ontario

The drive from Sault Ste Marie to Thunder Bay is one of the prettiest I have ever done in my life: trees, rocks, and Lake Superior constantly in the background. There’s this one bit where you haven’t seen the lake for about half an hour, then the road curves round and suddenly you can see the entire lake stretching out before you as the road dips down and all the beautiful blue water fills your entire field of vision. I hope the drive through northwestern Ontario towards Manitoba tomorrow is as beautiful—though there isn’t a Great Lake, there’s lots of smaller lakes dotting the landscape—and I hope the weather clears up; today it was all right for about two-thirds of the drive and miserable and rainy for the remaining third.

Still, I did manage to get one picture, as promised—not of an inukshuk, but of an innunguaq. These are inukshuk-like stone constructions in the shape of a human being; inuksuit are not shaped like this. (Think of the differences between the flag of Nunavut and the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and you’ll get the idea.)

You’re probably sick of hearing it, but remember to check out the full photo gallery here. Next stop: Winnipeg, Manitoba!

Sault Sainte Marie is a pair of cities across the American-Canadian border, more or less at the confluence of Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan. Its name, somewhat unintuitively, is pronounced “soo saint maree”, but people around here just seem to call it “the Soo”. It was a long drive from Toronto, but there were zillions of inuksuit scattered around the highway for basically the entire distance of the drive. They were heaviest between the outskirts of Toronto and Sudbury, but there were plenty of them the rest of the way. I regret not having any photos of them—essentially, I was zooming past them very fast for hours. I’m sure there will be more on tomorrow’s drive, so I’ll try to stop and take a picture or two.

Only a few pictures of Sault Ste Marie today. Full gallery still available here.

Next stop, hopefully: Thunder Bay, Ontario. Then it’s farewell to Ontario (at long last—the drive across the province is longer than going across Texas was, but it’s a darn sight prettier).