Canada by Bike

There is something super special about riding through my home province. I started getting home sick as each day I slept in a different location. I felt ungrounded but now that I'm here I feel so much better. I love Ontario! It is such a beautiful province, composed of forest, rocks and lakes.

I'm in Vermillion Bay, the land of hunters, black flies and mosquitos. I'm meeting Jakub here, another crazy Pollack who is currently walking across Canada. I thought I had it hard. Everyone needs to conquer him or herself one way or another. His journey is full of adventures as it is much longer than mine. Good luck, Jakub!

Another long, 158 km ride through clouds of mosquitos and black flies. They are eating me alive! It is all forest and swamps here, no good place to camp, so we found a gravel pit and pitched our tents there. It happens to be the worst location, so much mosquitos and enduring a crazy thunderstorm during the night.

As I'm riding I came across this interesting marker the river flow. This confuses me – not sure what you are trying to say you saw. Check out my video.

Shortly after I saw a baby bear hanging out by the road. I loved watching it frolicking around, but I was a bit scared thinking the mom must be near by. Luckily, the cub ran away and I kept riding. Today, I've arrived in Thunder Bay! I feel so lucky to be here. I'm staying with the most hospitable people ever, the Borowiec Family. They welcomed me so warmly and invited us to a Polish picnic on the 19th.

I had no idea we had amethyst mines in Ontario. The mine was discovered in 1949 when Ontario Lands and Forest crew was building a forest road. How cool is that? I spent a lot of hours here, looking for special stones and came out with 2 buckets of amethyst rocks, a life time supply. I felt the energy of this place was super charged and I felt very different ever since my visit here.<br>Today, I'm driving back to Toronto to drop my son off. He will not be a part of the second part of this trip.

I'm back in Thunder Bay. Today, we are at a Polish picnic where I met a lot of interesting people and got to share my story. It is so much fun to be amongst people from my country. Everyone has a great story to share and it is inspiring how we all made it here. After the picnic I will be heading to Nipigon and stopping by the Terry Fox monument.

Today was probably one of the nicest rides so far, I'm riding on the coast of lake Superior via Plays Plat, Rossport and Terrace Bay. It is hilly! I'm stopping often to take it all in. I haven't seen so much beauty in a long time. While riding I met another cyclist. His name is John Hosick. He is cycling alone from British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Since we are heading in the same direction, we decided to ride together for a few days until he heads south.

Taking a day off in White River. The only attraction here is the statue of Winnie the Poo. The orphan bear cub was found by some hunter who brought it to White River. Few weeks later Lieutenant Harry Colebourn was stopping here for a short visit and saw this cub, thought he was cute and bought it for 20 dollars. He then brought it to London, England. Few years later the bear could not be looked after and he ended up in the zoo. Many visitors were coming to see a bear, among them was A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne.

This park is my most favourite provincial park in Ontario! It is incredible here, stunning view every few meters, cliffis, beaches, forest and never ending horizon. I plan to come by again and spend couple of weeks discovering this place. It is still very hilly, windy roads and breath taking views. At some point a wolf started running on the road and I was not too far from him. At the end of the day, I found a campsite right by the lake and decided to stay here overnight. I thought I would go for a refreshing swim but the water was too cold to fully submerge for me.

In the morning while riding through Lake Superior Provincial Park I couldn't resist to stop by famous Agawa's Rock. It was a nice hike to get there and then the wow effect! Beautiful sheer red rock and baby blue water! There were many pictographs on the rock, showing mythical creatures that were painted by Natives. One of them was a mystical creature which supposedly lived in Lake Superior and there are many stories around this acquatic monster - Mishipeshu. What a great experience. After that I managed to cycle to Harmony's Beach just outside Sault Saint Marie where I found a beautiful and free campsite right on a sandy beach.

Today is the last day, John and I will ride. He is heading south to Manitoulin Island and I am heading towards Sudbury. It was fun to ride together. He almost had a close call with a truck but only ended up with a few scratches and sore muscles. It is not safe to ride in this part of Ontario. There is no shoulder and sharing highway with fast moving trucks is scary to say the least. I am in Blind River. Really fun last few days, swimming and enjoying the summer days.

Sudbury area is pretty uneventful. There is just forest, swamps and busy highway. The good thing is that there is a shoulder. I feel a lot safer riding through this area although cycling is not allowed on highway here. Oopsy! I'm heading towards North Bay today, can't wait!

Oops. I'm so used to camping by the road that I didn't even think too much about not being able to camp in North Bay. I thought it was a small town where no one would care but it is a big city for this part of Ontario. It was late at night and I found a parking lot across the lake and considered it a good place to sleep. In the morning, someone knocked on my tent.

Last night I made it to Deep River and was invited to stay at MacDonald's family. It was short and sweet as I had to keep on moving. Thank you for a wonderful hospitability.<br>My day turned out to be great, biked all the way to Pembroke where we camped on the beach. Ottawa River is beautiful. Where we camped water was quite shallow and I couldn't really swim but was able to harvest a bucket of mussels and cooked them for dinner next day. My date is coming for a visit tonight and he is planning to stay with us for the next fewdays.

It was a very short bike ride today, basically I rode from our campsite to Pembroke where I booked a motel. It is a nice place, thank to my story I got an upgrade to a wedding suit which was quite comfortable. I even have a kitchenette. My dad is going to cook yesterday's mussels for dinner and we are just going to relax and enjoy this beautiful day.