Well, no one came knocking on our door last night to ask us to move, and the Rangers didn't seem to bother stopping each time they did their rounds. So we enjoyed last night and this morning at the beautiful Chippewa. Jonathan made pancakes and the kids worked diligently on their birch bark boats and miniature drums with the bark bits they found by the trail last night. It was windy and overcast this morning and a swim was no longer looking inviting. We pulled out at 11:45am, used the sani at the campground on the way out. Kids spent more time entertaining themselves on the drive by drawing more tattoos on each other's arms and legs with felt pen (they started in Kenora). Oliver had a full sleeve by the end of the day! 😅 Our destination had been decided... I had managed to get a booking at a Dairy Farm just outside Thunder Bay at Slate River. Wilma sounded very lovely and welcoming, and it felt good to use another Harvest Host! :)
Saw a sign that said 160km to Thunder Bay! yay! Also a very cool sign that proclaimed, "All Streams here on now flow to the Atlantic Ocean" which was kinda cool to note! at 2pm (3pm Thunder Bay time) we rolled into Thunder Bay, Ontario. We stopped in the town at the Walmart to load up on groceries and get water at the local sani station where everyone was in line to dump after a long weekend of camping.
5:10pm Thunder Bay time (we crossed a time zone) we rolled into the grounds of the Slate River Dairy Farm and parked in front of one of the two picnic tables. I texted Wilma to advise we had arrived, as it was just after their usual work hours. Wilma's daughter was in the back of the shop working when Jonathan peeked in through the glass doors. She helped sign us in and give us the rules and wifi info, etc. She recommended visiting the falls and Oliver Lake. We bought two kinds of cheese (herb and plain mozza/chedder) a half litre of chocolate milk and 2L of regular homo milk fresh from their farm. We were disappointed to learn that we would not be able to enter the section of the farm to see any of the cows or the processes of the farm due to bio-security, but the grounds were nice and the life-size cow statue was a fun substitute. Stella the shep/lab-x looking dog wandered over to say a shy and sweet hello.
Another small RV showed up soon after... a lovely couple from Stratford ON named Kim and Conroy. They were travelling over the Vancouver from Stratford! We exchanged some stories and found out that they were attending a family reunion of sorts organized by Wilma (dutch dairy farmer) and Conroy had some distant cousins that lived locally and he'd never met before.
Wilma, the farmer, came by to say hello and introduce herself and she amicably answered all our "cow" and Milk processing questions. She was so lovely! Her other little jack russell, Tucker, wandered over as well to say hi and stuck around after Wilma left.
Our neighbours had to duck into town for some supplies and so we agreed to chat more in the morning. It was only a few minutes later that a red sedan pulled up and a grandfather, daughter/son-in-law and grandson hopped out smiling and approached us as we were eating dinner. They thought that we might be their family they were meeting! We had a nice chat explaining that we were not the distant cousins, and learned that the daughter & fam were from Winnipeg and out visiting the dad. Nice chats and they were intrigued by our journey we were on. Wilma popped back out again, this time dressed in her regular clothes and no food-safe hairnet. She told us about the little green bugs (Star of the Show), and also to watch out for ticks if we walked in the brush or long grass across the other field. Ticks kinda freak me out, I'll be honest.
Amelia enjoyed sitting and sketching the cow statue out in the little grassy field, with lots of kisses and snuggles from Stella the dog. Very cute.
After our taco dinner, the kids and I sat on our picnic blanket and played the new trivia game I bought in Winnipeg... Professor Noggin's History of Canada. It was a fun game and made it quite easy to learn some neat historical facts... some of which we had learned at the Manitoba Museum just recently, which was cool. I like this game and think it would be a good one for school (my homeschooling for the next few months, as well as the classroom!).
Hard to get a good photo of the beautiful lakes we saw along the highway drive.
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