In The North Country

Saturday, August 29, 2015

We had an interesting day.  It thunder stormed much of last night, blanketing the whole area in pretty dense fog this morning.  Our original plan was to drive north up Hwy11 toward Lake Nipigon, stopping along the way to hike the Pititawabik Pallisades trail.  Its about 3 to 4 miles, the first mile climbing 500 feet to a rock ledge.  But when we there, about 25 miles north of Nipigon, the fog was still very thick, so we continued another 25 miles to Beardmore. This little map will help you understand where we are.

Click on the map and you can enlarge and pan around to follow our path.  Look first for Nipigon toward lower right then find Hwy11and follow it up the map.

A 6 mile trek down a secondary blacktop road (580) brought us out to Popular Point Park on Lake Nipigon.  The furthest north the two of us have been.

A short distance from this park was High Hill Marina.  It appears to be a marina with commercial fishing boats.

Working our way back south again, we turned down a road to Rocky Bay, looking for another access point to the lake.  This was a First Nation village of Ojibwa.  We saw a large gathering of folks so we went over to find out what was going on.  It was a Pow Wow celebrating their traditional world of sacred gathering with other nations.  We asked permission and were welcomed by some very friendly folks. 

There were opening ceremonies conducted in their native tongue.  No pictures were allowed during this portion of the ceremony.  Then dancing began with a band from Minnesota that played traditional Objiwa music.  We didn’t really understand all that was going on but it was very interesting to witness.  Some pictures follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before leaving we tried a Bannock Burger.  It really is a hamburger, but these had a “special sauce” (didn’t ask, but yummy) on a Bannock bread bun.  Bannock is unique to northern regions and is an unleavened bread common with Eskimos, Indians, and folks living in northern Canada and Alaska.  It really made the burger special.

By this time it was really getting late in the day, so we by-passed our Pallisades hike.  This picture shows the ridge from the road.

 

Next stop, Red Rock, about 5 miles south of Nipigon as the crow flies, but our Ford ain’t a crow, so it was 10 miles by highway.  Red Rock had a paper mill that closed in 2007.  They are working on a makeover with a new marina and lakefront park.

There is a trail that connects Red Rock to Nipigon, so we hiked up to the first lookout.  The sun finally came out, its about 5:30.  Following are a couple of pictures from the lookout.

A view of Red Rock Marina.

Our adventure continues as we make our way to Sleeping Giant Provincial Park tomorrow.  We are staying out near the tip of the peninsula.  This will likely be our last post for a while.  It’s doubtful we will find WiFi until we make it to Thunder Bay.  Hope you’re enjoying the ride as much as we are!