Derby Was Sick....

...but now he's better! Unfortunately our Quetico canoe trip came to a grand finale with Derby puttering to a nice slow stop just outside of Atikokan, a small town halfway between Fort Francis and Thunder Bay...to clarify, that's 2 hours from anything so we were lucky we were still in the "city" limits! After a cozy three hour wait in the car (during which we made a greek salad, the first fresh veggies we had had in 10 days, so it wasn't too bad), a tow truck finally arrived from BCAA with the news that he could tow us exactly...5 kilometres...which put us at the White Otter Inn, Atikokan.

It is here that we called home for three days while Cameron hunted down a new distributor from Thunder Bay so that we could get back on the road. Our mechanic was less than helpful--perhaps we was scared off by our new mascot, Simon.

It didn't end up being a terrible loss though as we were able to do a bunch of trip planning, recover some of our expenses from BCAA, and also get to know Atikokan a little better. It ended up being a very friendly town (with many people offering us suggestions on where else we could stay other than the White Otter, which is apparently the most expensive place in town) with quite an interesting museum which, among other things, discussed how an entire lake was emptied of water to start an open pit mine in the 1950s in the area.

In the end our beloved Derby was returned to good health and was able to carry us down along the gorgoues shoreline of Lake Superior.

We managed to have a stunninly beautiful day as we came into Lake Superior Provincial Park. Dad..you're right, it does look like the ocean! Managed to have a wonderful walk along the coast line to soak it all in.

The next day took us on a wet and rainy drive through Sault St.Marie and into Capreol (outside of Sudbury) to spend the night with some very dear friends, Frank and Laila, from Meghan's time working in Sudbury. Had the best Chinese dinner, lots of laughs, and too short of a visit. We had to leave early in the morning to make our way to Owen Sound, in preparation for Dana and Charlie's wedding!