Trip Report - North Trail Heads North of Superior

[TrueNorth26]

During the winter my wife and I purchased our first travel trailer - a North Trail 23RBS. In late June we headed out for our first 'real' roadtrip - a 4101 km three week journey north of Lake Superior. This was our first time in this part of Ontario. The land was far more rugged and mountainous than we expected...and beautiful. The people were friendly and the history fascinating. In fact, the route we travelled along Superior's shore wasn't even opened until 1962 - sometimes its hard to remember just how remote parts of the province are...or were.

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Our first stop was Lake Superior Provincial Park, Agawa Bay Campground, about two hours drive north of Sault Ste. Marie.

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We'd booked our site months in advance and got a beautiful waterfront site....

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The beach was beautiful! But in the interest of full disclosure, the water was more than a bit chilly.

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There's a section for exercising your four legged friends too...Ranger, our 9 mos old Sheltie couldn't get enough.

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Within 30 minutes of setting up camp the locals paid us a visit...

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This park has some beautiful hiking...this is the Sand River Trail.

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And this is the path to the Native pictographs.

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The pictographs were drawn 150-400 years ago on a sheer rock cliff overlooking the lake. They're only visible when Superior is calm.

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It was an absolutely beautiful park - quiet and peaceful with a great visitor/interpretive centre and amazing sunsets - though visitors should arrive well provisioned - the closest store (and fuel) is 85 kms away.

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From Agawa Bay we headed further north and west to Sleeping Giant....more on that in our next post....

 

[Noofear]

Beautiful pics

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[JWalker]

Like!!

 

[cookie]

That's awesome.

Peace
Dave

 

[jayc]

Very Pretty!!

 

[TrueNorth26]

Our next stop on our North of Superior trip was Sleeping Giant Provincial Park (Marie Louise Lake CG) about a 640 km drive NW through some rugged and beautiful low mountains.

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Sleeping Giant is another huge provincial park, again with an excellent interpretive centre. The small general store in Silver Islet is closed this year so again provisions are a bit of a hike (though not as far as at Agawa Bay.

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We had another beautiful (and remote) waterfront site. We had to borrow a power cord from the park as it was a 90' run to the pedestal - not a big deal and the large buffer of trees between many of the sites provided excellent privacy.

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Deer visited the site every night - certainly amused Ranger (our dog).

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And this is the Sleeping Giant...all part of the same huge Provincial Park...the trails to the top of the Giant were more of a challenge than my knees were up to....

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But there's lots of other trails including one to a very unique formation called the Sea Lion.

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And this is Thunder Bay Lookout - also inside Sleeping Giant Park. Access to the lookout is via a rather rugged road. The drive is about 15-20 minutes and is probably best handled by vehicles with a bit of ground clearance (pick-ups, SUVs, vans) - small cars may find the terrain a bit of a challenge.

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Not far from the park entrance is the very moving and inspirational Terry Fox Memorial - built very near the spot where he tragically ended his cross-Canada run when his cancer recurred.

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And about a half hours drive east is Ouimet Canyon.

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We also visited a local amethyst "mine".

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We met a young couple on their honeymoon there - self described "rock nerds" - who'd uncovered this giant amethyst.

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Meanwhile, back at the campsite...

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From Sleeping Giant we headed east to our last stop on Lake Superior - Pancake Bay Provincial Park. More on that in our next post...

 

[TrueNorth26]

So the last stop on our trip north of Superior was Pancake Bay Provincial Park. Much of the drive was beautiful....can't say the same for the weather.

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Gas stations with parking (and food) were verrrrry popular with the RV crowd...and they're not overly abundant on some parts of the route.

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Note: fuel can be scarce in some sections of the route. One gas station we stopped at had actually run out.

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Once again, booking months in advance netted another beautiful waterfront site.

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The Pancake Bay campground was busier than Agawa and Sleeping Giant, in part due to its closer proximity to Sault Ste Marie....but also because of the 3km sand beach.

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The sun was beautiful...

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...even the rain...

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In fact, even the night sky was beautiful...

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About the only thing missing was the Aurora Borealis.

So after three weeks it was time to head home. Our North Trail 23RBS handled the trip with out a hitch. It was the perfect size for getting into the tighter sites in Agawa, but provided all the comforts we could have hoped for.

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And as for Lake Superior...well, it lived up to it's name.

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[JohnD]

Looks like a lot of fun!

I've been along the Michigan coast of Lake Superior several times . . . can't wait to get back up there again!