Day 18: The Canadian Shield

Yesterday dawned cool and crisp, but sunny. After checking out of my motel in Sault Ste. Marie, MI I topped off the gas tank with (relatively) inexpensive American fuel (just $3.57 a gallon) and then headed for the border. Going through customs was a snap. There were only about four cars ahead of me, and each of us only took perhaps two or three minutes to be cleared to enter Canada. Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario is much larger than its sister city just across the river (about 70,000 versus only 15,000). I stopped at the Bush Plane Museum, but just to take photos looking south to Michigan along the waterfront. I made a couple quick stops (a grocery store and a McDonald's, both mostly to get some Canadian change) and was then on my way east on Canada Hwy 17.

I had a hotel reservation in Mattawa (pronounced "Matt'-uh-wuh"), over 500 km (300 miles) to the east, so I tried to limit my stops for the day. I did take time, though, to photograph my surroundings here and there to highlight characteristic physical and cultural landscapes of Ontario. The cultural landscape (places modified by human activities) in most areas was dominated by agriculture. Ontario and Quebec are the two core provinces of Canada, containing most of its people and industries, and also its best farmland. This is actually the southernmost part of Canada (look carefully at a map), even where I was traveling in the more central inhabited parts of the province. I was mostly just north of the 46th parallel all day, or about the same latitude as Astoria, OR. Hay, corn, dairy cattle, and other livestock were common sights. Farming, logging, and mining are three of the principal economic activities.

The physical landscape was dominated by the obvious effects of continental ice sheets that scoured the area thousands of years ago. The name for this landform region is the Canadian Shield. This is where the bedrock lies near the surface, often exposed and only covered in many areas by a relatively thin veneer of soil. Many of the exposed rocks were polished smooth from the grinding action of the thick glaciers that moved over them. On top of this are extensive forests, extending to the horizon. Mostly it is a mixed forest of needleleaf evergreen trees (pine, spruce, and fir, for example) and broadleaf deciduous trees (maple, poplar, and aspen, for example). Extensive (but rather shallow) lakes also dot the region, since the ice sheets scoured out many depressions that are now filled with water. The day can best be summed up as rocks, water, and trees!

Waterfront view from Bush Plane Museum in Sault Ste. Marie, ON.

Looking across the river to the Tower of History that I visited the day before.

Looking west, about 25 miles east of Sault Ste. Marie on Canada Hwy 17.

An inlet of Lake George.

Bird viewing area along Pumpkin Point Road near Lake George.

Tree farm, gravel pit, and forest along Hwy 17.

Exposed bedrock of the Canadian Shield.

Note the smoothness of the top due to glacial scouring. It's polished as smooth as glass here.

One of the many small roadside lakes.

Looking south across Lake Nipissing just west of North Bay, ON.

Sunset from my hotel room in Mattawa.

Le Voyageur Inn, Mattawa, ON. I highly recommend this place! It's an old hotel that has been very tastefully updated inside and was a great value. The Thai food in the restaurant was excellent also (see next photo).

Singapore Noodle with chicken and Canada Dry ginger ale -- Thai and Canadian food!

Lobby of the hotel.

The room was huge, and the bathroom almost the size of another room.