Lake Superior Circle Tour - Overview and Home to Thunder Bay

We didn't know it was a "thing" when we originally decided to go :)
Also, it took way more tries than it should've to actually get a photo of one of these signs!

Mum and I decided we were due for another road trip and  did the Lake Superior Circle Tour.  Mum's been around a good part of it before, but I've never been that far north at all, and I'm pretty sure the US side was new to both of us.

I wrote some short snippets as we went along that combined turned into a very long blog post lol.  We'll see how many it turns into.   Some things that stood out to me:

- Sand River Trail in Lake Superior Provincial Park was my favourite of all the hikes we did, by a lot.  I really loved it, and it has motivated me to find some light hiking opportunities nearer to home.  

- Nature, especially when it involves water and no extra people, is 100% the fastest mental health reset possible for me.   I felt so much better SO quickly.

- Kakabeka Falls was stunning, relatively few people, and with a completely accessible trail.  100% worth a visit if you happen to be up there.

- Duluth has a disproportionate number of churches and also an entire aisle of bibles in the local Barnes & Nobel.   This terrified me but was also becoming a bit of a joke.  Other than that, it was a truly lovely and very hilly town (I like hills and mountains almost as much as water ;)).

- My grasp of geography is way off.   lol like I know logically that the Can/US border makes a dip down where I've lived most of my life, but I never really internalised how much of the US is significantly north of where I live.   Therefore it was really disconcerting that I could spend a day driving north and still be 10 minutes from the border (I'm looking at you Sault Ste Marie - also, don't ask how long it took me to figure out how to spell that having never seen it written, only spoken ;).   Of course, the border continued all the way up to Thunder Bay with us but it was SSM where the light went on for me.

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Okay - so...  The details as I wrote them along the way - this is the first couple days as we drove to Thunder Bay:

The drive to Sault St Marie was almost entirely in the rain.  I hadn’t ever really realized there were mini mountains up here (Mum more accurately defined them as "rolling hills" but I like mini-mountains) - it would’ve been nice if we could’ve actually seen them!

Mini-Mountains in the distance :)

Went for a walk to find dinner and to see the waterfront.  Kept it short cause of the rain, but was happy to get to see the Roberta Bondar park all of about a week after hearing her speak.  Incredibly impressive woman and - on top of it - a fabulous speaker.  If you ever get the chance to hear her, take it.  The park is less exciting, but the waterfront was nice and we had it to ourself due to the less perfect weather.

The boardwalk was really nicely done, if a little wet ;)

The other highlight of Sault Ste Marie was as we were leaving.  Just on the edge of town a juvenile moose randomly trotted out across the road.   I didn’t get a pic but still super excited to have seen him.  With sunrise super early and sunset super late this time of year, I really wasn’t expecting to get to see one.

Weather for Day 2 driving was just about perfect.

Next day rain was forecast all day but it didn’t happen!!!   Which was awesome cause it lead to one of my favourite parts of the trip.  

For the vast majority of our trip, there would be only one road on the map
and our directions would cover several hundred kms at a time - often just to stay on the same road at the next change.

So imagine how annoyed our GPS got when we *still* managed to go off-track at Sand River ;)

The drive was, of course, all kinds of stunning, and when we got to Lake Superior Provincial Park we went into the visitor centre where two super friendly and enthusiastic guides helped us determine where we should consider visiting - we got our day pass and some recommendations for appropriate-for-us trails and off we went.  

We got in a very short walk at the visitor's centre before getting back in the car.

The first one we did was Sand River (worth annoying the GPS for) and it was my favourite hike overall, by a lot.  The footing was entertaining (lots of rocks etc so not just a flat walk, but very clear trail) and the whole thing followed a river with many rapids and a water fall.  

The contrast of the rapids and the falls...

With the complete stillness, was incredible.

We did about half of it - which the visitor’s centre person had mentioned would take us to a waterfall and it did.  I loved that everything wasn’t blocked off - if you wanted to go out on the rocks, you could.  They suggested avoiding falling in ;).  Also - Mum is definitely braver than I when it comes to heights!   😂 

Getting the perfect shot :)

We didn’t see any other people; the only sounds were the river, the falls, and the birds.  And the weather was perfect. It was the single best mental health refresh in a long time.  

I sat and enjoyed the falls for a while before we headed back.
Even the rock I happened to sit on had a natural chair to it.

We did another hike very shortly after that that was flatter but not flat 😂 and by a marsh (Trapper's).  This one came w all the killer mosquitos.  

Mosquito-friendly habitat, yet still very pretty

It was a loop so we did the whole loop, and had we done it first I prob would’ve loved it.  But there was no comparison to the other one.  

Seriously stunning

So definitely glad we did it - even if just for the comparison of terrain.  But the first one was way more impressive.

Almost at the end of the loop at Trapper's

Before leaving the park we also stopped at the Old Woman.  We didn’t hike there, just looked around the beach a bit and took some pictures.  

Can you see the Old Woman's face on the right side of the hill?

Then continued on our way to Thunder Bay, which would be our home for the next few days.  

It's a Canadian thing.

On the way we saw not one but TWO giant geese and some amazing scenery.   Got a good laugh at signs that warned “don’t tailgate” when we literally couldn’t even see another car!

SO much of the drive was breathtakingly stunning.
And I really don't think there was much risk of tailgating ;)