Ontario, 17-18 October 2010

On leaving Malone in northern New York, USA it was a short trip north to the Canadian border crossing the St Lawrence River then heading north skirting Ottawa to join highway 17 all the way west to Manitoba.

A steel bridge into Canada over the St Lawrence on a damp moring.  Pleased to get away from confusing US road signage.

This village of Pakenham, a few Kms into Canada, offered a surprise as seen in the next photo.

But not "the Mississippi" of the USA, but it did have some history.

As can be read here.  A stone building across the road may have been a mill with machinery driven from water power as there were the remains of a fluming.  The plaque however just gives details of the bridge below.

Narrow but strengthened for modern traffic.

Some good farmland west of Ottawa.

The man bit is reasonably clear but what sort of machine!

Don't waste scarce good land on gardens and surrounds!

For as you can see there is soon just wetlands and rough scrub for the wildlife.

And highways for the "dually" pickups.

Considerable economic prosperity is from minerals and partial processing.

By companies such as Barrick.

The weather was threatening all day but did not get any worse than looking like this.

Wawa offered this tidy motor inn late afternoon.  The Canada Goose was imortalised on the roof and anotherone stood across the road at the service station.

The guests all admired the fire surround which backed onto another one in the room behind.

The countryside changed quickly from pasture, to wetlands, to stunted previously burnt natural forest.

The cause was this glaciated rock plateau leaving varying deposits or just bare smooth rock shown here.

It was also difficult to be sure if it was the soil or the farming skill that made the difference in some places.

This freight train carried mostly containers two high and was longer than can be seen here.  Later we counted 105 freight wagons on one train and every wagon carried containers two high.

Vistas of Lake Superior were seen off and on, and was more like diving along the sea coast.

Also below.

A short deviation took us to what was said to be the longest swing bridge in Canada...

...over an impressive canyon.

They had also set up a very long flying fox for which two boys we watched were charged $60 each to go down.

Road works were quite frequent and unfortunately one of these girls was hit by a car in this area about that day and died.

With the high water table this novel way was used top keep power poles upright.

Moose on the loose at night so it was better to avoid night driving.

Ella, we just wonderd if Granny had this secret shop that she kept wantiung to return to in Canada to check on.

If not maintained pastures reverted and trees recolinised.

Buildings also past their best.

One enterprising family had over the years developed a processing and retail outlet for wool and leather goods.  Elk meat could also be purchased.   Similar to the 'Tin Shed" at Rangitata, NZ.