Day 14 - North Bay to OTTAWA! 361 km. 31C

We made it! We are now at the Nepean Campground just a few kilometers from downtown Ottawa. We had a terrible night in North Bay. Our camp site was right next to a small river inlet that was a great breeding ground for our favorite friends, the mosquitos. They surrounded our trailer and planned their attack. It was a very well formulated plan. There was a narrow gap between the window screens on at the back of the trailer. We checked everything over before we went to bed (about 10:00pm), killing about five lil’ critters. We went to bed and within minutes we could hear the familiar weeeeing of a mosquito. On go the lights and we kill another three. Check everything over and lights out. By now Ryan is asleep. Exhausted from a long day.

What! Another critter? On go the lights. Where are they coming from? Kill another five. Repeat. At 11:00 I scoured the trailer to see how they are getting in. I then notice the gap around the back window and go about duct taping the screen to the trailer, closing off any gaps. This I have to do all this around Ryan who is sleeping in the top bunk and by now I am exhausted and we all fall asleep. I hear a mosquito but am too tired to do anything about it. Did I mention that our trailer was like an oven? Sooo hot!

ipods in the trailer. You can see the bites on Ryan's face.

Brittania Beach, Ottawa, ON

The next morning I wake up at 6:00 and go take a shower.

When I come back Jenny is awake and she has killed at least 15 mosquitos, all full of blood! It was a massacre... I don’t mean the mosquitos. Jemma has counted 30 bites and Ryan, well he has some bites on bites. The good news (for me) is that Ryan’s delicate milky skin is like a magnet to the mozzies so I have very few bites.

Ok, I’m just kidding about it being good news. The poor little guy is itching all over.

It turns out that Jemma got up in the night to go to the bathroom and was kind of sleepwalking. Who knows how long the door was open for. The mozzies were just itching to get in.

We arrived in Ottawa at about 1:00pm. Set up camp and had a little nap. We then explored along the Ottawa River. We found a nice spot on the beach at Brittania Beach and we all took a dip in the river. The water was lovely and cool.

We then found an Afghanistanian restaurant and pigged out on swharma, chicken kebabs, rice and eggplant stew. This was our best meal of the whole trip. I can barely type as I am so exhausted (from lack of sleep) and full from the great meal.

Jemma’s Journal Entry for Last Night

33 Mosquitos Bites!

I just counted all my mosquito bites and they all add up to 33... 4 on my face, 16 on my legs, 6 on my back and 7 on my arms. It’s absolutely crazy. Last night we had a violent, bloody, brutal battle with the pests. First of all we tried to find them all and kill them. We had thought we had got them all but at about 10:00 o’clock my dad heard one buzzing around his head so we got up turned on all the lights and killed about 4 of them filled with blood. We lied down thinking we had gotten them all but we were wrong. That went on about 6 more times and I fell asleep at take 5. Then we had to get up at 6 o’clock. That might not seem early but if you look at the night we had it was pretty early. I got into the van and I slept for 3 more hours.

Day 13 - Pancake Bay to North Bay,ON (361km from Ottawa)

Today was an early start. The mosquitos were killing me so at 5:15, without the aid of an alarm clock we were loading the kids into the van and movin’ on. We drove for about 6hours, stopped for breakfast and gas and got to North Bay at about 1:00pm. North Bay  is located on the North East shore of Nipissing Lake (yes I did spell that correctly - that’s what the indian’s called it).

It’s hot and humid and the mozzies and black flies are starting to get at us. What have we had, three days of bugs? Are you taking bets as to how long we will last?

I’m not joking, its so humid it feels like it is about to rain. It did rain a bit but we need a good storm to clear the air. Hopefully, we will have one tonight. There is a storm scheduled for Ottawa on Canada Day so that should be fun/scary/interesting.

Oh...I just heard some thunder....

The kids are swimming in the pool regardless. Sorry about the bad quality photo but you had to see this. 

Ryan Home Schoolin'

North Bay, ON Swimming in the Rain

Technology, entertainment and keeping the kids occupied

We are just coming up to our 14th day on the road and you may be wondering how we keep the kids occupied during the long drives.

Technology - we have a DVD player built in to the van, so the kids loaded 48 movies into a wallet before we left. So far we have watched only about 8 movies.

The kids each have an ipod touch (thanks Nanny for Jemma’s recent ipod touch gift). They also each have a Nintendo DS. However we do restrict ‘screen time’ to about 2hrs per day. We find that when we ask them to put the ipod away or when the movie ends they turn into instant gremlins so the best result is starting a 2 hour movie when we are about 2 hours away from our destination.

We also have a laptop with a Rogers communication stick (supplied by my work so I can stay in touch (and Blog)) and my iphone. All of this takes some managing to make sure devices are charged and of course, security to make sure none of it gets stolen.

The most important factor with keeping the kids busy is Jenny’s rigorous home school schedule.

Goal	Time	Jemma	Ryan
1	10 min	Record all expenses daily	Morning message/dictée
2	3 min	Math timed timestable drills	Math drills-addition and subtraction
3	15 min	Blog/Journal each day	Journal
4	30 min	Music read along	Music read along
5	10 min	Keep Excel spreadsheet up to date	Math pages
6	30 min	Mapping Across Canada	Mapping Across Canada
7	90 min	Choice (movie, ipod, DS)	Choice
8	10 min	Sight word games	Sight word games
9	30 min	Read and respond -Biblical	Read and Respond- Biblical /Printing
10	15 min	Oral language listening	Oral language listening

If you did not already know, Jenny is a school teacher and this stuff comes naturally to her. The ‘mapping across Canada’ work has been particularly good as the kids are getting to know a little about each Province as we drive through. We have a Grade 3 Geography book too which has tons of useful facts in it.

Finally, who is Natalie?

Remember Natalie, our friend from Red Deer? This is a great story. Hopefully I will get this all down before Jenny and the kids come in from the pool.

Back in 1996 Jen and I set off on an adventure around the world. We went to England first for my sister’s birthday, then went to Egypt, Israel and Jordan or two months. Then we did a ten week safari in Africa (yes TEN WEEKS) which took us overland from kenya to Zimbabwe and then we flew to India, Nepal and Thailand. Quite an adventure. We both lost about 50 pounds and had to be dewormed for several months after.

Jenny met Natalie in Africa. We were taking a particularly strong anti malarial drug called Larium. There were many warnings on the label but what are you going to do? Get Malaria? The side effects are colourful dreams (not bad) violent behavior, psychosis, and schizophrenia - charming!

Having been on Larium for several weeks Jenny had a bit of ‘turn’ while driving through Tanzania. It was about an old girlfriend (another story) but basically, Jenny flipped out, I mean really flipped out and demanded that the safari truck stop so she could get off. We were in the middle of no-where. The guide managed to persuade Jenny to hang on at least until we got to a town and the very next morning, having had some time to think about it, she hopped on the first bus back up to Dar Es Salaam (about 12hrs away).

This is about where most of my weight loss occurred but this story is about how Jenny met Natalie.

So here’s Jenny, wandering around the streets of Dar Es Salaam planning to do who knows what when she wanders into an office of ‘Save the Children’ where she asked for directions or to sue the phone or something. I could get Jenny to clarify but the story would go on longer than the actual events.

Jenny met a guy who was the Principal at a school and suggested she meet the new teachers from... Red Deer, Alberta.

So Jenny hooked up with Natalie and her friend, Steve, and told them the story. Their first advice (thank the Lord) was to stop taking the Larium! After five days of actually teaching in a little school in Africa (one of Jenny’s dreams) she decided to try and get back to the tour and get back with me.

This is where the real miracle happens. So Jenny has to hop on a flight to catch up with us since she had gone North while we were still driving South. So Jenny hops on a plane and meets a really nice African, Christian family who offer to put her up for the night in Lusaka, Malawi. The next morning, they put her on a bus and she heads South to meet with us. She is warned to keep to the public buses and not sue the smaller, private min-vans as people have a tendency of going missing.

So Jen gets as far as she can on the public bus and is just contemplating taking a private min-van when she looks up and sees a big blue army truck - which is the truck we used on the African safari - and sure enough, it was our truck! The chances of meeting like that were infinitesimal. At the time we credited the event to angels or a miracle but now we realize that we were in God’s hands all along and he has a plan for each and every one of us, even if we stray from the plan!

We have been friends with Natalie, who later married Trevor, ever since. 

Day 12 - Neys Provincial Park to Pancake Provincial Park 353 km

Total Distance to date 3,947km. Distance to Ottawa 869km.

Not all parks are built the same. The problem with being on a high is there is only one way to go...down. Not to say that Pancake Provincial Park is a bad park but Neys Provincial Park is a hard act to follow.

Pancake PP also has a beautiful sandy beach but it is not really suitable for camp fires - we had an idilic beach fire last night. There was enough dry driftwood to have a small fire. We stayed up till midnight.

Our campsite today is set back a bit from the beach - in the woods - and there are a few more mosquitoes. There are a lot more people here and our site had a huge dog doodoo in it...are you getting my drift?

The kids are having a great time, regardless. They have no hesitation in swimming in the lake and love the sandy beaches. It's 26C but feels like 36C which suits us just fine!

Pancake Bay (75km West of Sault Set Marie) ON

We are not quite on Ontario time yet. We are waking up at 8:00ish. Tomorrow we will get going early and try to eat up as much of the final 870km as we can.

Day 11 - Kakabeka Falls (Thunder Bay) to Neys Provincial Park - 297km

Last night I wrote our journal on the road with the expectation that we would make it to Thunder Bay. However, we pulled into Kakabeka Falls, 26km before Thunder Bay and decided to stay the night so that we could see the falls in the morning. It is a Provincial Park and the camping sites were in the woods so the mosquitos were bad. Jen cooked a lovely skillet dinner of sausage meat, tomato and bow tie pasta. 
Unfortunately, the handle bar of one of the mountain bikes smashed one of our back windows so now we have some added ventilation. I didn’t take a photo because I was too angry:

1. at my not putting the cloth over the handle bar to protect the window,
2. the mosquitos were driving me mad as I was trying to put the broken glass in a garbage bag.
3. I was tired, hungry and cranky after a very long drive.

This morning we woke up at 8:00am which is early considering that we are now on Ontario time (5:00am in BC). We took a walk down to the falls and they were spectacular. Apparently, the third largest falls (by volume) in Ontario. When I heard this, I thought ‘big deal’ until I remembered that Niagara Falls is in Ontario.

Kakabeka Falls, ON

The falls were tea colored I guess due to the high water.

I have to say at this point to all the people thats ay driving through Ontario is boring. They are wrong. So far, Northern Ontario has been beautiful, no spectacular!

Kenora was amazing, Kakabeka falls, awesome and the place we are staying now stunning! 


The drive from Thunder Bay (along Highway 17) was over gently rolling hills following the northern tip of Lake Superior. There is an alternate route along Highway 11 that goes up through Timmins which is supposed to be very flat but much faster. Lake Superior, when you see it for the first time is breathtaking. It is huge! I guess it would be as it is the largest lake (by surface area) in the world. 

We stopped at the Terry Fox monument. This is the place where Terry Fox could not go on any further after starting from St Johns, NF, five provinces and 3039km before. It was very moving reading about how he had touched the heart of so many people across Canada and the world.

Jenny ‘facetimed’ Anita to find her wearing a winter jacket at home in BC while we were in t-shirts with blue sky behind us. Jemma facetimed her teacher and said 'hi' to her whole class, who were getting ready for the grade 7 grad. It was lovely to see our friends after so many days on the road..lol.

Terry Fox Monument, Thunder Bay, ON

We ran out of steam after only 300 clicks today. We read about a Provincial Park called Neys and pulled on in. We were surprised when the attendant asked us if we wanted a beach front spot. We are now parked on a beautiful sandy beach right on the shore of Lake Superior!

Jemma and Ryan went for a swim and we explored and biked along the shore. 

What a great few days! We will see how far past Saule Ste Marie we get tomorrow.

We are booked in to the camp site in Ottawa on Saturday night so we have a few days to get there yet.

Neys Provincial Park, ON

Neys Provincial Park, ON

Day 10 - Kenora to Thunder Bay 450km

Last night we arrived in Kenora at 9:30pm. The time was a bit confusing since my phone said that we lost an hour when we entered Ontario. That would be the second time change in one day. However, when we checked into the camp site the manager said that the actual time change occurs in Thunder Bay.

Kenora turned out to be a diamond in the rough. Kenora is set among a huge lake system with over 1600 islands. It is incredible. Luckily there were no bugs but the bird life was amazing. We could hear the haunting call of loons when we walked out onto the dock at 11:00pm.

We decided to hang about the next morning and swim in the lake. We all had a dip. Jemma and Ryan stalked, hunted and trapped a small squirrel.

We started our drive to Thunder Bay at 2;00pm and are on our way right now. The views have been great all the way. We heard so many stories about how boring the drive would be. We haven’t found that at all!

Kenora, ON

Here’s Jemma’s journal entry for the few couple of days.

June 22

I can’t believe its been a whole week! We are in Drumheller right now. We went to Horeshoe Canyon. Who knew there were canyons in Drumheller? Anyway, they weren’t really steep and deadly canyons [Jemma is referring to Utah where we stood on the edge of 1,00ft drops that freaked her out]; you could actually climb down them. We went on this really narrow ledge on the side of the canyon. It was really scary but really fun. So far this is a really fun/interesting/scary trip!

June 24

Right now we are leaving Saskachewan. I thought Saskachewan was going to be more flat and more hot and more boring, but it was not. I kind of wished it was more flat like the pictures I’ve seen but it was okay, it was still beautiful.

June 25

Yesterday we had 16 hours on the road and I am loving it! We had dinner at Perkin’s and there were lots of old people! I don’t think dad liked it! I just shared with Mum so I got a chocolate silk pie for dessert [Jemma did not order an entré so she she was able to order dessert], it was soo good! We got to Kenora (which is 2hrs past Winnipeg) at 11:00pm. It was crazy [at the time I thought it was almost 11:00pm]. 

We had a midnight walk across this dock that went across a lake. It was beautiful.

This morning i woke up to bluw sky. We had pancakes for breakfast and this chipmunk was trying to get some of the pancake. We set up a trap and I lured the chipmunk to it and we caught it! It was so much fun!

There was this beautiful beach and lake. We went swimming. it was a good day!

Pancake Breakfast

The Critter

The Hunter

The Stalker

The Prize!

Day 9 - Regina to Kenora, ON. 789km

Today has been a big push! Seriously, for us this is a big push. For anyone else going across Canada - not stopping for a day every second day - today's drive would probably be normal.

We left Drew and Mary’s first thing this morning (6:15am). We stopped at Moosomin for some breakfast. We had coffee, toast and a breakfast burger at A&W. I’m not sure we would do this again. The toast was buttered but Jenny had to spend 20 minutes adding jam to 12 pieces of toast. The coffee was Ok but not great (not Timmys). We pulled back onto the highway and found a Tim Horton’s just 2 more minutes down the road - we should have had a little more patience!

We stopped for lunch and a swim at Portage la Prairie, just 40mins before Winnipeg. This is an excellent oasis swimming spot. While, Jemma, Ryan and I relaxed in the pool Jenny fired up the Cob and barbecued four chicken breasts, made couscous and grilled zuchinni in the pool parking lot! 

Splash Island, Portage la Prairie, MB

Cob Barbecue - photo from the web site
(Jenny's meal was just as good!)

We decided to drive through Winnipeg rather than stop. We were surprised how big a city it is and how much it looks like the downtown of Vancouver.

We stopped at Perkins for dinner. I think the average age of diners there is about 80. There was a man sitting eating his liver and onions with oxygen being fed through his nose. We had a surprisingly nice dinner and are now back on the road heading out of Manitoba into Ontario.
To anyone form Manitoba we apologize. I’m sure you are used to it. By the time people get this far they just want to keep moving on to their final destination, unless of course, they are from Manitoba and they are heading home.

Our general impression of the Prairies is we love the heat and the flatness rather appealing. I think this is an excellent time of year to come here. I’m not sure I would be so keen when it hits -40C!

(I'm writing this while going 100km down Highway 1 - just leaving Manitoba. Jenny is driving). 

Day 8 - Regina

Another hot and dry day. It was 28C this afternoon. We love the prairies (in the summer). The bugs are not bad. They come out at dusk which is after 10:00pm so we have not had any issues. 

Drew, Jemma and I cycled the 6km into Regina to the Legislative Assembly building. It was a beautiful cycle ride around Wascana Lake. I think Drew enjoyed being a tourist in his own city. We met up with Jen, Mary and the kids and had a nice picnic lunch. 

Later on we drove over to the RCMP Heritage Centre and ‘Depot’. We had a nice chat with an RCMP cadet, right at the end of her 6 month stint. She has been given a posting in Northern Manitoba but she will not know if she has passed until next Tuesday. A very nerve racking time as her best friend was cut (from the program) only yesterday.

We joined a tour of ‘depot’ and then watched a 20min video about thier time in training.

We finished the afternoon off with some barbecued sausage made by Mary’s Dad.

Cadet Ryan

Cadet Jemma

We are on the road again tomorrow, heading to Winnipeg.


By the way, we have added some trip data for anyone interested. 
Over there under 'Our data' ->

Day 7 - Regina (Drew and Mary’s Place)

Today was a long drive day. We set off at 5:15am and arrived in Regina just before 5:00pm. Today we drove just over 700km and our grand total to date is 2023km and we are not even half way yet!

We set off early so that we could get to Moose Jaw in the early afternoon to go and see the tunnels used by Al Capone in the 1920s.

Not much else to say other than it was nice to have a shower and a home made meal! 

Drew and Mary

Day 6 - Drumheller, Alberta

It’s hot and dry here in Drumheller. Jenny has a bit of a burn and we are all a bit weary after a day of hiking in the ‘Bad Lands’. We started the day off with a couple of hours in the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Amazing dinosaurs and fossils! We learned so much. For those that don’t know Drumheller is famous for the rich deposit of fossils.

Ryan outside the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta

Horsethief Canyon, Drumheller, Alberta

Natalie popped down from Red Deer to meet up with us at 1:00pm. I will write a separate ‘side story’ about how Jenny met Natalie. A very cool story.

Natalie, Jenny and Jemma at the Hoodoos

Newton, Natalie's Cairn Terrier

We had lunch and then drove to Wayne. A tiny little - what would you call a group of three houses? - place. The main attraction is the 11 bridges you have to cross to get there. 

Ryan climbing a hoodoo

We then drove out to the hoodoos. Hoodoos are sandstone that has been eroded by wind and rain into little towers with horizontal slabs of rock remaining on top.

At the end of the afternoon we took a drive out to Horseshoe Canyon. This small canyon is ideal for hiking down and exploring. The kids had a great time running up and down the little hills.

Horseshoe Canyon, Drumheller, Alberta

Day 5 - Banff to Drumheller - 253km

I woke up a little late at 8:15am but with the efficiency of a family that’s been on the road for months we were on the road by 9:15 (that’s even with Jen taking a shower). We can get this down to 10mins but that is literally carrying Jemma and Ryan from the trailer to the van and letting them go straight back to sleep. We did this on our trip to Utah where we had some long days so we started at 5:30am. It actually works out well as I get up most mornings at this time and by the time the kids start to wake up it’s 8:30 and we already have 3hrs under our belt.

We stopped at Canmore just 30mins out of Banff for gas and Timmy’s. In no time we were in Calgary (about an hour and a half) and we decided to stop at the Calgary Heritage Park, the biggest living heritage park in North America. 

I have to say at this point that everywhere there is the biggest this or biggest that. We just pulled into Drumheller and they claim to have the biggest dinosaur. I will take a photo tomorrow and you can judge for yourself.

The Heritage Park was big and it was also awesome! There is a full size steam train that runs around the perimeter. We went in a paddle steamer and a 1950’s amusement park.  

Here’s the link http://www.heritagepark.ca/

We stayed there for about three hours and then spent an hour in Calgary traffic tying to get up to the #2 North and then over to Drumheller.

The Open Road - no more mountains...

Guiding us to our camping spot in Drumheller

So happy to be here... Handy if we need tires (Fountain Tire)

Don't forget to check out our maps - on the side bar - 'Our Route' over there ->