Favorites August 2018

The Sleeping Giant Provincial Park north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, this was a peaceful night of camping with loons to sing us to sleep. Camping is alive and well north of the border, we had some great chats with our neighbors, one of whom said they were from Mankato and couldn’t find available campsites in Minnesota so they just kept on driving and crossed the border into Canada to find a place. Hmm…no camping spots available in Minnesota, this was the first little indication that we might encounter an unplanned adventure the next day.

Sweet canoe paddle images within the boardwalk at a park south of Thunder Bay, it’s the details that can make one so happy.

After breaking camp at the Sleeping Giant we crossed the border into Minnesota and headed down along the lake to Grand Marais. Because the scenery was so beautiful in Canada we added an extra day to the travels, but this meant we were now crossing into the tourist-haven North Shore region on a Friday of the busiest, or maybe second busiest, weekend of the year.  Doh!  Nary a campsite was to be found for over 50 miles (and that one was unconfirmed), and no possibilities of hotels for over 100 miles….apparently planning ahead had not crossed our minds while we were toodlooing along in Ontario.

Fortunately for us we have friends in many places who are happy to host unexpected visitors. We stopped in at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais to check out their campus and try to locate our friend. This structure is from one of their timber framing classes, it will eventually be disassembled (each timber carefully labeled) and moved to a new home.

This is the outdoor wood-fired oven built by our good friend who rescued our sorry and totally unprepared butts from sleeping in the city park and getting arrested for vagrancy, the Ginger Breadman. Below is his no-messing-around hand mill to grind the grains for the bread. What amazing friends have we.

Favorites August 2018

NOPI—-a great find while in Ottawa, you’ll hear more about this later…

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Mashama Bailey Takes the Bus Station

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Gadgets and Tools…

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Zero Series by Anthony Howe

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Eat Flowers!

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Walk Labyrinths

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Tidbits from my bag obsession plus a fun one I adopted in Canada

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Incredible art of Chusen, and the crafts people of Edo Komon, making Kimono fabrics 

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Electric folding bikes from Montreal, and a Scooteretti Bionx conversion kit for your existing bike

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Super Buggers!

The door at the Angry Trout Cafe in Grand Marais, and their delectable white fish dinner on the deck overlooking Lake Superior. We even got to witness the kitchen staff jumping off the deck into the big lake during their breaks. I don’t know how many of you have ever even dipped your toes in “the big lake they call Gitche Gumee” but the temperature is generally in the 50’s…so a quick dip is one heck of a way to avoid smoking a cigarette during one’s kitchen break.

GASHKOZIN.

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NIIBAWIN.

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GIIGIDOON.

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Wake up. 

Stand up.

Speak up.

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..

~Ojibwe Language Work by Ashley Fairbanks