Sunday October 9th

We'd had a gorgeous sunset and a clear night, and by morning we were down to freezing, with a heavy frost all around us. We stayed on the gravel roads through farming country to Amos. We called Dale and Caroline from there to get directions to John and Pat's place in South Porcupine. We found out that this was Canada's Thanksgiving Day and that everyone would be at "the cottage" for thanksgiving dinner. We hadn't intended intruding on their family day but now we were committed. Dale gave me directions to the cottage, which is at Half Moon Bay, their camping resort, and also to his sister Jill's place in case they went there. We hoped to get there by mid-afternoon.

There is an interesting road that goes 500 miles north from Amos all the way to Chisasibi, on James Bay, the southerly end of Hudson Bay. The road was built to service the Baie James hydro project. However, October is no time to be visiting Hudson Bay so we filed that road away for a future trip.

We drove into Aiguebelle national park for lunch. This was a good choice for scenery as it's very different from the surrounding flatland: steep hills, deep lakes, and tumbling cascades. It was a poor choice for speed because of the bad, rocky roads, very slow going, and we were going to get to John and Pat's later than we'd hoped. We saw no one on our way into the park and were surprised to find the parking lot nearly full with families having picnics and hiking the trail system. We didn't know if this was some kind of Thanksgiving Day tradition or just a lot of the locals taking advantage of a sunny October Day.

We left the park and crossed from Quebec into Ontario, and made up some time as there were no towns for 60 miles. There were hunters here too, so it must be dangerous times for Ontario moose too. We were going to stop and make tea at a rest area on the Porcupine River, but I missed the entrance amongst the road works and we drove down to the opposite bank instead. We were quickly surrounded by vehicles and asked to move on for our own safety. We were on land owned by one of the mining companies and we'd driven into the middle of a labour dispute. One of the drivers filmed our exit as we returned to the road. A few miles up there was a big confrontation in progress at the entrance to the smelter, with lines of trucks and police cars.

From there on we were in mining country, with large holes in the ground and smokestacks on the horizon. The land around here is rich in copper, silver, and gold, and has been mined for many years. We drove through Timmins, a large town that sprawls along the highway.

Monday October 10th

We drove back into Timmins, emptied our tanks, filled up with water and soup and donuts, and headed north to Cochrane. Monday was a holiday, part of the Thanskgiving weekend, so there was little truck traffic.