Mont Tremblant

I think the last week here is a bit of a mistake. The trees have all lost their leaves. It started by raining and having a howling gale (we lost power and internet several times). Then yesterday it looked good for a couple of hours, so I went out, only to be driven back by sleet. It has been snowing today (not much, there has been rain most of the time), and tomorrow is predicted to rain, so any snow will go away, and I will be able to catch my flight home on Friday. It is colder here than it was just about the whole time I was in Greenland. I did take a walk at one stage before the weather turned, and took a couple of photos, and the view of the lake is from my balcony.

Diefenbunker Museum

During the Cold War, Canada must have felt like the meat in the sandwich - being situated between the Soviet Union and the USA. So they built a number of bunkers for their politicians and others that would withstand a nuclear bomb a kilometre away. The Diefenbunker near Ottawa has been turned into a museum, and you can wander through its four floors and get throughly lost. The rooms include equipment from the bunkers such as teletypes, furniture... The rooms are mocked up in their original purpose. And it is a place worthy of Get Smart.

I got lost on the way to the museum and went a lot further on, so I visited another closed park - Fitzroy Provincial Park, which is on the Ottawa River and even has a beach.

Rideau Canal

Early on, the St Lawrence River wasn’t easy to navigate, so a canal system was built from Ottawa to Kingston. The Rideau river starts at Ottawa (it’s a tributary of the Ottawa River) and goes for a fair distance toward Kingston, and there are several lakes that were also used. The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is the oldest slack water canal system in North America still in use. It was originally built for the military but quickly started to be used by everyone. Today many people use it for recreational purposes. I visited the locks at Poonamalie, Smith’s Falls Detached (where there is also a Railway bridge that tilts, and the Rideau Canal Museum which was closed), Smith’s Falls Combined, Old Slys (where there is a genealogical museum that was eventually open), and Edmunds. There are also two road bridges that rotate out of the way of boats going down the canal.

Kingston and Fort Henry

Kingston is where the St Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario. It was once the capital of Canada, but after its citizens decided to build a town hall in keeping with its status, it was promptly replaced by Montreal. In keeping with its military importance, there was a huge fort (Fort Henry) built here to ensure the USA didn’t expand here. Unfortunately as it is October, most of the fort was shut, but I visited it anyway.

I took a cruise along the St Lawrence river to see the 1000 Islands, which include some artificial ones as well as several that are parks. The day was dry, and the autumn colours were nice. It was interesting to see all the small forts along the river, and understand that the relationship between Canada and the USA was not always cordial.

Chief Sitting Bull

The Royal Ontario Museum has a really interesting collection of Native American artifacts, including some amazing beading. But the items I was most astounded by were the war regalia of Chief Sitting Bull. I have included pictures of the headdress, shoes and tunic. How did these things end up in Ontario? Evidently he lead his tribe to Canada after the defeat of Custer, and asked for them to be accepted into Canada. Although Canada agreed, eventually almost all of them were sent back to the USA and once back there, Sitting Bull was killed and most of them died of hunger.

I also visited the house where LM Montgomery lived after her husband died and she moved to Toronto. There is a plaque in the park near the house. As the house is not a museum, Canada closed most of the street instead.

M

Lake Erie

During the weekend, I got up early and went to visit Lake Erie, the last of the Great Lakes.

Weekend Camp

I spent the weekend at a camp that some friends had organised. It was healed at a place where they have kids with cancer to give them and their families a break. Although the accomodation was fairly basic, the place was gorgeous and included its own lake. There were about seventy of us there, and the conversations lasted all night around the campfire. It was exciting to meet people who I had contacted through the internet. Almost everyone there had exchanged information with me already.