And here we are, ending our road trip in Deep River, the community that Jamie was born in and spent much of his childhood. Ironically, my stepmom Marcia lives here now (she grew up in nearby Chalk River) so we stopped to see her, and Jamie also wanted to tour us around to various spots that he remembered. Including his first house in the suburbs, and the flagpole outside of the post office where one memorable winter day he got his tongue stuck and I think you can still find pieces of it left on there!

From here, we will be meeting Sean and Chloe with their three kids for a couple of days of camping, and then we'll arrive in Kanata for Meg's birthday, surprising her with our early arrival! We're definitely feeling mixed - READY to settle down and buy ourselves some land to settle on, but also a bit sad to be ending our trip.

Canoeing!!!!!!

Some of the other things we've been doing......
- we drove through White Lake, the birth place of Winnie the Pooh. Well, actually, the bear cub that was bought there by an army man from Winnipeg (How does one buy a bear cub while passing through on the train? And why does that seem like a good idea when you're shipping out to England?!), named Winnie from his hometown and left to the London zoo when he was heading over to France. A.A. Milne and his son Christopher visited the bear at the London Zoo, hence the creation of the books.
- we drove into Wawa, from the Ojibway word for wild goose, in order to see the massive Canadian geese statues (and of course, grab some Tim Horton's now that we're in Canada - and in the ever elusive search for Propane.....turns out northern Ontario is very scarce in propane for vehicles, a huge pain in the butt for propane-guzzling Bartha)
- we visited a stuffed moose and enjoyed tacky tourist stops (all of them being called Trading Posts in these parts!)
- we made sure we ate our fair share of s'mores, knowing that the trip is ending soon and we still have half a bag of marshmallows sitting in the cupboard. Would hate for them to go bad, you know!
- we have been providing copious amounts of blood to the INSANE buggage around here, and even found a few little ticks on Tiegan. Which prompted mass hysteria from Kea. And the ensuing outfit created by her, the only way she was willing to step outside for a couple of days!!!!!!!!

From Thunder Bay, we made our way along Lake Superior, setting Bartha up in various provincial parks and enjoying the gorgeous coastlines. We've been learning lots about the Voyageurs who followed this route every year, so the kids have been busy playing voyageurs and explorers and first nations, thoroughly enjoying the woods and the shoreline. We've been seeing moose, porcupines, turtles, neat birds and new plants. We've been playing card games, reading books and hanging out in the trees - and getting to know this new home of ours. Jamie was brave enough to take a plunge into Lake Superior, which was MIGHTY cold - the kids cheered him on as he raced in and raced back out, then rushed into his towel complaining about how COLD it was!!!!!!!!!!!

So, while Bartha got pushed into Canadian Tire, we took advantage of a free day in Thunder Bay to head out to Old Fort Williams to spend a day in the sun. We all really enjoyed ourselves, and learned so much about early voyageurs, beaver trapping, how to make the beaver felt top hat, and about early life in the fort - fascinating place to spend time! When we were learning about the beaver traps, the guy at the trading store went into great detail about how the steel trap works, then asked who wanted to act out the beaver. Both girls got HUGE eyes and shook their heads NO WAY! I had to laugh, it was so funny! What he ended up meaning was putting a beaver pelt on, and using a rod to stick into the trap to see how it worked. Kea volunteered, but in the end she wished she hadn't learned that bit of history, she found it pretty sad. Jamie, of course, spent most of his time drooling over the canoe shed!
Bartha was done by the end of the day, and the next morning we were off to camp in a bunch of provincial parks along Lake Superior......