DAY 1: Woodstock/Waterloo - Midland
This was supposed to be a more ambitious road trek for Kathy and I.
We had intended to do a great circle to Tobermory, Manitoulin, Sudbury and home. As recently as March, I was hoping we could pull that off. But Vladimir Putin and the corporations who used his war as an excuse to price gouge us had other ideas. That great circle tour would have taken up 1006 km not counting ANY detours off the path for any reason, and there would have been many of those.
Cancelling the whole thing was unthinkable. We both needed some time off from the world. And so we trimmed it down: two nights in Midland and a night in Collingwood.
Why those places? Midland because we'd been before and hadn't done everything we wanted to. Last year, Midland was mostly just a place to break up the trek, but we discovered some things we really wanted to do, notably a dinner cruise that had been unable to run for the duration of the pandemic. They were just getting ready to resume operations after we got back. I'd also wanted to see Sainte-Marie-Among-The-Hurons and the Martyr's Shrine, but adverse weather scuttled that. Collingwood? Two words. Blue Mountain. We've wandered past it and we've even been on top of it , but I've never been to the village and resort there and I wanted to go. Ontario's largest pedestrian suspension bridge is there, and that was something I really wanted to experience.
Less than an hour before departure, I received an email informing me that our dinner cruise on the Georgian Legacy was cancelled due to lack of interest. I thought about emailing back that we had enough interest to cover for any number of other people. But we weren't prepared to pay for all those other uninterested people. So we resolved to find something else to do, while really lamenting we couldn't have dinner on a boat.
We 'staircased' our way to Midland, left-right-left-right. We made good time: alla marcia, you might say, march time. We checked in at the Midland Inn and Suites, which we stayed at last year, almost to the day. I was amazed to discover the rates had not increased year over year. It's a no-frills motel, but it's towards the tippy-top of that tier of accommodation, with fairly comfortable beds, a larger-than-standard room, and a delicious full hot breakfast. I had absolutely no qualms booking this place again and would recommend it to anyone.
Dinner: Fish 'n' Fry Inn (no website). This is apparently a Midland institution: an overgrown food truck with some delicious halibut, battered to perfection, crispy without being overpowering. Good fries, too. If you do happen to stumble across the menu, the one I can't seem to find again, be warned it's likely the menu from 2019 and prices have increased about three dollars across the board. But in 2019 the prices were so cheap they were almost suspicious, so it was still reasonable value.
We wandered over to Penetanguishene ("Pen-net-ANGuish-sheen"), or "Penetang", which is basically a suburb of Midland. We viewed the boat we were supposed to have taken the following night (sigh).
We also found the S.S Keewatin, five years older than the R.M.S Titanic. This is the last surviving Edwardian steamship in the world, and it served as a museum for 45 years. It would have been a marvel to tour it. But it is regrettably shuttered by a battle for ownership (ship-owner?), its future uncertain.
Then we explored Patterson Park (can't get enough of that Georgian Bay air!)
....and went back to home base to crash.
DAY TWO: Midland-Port Severn-Parry Sound-Midland
Busy day today...and much better than expected.
We had lunch reservations at noon sharp at Tailwinds in Parry Sound, with my dad and stepmother. On our way north, we stopped at Port Severn to watch a couple of boats traverse the first (or last, I suppose) lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway. Called "one of the finest interconnected systems of navigation in the world, this 386 km (240 mi) route from where we are deep into the Kawarthas has a long and storied history in this province. Last year we tried to find this lock and either Gertie the GPS lady was drunk or Ken acting as Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest failed to do his 'one job on this ship'. (It's more likely than not the latter, but Ken notes in his defence that Gertie has indeed acted drunk on more than one occasion and also his boobs aren't quite as fetching as Sigourney Weaver's.)
But today we found it and we loved it. We got to see not one boat but two go through the lock.
As we were watching, my phone rang. Dad. "What are you up to tonight?" We weren't sure. Tonight was supposed to be dinner cruise night. That ship had (not) sailed, and we hadn't yet found an alternative activity. Whereupon Dad offered to get us passage on the M.V. Chippewa...dinner included.
I will admit I was almost in tears of gratitude.
"Oh and by the way," my dad said, "Tailwinds is closed today, so let's meet at Turtle Jack's" Turns out Tailwinds was a victim of the "nobody wants to work anymore" plague that followed Covid-19 like the night follows the day.
(Aside: that's another of the many sayings missing a critical part of the phrase. "The customer is always right" ... in matters of taste; "one bad apple"... spoils the bunch; "nobody wants to work anymore"... for shit wages, taking abuse from bosses and customers alike.)
This is not to disparage the staff and management of Tailwinds. It's entirely possible there are other, more benign reasons the restaurant was forced to close. I merely note that many other operations around it were open and bustling. Parry Sound in summer is a busy, busy place. The four corners (James St. and Seguin St.) will put you in mind of a packed Toronto intersection, not at all what was once for years one of only three traffic lights in the whole of Parry Sound.
I had one of the better burgers I've eaten in recent years. But that was secondary to time spent with Dad and Heather. They invited us back to their home, which is lovely. But before we went there, we had to hit Bearly Used Books...of course. For any friends who have not read previous entries in praise of this place, if you are in any kind of proximity and you are any kind of reader, this is absolutely a must-see. It's far and away the largest used bookstore I have ever visited. Last I heard they were at 350K volumes, including more than 15,000 children's books.
Dad had recently read a Michael Connolly book in one sitting that he urged me to find (and requested any other books in the 'Lincoln Lawyer' series). I found two others. I've just discovered that the book I've been ordered to read (I will get to it soon, Dad, I promise) is actually rhe most recent entry in the series, but if Dad could binge it as a stand-alone, I'm sure I will, too.
Quick trip over to the Charles Stockey Center to see the statue of Francis Pegahmabow (Ojibwe: Binaaswe, "the wind that blows off"). Born in Shawanaga, not far from my dad's prior hometown of Britt, he became chief of the Wasauksing on Parry Island. But not before he served with supreme distinction in the First World War, becoming the most effective sniper of that war and the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history.
Just beyond that statue is a lovely seating area where you can watch the waves roll in:
We met the matriarch of the clan that operates the M.V. Chippewa II on the way to Bearly Used. If this tale is meandering, well, that's Parry Sound for you. As busy as it is in summer, it somehow maintains a laid-back and friendly vibe. I'm learning to drop the 'too' in 'too friendly'. This is something Kathy is really helping me with: the ways of small towns. In cities, if a stranger says something to you other than 'what time is it' or 'where do I find _____', that stranger is looking to mug you in some fashion. Actually, scratch that: everybody can tell what time it is AND where anything is with a device that they carry with them everywhere, so there is no good reason to talk to strangers. Isn't that one of the very first things you learn as a child...stranger danger?
I'm especially not used to strangers asking me personal questions. "What do you do?" Is there some reason you need this information? Are you going to ask my wage, too? I'm sure my readers are well aware of what I am finally pounding through my head: it's really just a surfeit of a quality too often lacking in cities, a quality called "friendliness". She may go on to spread what she's learned about me all over town, but for once I'm going to choose to believe she wasn't asking about me to gain gossip currency, but only out of a sincere affability.
The boat set sail at 6:30 for a leisurely tour that only partially matched the northern Island Queen route we took last year.
Dinner was fabulous. Chicken parmesan, pasta and greens, catered by Bistro on Six, headquartered in....Midland, of all places. For dessert, a to-die-for selection of cheesecake squares, some lemon cookies and Belgian chocolates. We learned that their previous caterer had bailed on them not a week before and I really must commend their flexibility, as well as their new catering choice. Absolutely scrumptious food. The cruise takes you through Hole In The Wall, which is an entirely different experience on an intimate vessel like the Chippewa; out around Huckleberry Island, and across the Big Sound. Clouds were racing us back to port but we did manage to get at least a kind of sunset shot.
Finally the hour-long drive back to Midland. Had we known this day was going to play out this way, we'd likely have opted to stay in Parry Sound instead, but we got back without incident.
Part II to follow
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