I flew into Toronto a week early for Grandma’s funeral, because the summertime Air North flight through Yellowknife is so much nicer than flying through Vancouver (and usually needing to spend a night there), and it only flies once a week in May.

Flying in early allowed me to spend a few days at my brother’s house, and then we went camping for the May 2-4 long weekend up on the Bruce Peninsula! If you are family, or you’ve known me for long, you’ll know my Stock grandparents had a cottage on the Bruce Peninsula where I spent so many wonderful weekends, summer vacations, and just about always, the May long weekend (Canadians usually call it the May “two-four” long weekend).

The Flights

I flew down to Whitehorse after work on Monday, then caught the 8am flight to Toronto. It was frosty that morning. Frosty enough the wings needed a de-icing spray down!

See why I love Air North? Big seats, great service, two free checked bags, a quick layover on the tarmac to Yellowknife, and free meals! (Yes, that is a piece of cheesecake.)

Here’s the tarmac in Yellowknife:

Staying with my brother Brian and his family

I worked for three days from my brother’s office in his basement. And multi-tasked with a trip to the mall (to get something to wear to Grandma’s funeral), Costco (for weekend camping food), and to my nephew Easton’s grade 8 showcase (play), and to Easton’s soccer game one night. A visiting aunt’s gotta do what an aunt’s gotta do! Including mandatory ping-pong breaks!

I haven’t been to Costco in years! Brian and Leanne made sure I got all the necessary free samples as we browsed.

I stayed true to my working day schedule, and I got up to take an hour walk before work. There was a perfect 5km route in their neighbourhood. I saw bunnies and even a wild turkey one morning. And I walked by some fragrant lilac trees. Mmmmmm.

Easton’s finishing up grade 8, so I got to see his school one day at lunch and we watched his showcase! He was in many of the scenes, dancing and doing all the moves.

Here’s Easton’s cheerleaders at soccer! His team won! My niece Hadley had a fresh sprig of lilac. Mmm!

On Friday night after work and school, we packed up the van and their pop-up tent trailer and headed north!

But first, Easton convinced me to feed his carrot scraps to the horses next door! I fed a horse. I fed two horses! They were so gentle. My what big lips they have! When I took out my phone to snap a picture, they hurried away.

Hadley got the middle seat for our 4 hour drive to the campground, and Easton and I took up the rear.

It was a long drive, but we played good tunes and watched the sun set. It was really orange, maybe even enhanced from the forest fire smoke in the atmosphere.

Camping

It was dark when we finally got to the campsite, but they’d all had enough practise with this camper than they were a finely oiled machine getting it all set-up.

The next day we started getting everything set up, plotting out our long weekend. We were staying in Cyprus Lake National Park. They had a campfire permit you buy with your reservation, that gives you access to unlimited firewood. Perfect! It was mostly cedar, and it was smokey wood. It burned warm and nice, when the fire was roaring, but when it wasn’t, it was smokey. Good to keep the bugs away though!

Dad drove up that morning, Saturday, to join us for the weekend! And he brought fresh donuts!

We got the campfire going a bit better while we had lunch, then decided to get a hike in.

Hiking

There are many trails in this National Park. Ontario’s 890km Bruce Trail runs through the park. And the biggest tourist spot is The Grotto. It is on the Georgian Bay shore. There is a shoreline cave there, along side a scenic piece of shoreline.

To get to the Grotto, we could hike right from our campsite, over to the shore of Cyprus Lake, around half the lake, and then to Georgian Bay.

It was a nice hike. Warm, beautiful weather. And crazy busy! I’d estimate that at least 80% of the campground population for the weekend were new Canadian immigrants, many from India. How neat to see them all becoming Canadian, and doing Canadian May 2-4 things, like camping and hiking! What a cultural difference from the Ontario of my childhood. So many languages to listen to.

I added 4 new birds to my new birdwatching life list on the weekend:

• Ovenbird
• American Redstart
• Red-eyed vireo
• Black-and-white warbler

My first and oldest niece, is now 17 years old!! Can you believe it!

Part way along the lake we found the Canadian National Park system red chairs like they have stashed in scenic places across the country.

What’s Dad taking a picture of?

Aw yes, that’s a snake. A red-bellied snake, if the built-in identification on my phone is right. It had the tiniest head (left side). The first girl in front of us that spotted it thought it was a big worm!

Dad and I got ahead of the rest of the pack, and it turns out they were delayed because they were watching a rattlesnake! Dad and I had a rattlesnake encounter years ago on the Bruce and were fine missing this one.

Before too long we were at the shore! From here it turned really rocky, but the Grotto is just 100 metres down the trail.

Busy place!

My patient Dad must have waited 20 minutes to take a picture of the cave without any people in this viewfinder!

I wandered up and down the rocks, trying to stay out of every body’s way.

Then I finally spotted Brian’s family down below.

And do what I do best, take pictures of Dad taking pictures.

We were probably here for an hour?

I got a little bored and wandered back up the trail, looking at the Bruce Trail info. I want to hike it some day! 890 kilometres, that’s doable, right?

See if you can spot Dad taking a picture, below:

Amazingly, there were two wheelchairs at the trailhead there, one here, and another down the trail a bit. Accessible hiking trails! Everyone can enjoy the outdoors!

I was sitting on a bench waiting for everyone to regroup eventually, and I saw Dad walk up. I just knew he was on his iPhone’s Find Friends app, looking for where I was. But I sat there staring at him until he finally looked up. tee he he.

Brian then found another route back to the campsite. It was much more rugged though, with all rocks on the shoreline stretch, so we ended up splitting up, with Leanne and Hadley backtracking to the accessible route, and the rest of us following the rock path.

Look at Dad! He worked all week already, painting at a client’s cottage up north on an island, then drove all the way back home, and then up north again to camping. What a busy guy!

This hike ended up being 7.5 kilometres, by the way. But the girls took a wrong turn on the way back. They hiked even further!

Our route took us by an indigenous artist’s mobile gallery. He was there and talked to us about his art for awhile.

After that hike, some of us were worn right out! Hadley crashed early that night. Brian, Leanne, Easton, and I started a game of Triple Yahtzee (that we took 2 days to finish), and Dad chilled by the fire.

Tobermory

After breakfast on Sunday, we headed into Tobermory to see the sights!

It was so busy!

We checked out every shop, and even did a little dress-up with hats in one of them!

For lunch, we went to a fish place and had fresh white fish and fries!

It was delicious!

In one of the shops, I fell in love with a pink Yeti thermos and made it mine.

Late in the afternoon we got back to the camp and Easton started the fire for us.

Dad made us corned beef hash for supper on his camp stove! I don’t think I’ve ever had it.

We spent the last night around the campfire, in the dark, looking at the stars, enjoying the fresh night air.

We really enjoyed this campground. The sites were large, with two picnic tables per site! The sites were quite private, well treed. But there weren’t outhouses everywhere. There was just one in our campground (there are 3 campgrounds in the park) and it was a modern outhouse, with foot pump flushing toilets and a shared little sink. But that meant it was a 2-3 minute walk to the toilet. There was no electricity, which was nice really. There wasn’t much cell service though. Also okay. And for the long weekend, they had an alcohol and cannabis ban, with quiet hours, and even no fires, expected after 11pm, to keep the park quiet. Nice!

It was sad to pack up on Monday. What a wonderful weekend. And when has Ontario ever had such nice weather for the May long? Usually it is cold and rainy!

The Cottage and Sandy Beach

We drove by our grandparent’s old cottage on the way home, at Old Woman’s River. It looks pretty good! Remember we drove by it about 10 years ago, and the previous owner to these ones let us come in and tour the place?

Here’s what it looked like in my childhood:

There was always a painting of the Bruce peninsula on the front rock!

Any visit to Old Woman’s River means you just have to go to the sandy beach. That’s what we called the community beach, where we spent so many afternoons as kids with our cousins. Brian and I spent all the time walking along our memory road and everyone else just came along and humoured us.

The beach is pretty much the same. The best natural sand anywhere. The water in Lake Huron was crystal clear, and calm. Brian and I just had to get out in it.

Awww yes, those are the sand riffles of my childhood.

I was so tempted to dive right in. The only thing that stopped me from diving in was the thought of sitting in that back third row seat of the minivan in wet clothes.

The Celtic sports camp, that uses the island across the river at the end of the beach, were there setting up for the season.

What a great trip down memory road! Thinking of Grandma Stock sitting up under the trees reading a book while we swam and dug sand castles. And of Grandpa Stock picking us up in his car, only if we got every speck of sand off of us! Or us cousins walking to the beach by ourselves, on the oiled gravel road. Or all the hours we spent fishing off the bridge. What a great afternoon!

Then we were off to drop me off in Listowel at my Mom’s house. After a stop at the Hanover McDonald’s for lunch, just like every other trip up to the Bruce in our childhood!

Now I’m at my Mom’s house, welcoming her cousins, some I haven’t seen in forever (or maybe ever?) who are arriving for this week’s events. Tomorrow is the big day, sending off Grandma Stock, on what would have been her 101st birthday.

More soon!