Canada - North Channel - August 2006
The North Channel runs along the northwester portion of Lake Huron. It stretches from the town of Killarney the eastern end to Thessalon on it's western end and is bordered by Manitoulin Island to the south.
We found the North Channel to be a bit easier to navigate than the Georgian Bay. The channels for the most part are wider and the rocks larger, and therefore a bit easier to see. The anchorages are spectacular deep water bays surrounded by massive granite rocks and walls.
This is a picture of Tardis anchored in Covered Portage Cove, which was our first anchorage upon entering the North Channel. We hiked to the top of the granite rocks for the spectacular view of the bay and our tiny floating home below.
These are a couple of other pictures we took of Covered Portage during our hike. It was a bit cold and rainy that day - hence the rain jackets.
This is a picture of Tardis in Covered Portage taken from the dinghy.
Our next anchorage was in Baie Fine - which is a very long and narrow fjord-like passage bordered by tall granite walls. The anchorage is known as 'the Pool' and is a lovely tiny bay located at the end the Baie Fine. The first picture shows the granite walls on the way in. The second is of Tardis at anchor in 'the Pool.'
Climbing the rocks above Baie Fine leads to Topaz Lake. This is a favorite place to go swimming, and sure enough we found a family up there in the water.
It's also a great place to hunt for and pick blueberries. City slickers that we are, we had to ask a couple of people what a blueberry bush looks like. It was late in the season when we were there, and most of the bushes had been pretty well picked over. We did find some a bit off the beaten path and were able to pick enough to do blueberry pancakes for the morning. Blueberry bushes are tiny bushes - low to the ground and wiry. I'm standing like a giant in the middle of a wild blueberry patch below. Wild blueberry are tiny in comparison to the ones found in the store, but each one is bursting with flavor.
This is the view of the Baie Fine anchorage from our berry picking vantage point. Getting close to the edge and peering through the trees, we could just about make Tardis out in the anchorage below.
Strawberry Island Lighthouse - which we passed on the way to the town of Little Current.
We saw the first of these these two tall ships as we neared Strawberry Island and the town of Little Current. They are the Playfair (the blue ship) and the Pathfinder (the white ship). They both belong to an organization that runs summer sail training programs for teenagers. The picture of Pathfinder was taken in Little Current as she was leaving. There is a line running from the bow to the dingy off on the right hand side of the picture. It seems Pathfinder's engine wasn't working, so they used the dingy to pull her out of port and point her nose up into the wind to get the sails up.
We met up with the crew of Pathfinder a few days later. We were anchored in Clapperton Harbor and we had just had a storm pass over. It was late - about 8 or 9 PM and getting dark, when a dingy without any lights came running up past our boat. We were trying to figure out who'd be out running a dingy late at night without lights, when they came up to our boat and stopped. It seems they were off the Pathfinder and they were running the kids up to shore for some sort of evening party. Unfortunately, they hadn't paid attention to their fuel gauge on the dink - so they ended up running out of gas, right next to us. They asked if we had any gas they could have. Fortunately, we'd just filled up our dingy gas tank in little current - so we had plenty to spare. Trouble was, we couldn't find an easy way to transfer it over to their tank. Jeremy unclipped the tank and passed it down to them together with a funnel and a flashlight. That didn't work out - so I ended up giving them my turkey baster which they used to transfer the gas - a tiny basterfull at a time. The poor baster ended up disintegrating, but not before they were able to get enough gas to get them going again. They thanked us - apologizing for everything including the baster. I didn't care about that. I figured once I donated it to the cause I wasn't about to start using it on any turkey's again! At any rate, it seemed they were able to get back to their boat OK. They must have come back again sometime in the night to visit us again, though. We found two beautiful heavy sweatshirts embroidered with their ship's emblem in our dink in the morning.
We took our dingy over in the morning to thank them for the sweatshirts. On the way back, we passed this decrepit looking building on one of the islands. It turns out that is used to be the Harbour Island Yacht and Fishing Club - a very swank resort on the island that opened in the late 1930s catering mostly to wealthy American executives. It closed during WW II, but reopened again in 1949 and ran in full swing until 1962 when the untimely death of the owner caused the resort to close once again. It's been renovated and reopened a couple of times since - once in 1970 and once in 1979, but the difficulties of running a resort on a remote island proved too difficult and the resort finally closed its doors for good. The second picture is of one of the guest cabins near the main building. The place is currently up for sale - if anyone's looking for a 'fixer-upper' out on a remote Canadian island in need of a lot of TLC.
Our next stop took us to the Benjamin Islands. These are a cluster of pink granite islands clustered a bit to the north of Clapperton Island. It's interesting approaching them, since all of the other islands in the area are of the light grey granite and snow-white quartz like we say in Covered Portage and Baie Fine. The first picture was taken approaching the Benjamins.
These pictures were taken once we'd entered the Benjamin islands. The granite is much smoother and very pink. The trees are quite literally sprouting out of tiny crevices in the granite, where just enough soil has accumulated to support them.
This is a picture looking out across the anchorage in the Benjamins toward the way in. We picked our way in to the left of those big rocks out in the distance - known as the Sow and Pigs islands.
We were out hiking, when Jeremy decided to do his rendition of "Top Hat, White Cane and Tails." Ba-dum CHA!! OK, maybe he shouldn't quit his day job. Wait, I guess it's a bit late for that....
I found this lovely pool in the rocks. Just needed to be a bit warmer for me to want to take a dip.
After leaving the Benjamins, we headed south for a bit to the town of Kagawong. It's known for two things, Bridal Veil Falls and the lovely Church of St. John the Evangelist - also known as Mariner's Church.
This is a picture of the inside of St. John's church. The church includes a memorial pulpit that was made from the bow of a 26-foot Chris Craft that ran aground and broke up in a storm. The family all donned life jackets and tied themselves together waiting to be rescued. Sadly, the children died within hours from the cold water soon followed by their mother and another adult. Two persons survived the wreck. The boat was recovered a week later and the bow is now a memorial pulpit in the church.
Kagawong does not have any restaurants, unless you count this amazing little take out stand. They sell wonderful German food - I had jaeger snitzel and Jeremy had the sausages and sauerkraut. Most excellent! We also got a side order of poutine. This is a Canadian dish which consists of hand-cut fries smothered in gravy and melted mozzarella cheese. It looks as weird as it sounds - but tastes really wonderful. I think it would be especially good on a cold winter night.
Last, but not least, we found Lady Godiva prancing on her horse next to one of the houses in Kagawong. It seems a few years back the village chiefs in Kagawong ordered the cutting of some stately timber trees growing between the main road and the bay in order to provide a better view of the bay. Some of the cottagers took offense and wanted to protest, but how? Back in the 11th century Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through the streets to protest the higher taxes her husband, Earl Leofrie, was about to impose. Worked for her - so the villagers got together with artist J. A. Gordon of Kagawong and painted the lady shown below.
Updated August 26, 2006