most gold production stopped by 1906. Beginning in 1914 with the completion of the Algoma Central Railway, gold production commenced again from 22 prospects.

In 1898, the town site at what is now called "the Mission" was registered as "Michipicoten City." In 1899, Wawa was surveyed and plotted as a town and registered as Wawa City. In the latter half of the 1950s, the town's name was temporarily changed to Jamestown in honour of Sir James Hamet Dunn, but it was later returned to Wawa at the request of the community's residents.

Sir James Hamet Dunn, 1st Baronet (October 29, 1874 – January 1, 1956) was a Canadian financier and industrialist during the first half of the 20th century. He is recognized chiefly for his 1935 rescue and subsequent 20-year presidency and proprietorship of Algoma Steel.

Click on the link above to learn more about Dunn, quite a fascinating piece of Camadian history.

While Wawa was bustling with mining and forestry jobs back in 1960 when the first goose was first put up to welcome highway travellers, it has shrunk to 2,900 people since then and tourism is what keeps the town going.

The famous Wawa Goose Monument was replaced for Canada's 150th anniversary this year…a giant 4 ton statue of the Canadian Goose which proudly stands at the entrance to the town. In fact, it’s reported to be the most photographed landmark in North America.

A few of the painted Muskoka chairs on the deck. I know, Americans called them Adirondacks but we call them Muskoka, after our famous cottage country.

There were a few more geese in town.

Pancake Bay was the final location of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in a fierce November storm in 1975. Gordon Lightfoot sings about the sinking.

Finally really to put our feet up in Sault Ste. Marie.

Sault Ste. Marie "Soo Saint Marie") is a city on the St. Marys River, close to the US-Canada border. It is the seat of the Algoma District and the third largest city in Northern Ontario, after Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

To the south, across the river, is the United States and the city of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. These two communities were one city until a new treaty after the War of 1812 established the border between Canada and the United States in this area at the St. Mary's River.