June 19th, 2008 Wawa to Thunder Bay, Ontario – 299 miles

1. Goose at Wawa..........................................................2. Shores of Lake Superior



3. Typical Ontario Forrest...........................................4. Gene at Terry Fox Monument

Wawa is from the Ojibwa name for “wild goose” hence the 30 foot statute at the entrance to the town commemorating the completion of the last section of the Trans Canada Highway. We were on the road by 8:00 and it was overcast and chilly; but fortunately there was little traffic. The first place we passed through was White River, the birth place of the cub that became famous in the London zoo as the inspiration of A A Milne’s Winne-the-Poo. The roads are good with broad sweeping turns and low hills which are completely forested.

By the time we reached Marathon we were entering the thick of fog and I had to dawn the rain gear. There are lots of bikers heading east and we met a couple when we stopped for coffee who were from Vernon B.C. heading for Newfoundland.

After a few miles the fog dissipated and from here to Nippigon we traveled near the coastline of Lake Superior with beautiful vistas of this inland Ocean. For the past three days we have been crossing the Canadian Shield which rings Hudson Bay, a region of worn down mountain ranges pitted with Lakes and covered with boreal forest. Past Nippegon the country became more fertile as the forest was much more prolific and we were seeing more grass and pasture and the occasional farm.

Just outside Thunder Bay we came to the Terry Fox monument, a very moving experience. Imagine running over 5300 kilometers at the rate of a marathon a day from St John’s to here to raise money for Cancer and then have it re occur. He is, without a doubt, the definition of a true Canadian Hero.

We stopped at Thunder Bay, the largest freshwater port in the world with a population of 115,000. It is a real melting pot, with over 40 nationalities, including the largest Finnish settlement outside of Finland! According to the waitress at breakfast, who is of Finnish decent, her ancestors were farmers who settled here since the topography was similar to Finland’s. Thunder Bay has Lake Head University, is the economic center of North West Ontario and is a major winter and summer sport recreation area.