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.
Ralf Hamm 