Canada Trip - Day 9 Highlights

C's friends were gracious enough to let us stay at their place again before we headed back to the Island. Before we left, the husband took us on yet another quick tour of Ottawa.

One of the original uses of this ornate building was housing farm animals for exhibits (circa mid to late 1850's)...

And because we weren't able to stop at C's favorite bagel place in Montreal, her friend's husband took us to a local place that did it "Montreal style"...


Bagels are formed by hand, boiled, placed on the long wooden plank and placed into the oven. When they're done, they are slid out and dumped into the large bin. The most popular and classic flavors are sesame and poppy.

C and her husband bought 4 dozen to take home and freeze. Bert and I just got a half dozen. Here are a few of them: onion, sesame, blueberry and cranberry. Note the bagels are smaller and thinner than the gross monstrous size bagels they serve here on the West Coast. The bagels also taste much "lighter" and they have large holes rather than the pumped up ones with a tiny little hole in the middle.

Our trek home would be eight hours of driving. Because we stopped off at points in between, it was a little over an eight hour drive.

Here are some circular bales of hay for your viewing pleasure. I'd never seen them round before, just the rectangular bales.

During a pitstop at the Tim Horton's in Deep River, a concerned motorist told us that several brake lights were out on the mini van. Luckily, the Canadian equivalent of Home Depot, Canadian Tire was just next door:

We passed by Mattawa again. I was able to snap a few pictures of their larger than life wooden statues scattered throughout the town. There are about 12 to 14 of these and they depict famous settlers of the region. Who was this guy? I don't know but check out that hot yellow muscle car!

I was dozing on and off during the trip when I was awakened by C who exclaimed, "Hey, wake up! You need to take a photo of this! (see below)".  This was the original house of the Dion quintuplets, who were born in 1934 but were taken away from their parents by the Canadian government to be exhibited as a "tourist attraction" (how unethical by today's standards). This town was not the original town of their birth. A quick search on wikipedia showed that the original abode was moved several times before being placed here. Multiple births were an extreme rarity back then especially when all five of the girls survived. Compare that to nowadays with all of these stars having twins (JLo, Brangelina, Julia Roberts, etc)...

Alas, we were at a stoplight and didn't have time to stop in, and it didn't look open so on we went.

As mentioned earlier, we made a few stops along the way for bathrooms breaks. This stop was at...(don't laugh), the Wal-Mart in North Bay.

I had to stock up on Canadian candies and snacks. I also saw this...

I bought one of the Kam's, so I will let you all know how it compares to Spam!
An empty magazine rack seen on the way out of Wal-Mart. It caught my eye. Can you see why?

Pronounced as "Nih puh-sing" (accent on the first syllable). Of course, I thought it was, "Nih-Pissing" (accent on the second syllable). Nipissing is a township in central Ontario, near the Nipissing Lake in Parry Sound. Nipissing is an Algonquin word that means "Big Lake". There is also a Nipissing University.

The Domtar Paper Mill in Espanola (1 hour away from the Island):

Can you believe the sun doesn't set til after 9:45? It still doesn't get dark until 11 pm.

The Swing Bridge at Little Current; only one of two that are in current use in Ontario. The middle section swings 180 degrees on the hour every hour to let boats and other watercraft pass through. Once you cross the bridge, you are on the Island (the north end).

Sorry it's a little blurry...

Tomorrow would be our last full day on the Island before returning home to S.D. the next morning....