Shuniah and Thunder Bay 2

Tomorrow is our last day in peaceful Shuniah. The word Shuniah comes from a local Indigenous Ojibwa word "zhooniyaa" for "silver", supposedly associated with the mining of silver in the 19thC. But I think the place was called Shuniah because of the silver lights on Lake Superior here in the morning and afternoon - as Donovan wrote, here, there are “diamonds in the sea”. Tomorrow we will concentrate on washing clothes, packing and generally preparing to leave early on the 17th. We will be on the road for the following four days ( three motel nights) before we arrive in Ottawa where we have an Airbnb for four nights. Anyway that’s the logistics of travelling such vast distances by road. So far so good.
The photos in this post cover yesterday and today. Yesterday we walked to Mackenzie Point. And today we drove to Kakabeka Falls, “the Niagara of the North”. They are very impressive but nothing like Niagara! After that we went into Thunder Bay. The place was very quiet but nice to wander around the new Marine Park area and take a clear shot of the Sleeping Giant. After a little food shopping we returned home.
Two observations by me here about Thunder Bay, which might be better called Shop Paddock. This is the most spread out city I have ever seen - you simply couldn’t live here without a car as there is very little public transport. Acres and acres of quite ugly huge shops, businesses and banks. The place does not seem to have a centre. There are many parks but they are connected by ugly passages of capitalist wasteland. Too harsh perhaps but it’s such a contrast to Shuniah! The other observation is perhaps related to not having a centre, this is that there are very few cafes. And the expresso coffee we have managed to locate is weak and without flavour. Nevertheless we have been very grateful for the lovely rest here. It’s been simply grand!Leggi altro