It was another warm and sunny day.

I woke up a little later than usual and made myself a nice breakfast of peameal bacon and fried eggs.

I tried to fish for a while but the lake is very shallow and I had no luck so I decided to go for a hike. They have 3 nice trails of varying lengths ( 7 km, 12km and 22 km). I decided to hike the 7 km trail which took me up for a nice view one of the adjacent lakes.

During my hike I saw a few small creatures but I was only able to capture a couple of them with my camera.

I saw a couple of grouse, but the one in this pictures was the most interesting because it put on quite a display for me in an attempt to get my attention. I am sure that it was trying to lead me away from its nest because as I continued down the trail, it chased after me for while.

I was hoping to see a massasauga rattlesnake, but all I saw was this garter snake.

I decided to eat some hamburgers for supper and when I went to get the package I noticed that they had thawed out because the 12V cooler was not keeping them frozen, so I cooked all of the hamburgers, ate 2 and put the rest of them away for a rainy day.

I tried some fishing again but I had a problem with my new reel. It appears to be spinning faster than the line is releasing so it was getting tangled. It is easy to ‘ untangle,” but I need to set it up so that it releases properly. I never claimed to be a good fisherman, but I keep trying. Oh well, that will be a project for another day.

Shortly after 10 pm, my campfire was almost burned out, so I had slipped into my tent to go to sleep. I wasn’t in my tent more than 5 minutes when I heard some rustling outside and I peaked out to see a fox, sniffing around my campsite. His tail was longer and bigger than he was. He walked down my path to the waters edge sniffed around some more and then left. I keep all of my food and leftovers in the car so he didn’t find anything to eat. Note to file – you can’t take a picture through the tent screen at night. However, I did get a closeup of the screening. From now on I’ll keep my camera closer at hand.

I plan to leave early tomorrow morning for the 11 hour drive to Thunder Bay, where I hope to set up camp for a couple of days before heading to Manitoba. Hopefully the campsites have showers. After 2 days without a shower and covered in bug spray and musk oil, I can scare away anyone and anything except the mosquitos, which are only temporarily deterred by the smell. It’s a good thing there are no moose around here. With my luck I would attract a bull moose and I have no one out here that I can out-run.

After a good night’s sleep, I was able to get a temporary double-glazed insert for my window on Friday morning and I was able to leave home shortly before noon.

It turned out to be a warn, bright sunny day, in fact it was warmer up north ( approx. 27 C) than back home.

I wanted to make my way through he heavy traffic around Toronto before it got worse so I opted to take the 407 toll road around most of the traffic ( google maps showed several areas of congestion ). When I started heading north of Toronto, there was some traffic congestion due to a couple of accidents, road construction and, of course, those silly vacationers heading north. However, the traffic slowly became less and in some cases I was all on my own until a vacationer, or perhaps a local resident, sped by me so they could get to his destination quickly in order that they could relax sooner.

The scenery was as I remembered it from previous trips. There were more evergreens, birch trees, and the sides of the roads were the remnants of rocky hills that had been split in two in order to accommodate the new roads. As I passed Sudbury, memories of my university work terms came back to me as I saw the INCO Superstack chimney. At 380 meters (1250 ft), it’s hard to miss.

My destination was Elliott Lake, approximately a 7 hour drive from home. I have never been there and I had heard from people that it is a nice place to stay. I arrived in Elliott Lake at 7:30 pm and since the Information station was closed, I stopped at a Tim Horton’s coffee shop for a coffee and some information regarding local provincial parks. Since the young girl serving the coffee wasn’t aware of any local provincial parks, I checked the internet and found good reviews of a Mississagi Park 22 km ( 14 miles ) north of Elliott Lake so I drove there.

Mississagi is a nice government-run park and there were very few people camping there, which I found surprising. I got myself a nice campsite on the water, pitched my tent, set up a little butane stove, made myself some tea, covered myself with bug spray and sat by the waters edge with my “ Executioner “ racquet frying the mosquitos as they joined me for a bite to eat. I watched the sun slowly fade away and the moon get brighter over the lake. After I had fed enough mosquitos, I sat by the fire for a while before going to bed.