90 Thunder Bay

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60 Ferry to Québec
61 Back in Québec
62 Drive to Tadoussac
63 Tadoussac
64 On to Québec
65 Québec
66 Québec
67 On to Ottawa
68 Ottawa
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70 Ottawa
71 On to Niagara
72 The falls
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74 Behind the falls
75 Morty goes home
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83 SeaWorld
84 Back to Canada
85 Casa Loma and shoes
86 Killarney
87 To Sault Ste. Marie
88 Goulais River
89 To Thunder Bay
90 Thunder Bay

Canada: Ontario

Tuesday 1 November 2005

Thunder Bay, sunrise over Lake Superior

Canadian geese

Never-ending wheat trains

We used today as a planning day working out how we would spend our last few weeks in Canada. There is so much to see and do here but with the seasons turning it is now getting cold and a lot of places are closed for the winter. We have toyed with going to see polar bears, the northern lights and the far north of the North West Territories but more research has ruled them out due to cost and/or wrong time of year. They are added to the list of places to come back to for future trips.

In the afternoon we went for a bit of an amble along the lake. The shore in this part of town has been landscaped so there is a small yacht harbour for summer boaters set in a small park. It is quite beautiful but marred by big industrial plants on either side of town that are belching out smoke and steam. Out in the bay there is a large breakwater, protecting Thunder Bay from the waves that blow in across the lake.

Beyond the breakwater is an island which in profile looks like a sleeping Indian. Lonely Planet recounts an Ojibway legend which says that Nana-bijou, the spirit of the Deep Sea Water showed the Ojibway where a silver mine could be found as a reward for their peaceful and spiritual way of life. But, if anyone ever told the white man about the mine they would be turned to stone. The Sioux tried to get the secret from the Ojibway who would not tell, so the Sioux sent a spy to find out. On his way back the spy stopped at a white man’s encampment and seeing the silver they got him drunk and made the Sioux spy take them by canoe to the mine. A storm blew up and all were lost but when the storm cleared the bay had been partly locked by a huge rock and the Ojibway knew that Nana-bijou’s warning had come true.

The main cross country rail line runs along the side of the lake here and as we turned to go back to our hotel the bells started to ring warning of an approaching train. Thunder Bay is one of Canada's largest ports and the most westerly on the Canadian St Lawrence seaway. It is mainly used to transport wheat. The railway connects the port to the farms and grain seems to be pretty much the only thing being transported. AS the train went by I counted the grain containers. It was a relatively short train with two engines only pulling seventy seven grain containers. We worked out that it must have been about two kilometres long.

Back at the hotel we went for a dip in the supposedly heated pool. It had been cleaned out yesterday and the water was still being heated up so it was a bit of a chilly dip. The hot tub was a much better option and we sat for a while in the warmth of its bubbles chatting to a local couple who had Finnish roots. This area had a lot of immigrants from Finland and the Ukraine, apparently the landscape is similar to "back home".

In the evening we went to try our luck at the local casino. This one was smaller than the ones we have been to before but it was still full of elderly people throwing their pension into slot machines. We had a go at roulette and lost. Stef then also lost at poker. We thought a bite to eat in the casino restaurant might restore our fortunes but to no avail. My short winning streak was soon turned over and we left having both lost the amount we were prepared to. For the first time, neither of us made any money. It was still early when we left and although there were noticeably more people in the casino than when we had arrived I sensed that it was due to get much busier before the night was over.

What amazed me here though was the amount of money that people were losing. At the roulette table there was a very tall first nation guy. He would cash in a $100 bill and bet the full amount on one spin. Each time he bet he would walk away from the table only returning when the croupier was raking in his profit. He usually lost and would disappear for a few minutes before returning with yet another $100 bill. He must have lost over $1,000 and he was just one of several people playing like that.

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