Thunder Bay Day 2

We spent two nights in Thunder Bay not so much because we felt we had to spend more time in town, but more because we wanted a day off from driving. Our plan for the day was first to get out to Kakabeka Falls to see the falls and hike a bit. In preparation for that we walked over to the Maltese Grocery, a short walk from the hotel. We'd read that they did made-to-order sandwiches at their deli and we wanted to get some to take to the falls.

The market was great: very friendly staffed and stocked with a bunch of interesting stuff. We got our sandwiches, some chips, and a soup mix to take home. Then back to the hotel to fetch the car for the drive out to the falls. It was still early-ish when we arrived, so we beat some of the crowds (such as they are in Thunder Bay in June). We checked out the falls from one side then walked across the bridge to the other side where we had a decent hike through the woods. I got a bunch of birds on the walk, mostly eastern warblers that we don't get in California. That was nice!

After the hike we broke out our sandwiches and had lunch at a picnic table outside the visitor center. Then it was back to the hotel to chill for a bit.

We didn't have much of a plan for the afternoon, but we read up on a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that is now a museum ship in the harbor and figured we'd check that out. We walked down there, which turned out to be a longer walk than we'd imagined, largely due to construction happening along the waterfront. We did make it, and checked in at the very basic admissions desk. We waited a few minutes for our guide, then took the tour of the ship. It was just us on the tour, and the guide was the person primarily in charge of restoring the ship and making it a proper museum. He was full of all kinds of interesting information, and we really enjoyed the tour. Our weather karma held out as a brief rainstorm passed over as we were inside the ship. Had we been on our walk to or from the ship we would have gotten a good drenching.

After the tour we hoofed it back to the hotel and considered dinner options. We'd read about how Finnish pancakes are a Thing in Thunder Bay, so we looked for a place that served them all day. Our first target turned out to be closed, apparently for good. So we tried another place that was connected to a sauna (the Finnish theme there, I suppose). While the sauna was open, the restaurant had closed at 3:00 PM. So we were out of luck. We searched the map and found an Italian place not far away. It turned out to be a bit nicer than we were dressed for, but they were nice about it. The food was excellent!

After that it was back to the hotel, where a wedding was getting underway. This is where a hotel in a building that was not designed as a hotel can work not so well. In "normal" hotels, the guest rooms and the event spaces are separated, usually on different floors. Well here the event space was the old courtroom and our room was directly across the hall. And not well insulated. So we were treated to all the noise of an active wedding until after midnight. I thought this was pretty poor, but we just adopted a grin and bear it attitude and did our best.Read more