From Richer to HappyLand

It is not far from Richer to the Ontario border to the east, so next morning, after nicely surviving the big frost (at least we didn't get the snow that apparently fell in SW Alberta and Saskatchewan), we headed out and crossed into Ontario, and Canadian Shield country. Definitely a change in scenery as we approached the provincial border, with lots more rocks and trees and lakes evident. And beavers. Lots of beavers. From BC through the other three provinces, we'd seen occasional beaver dams and lodges. Now we were seeing them everywhere we drove. We entered Kenora, and stopped for a bit of shopping/stocking up. Then, we decided to take the road less travelled, so headed south along Lake of the Woods, finally stopping at a Provincial Park at Caliper Lake. This turned out to be a fine choice, with a very beautiful campsite on the lake, near a sand beach, with flush toilets, hot showers, and a very friendly chipmunk (we called him the park Ranger, as he was ranging around the campsite).




"Ranger" the chimpmunk, ranging around my feet.





I found it strange to find large white pelicans in the lake - I had never considered pelicans as a Canadian type of bird. We have yet to come across a bear or moose, but there were lots of white-tail deer along, and crossing, the highways, throughout Manitoba and (so far) in Ontario. We watched some people out in their boats fishing, and the fishing seemed pretty good.....people were coming back with lots of Pickerel, Pike, Bass, and perch....and apparently sometimes Musky. Although it was forecast for another cold night, it seemed quite a bit warmer - in reality, it went down to 4C, but that, relative to -2C the night before, made things seem quite toasty.
This morning we availed ourselves of the fine hot showers, and set out 100 KM south, to Fort Frances, where we searched in vain for another couple of dead relatives. There are two cemeteries there that we know of, and we searched both, but were unable to find them. Being Sunday, there were no offices open to try to find out about plot listings. So instead, we continued toward the east, now parallelling the US border, and headed toward Thunder Bay. We stopped alongside a lake for a quiet lunch, and then continued on, and into a campsite about 30 KM west of Thunder Bay. It has a very positive name - HappyLand CampGround. Hopefully it will be, because the low temps are continuing. Tomorrow we will start some serious investigations into some more family history.....both Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie have quite a few family ties to research, and we will need several days in each.