Canadian Wanderings

Random Thoughts and Pictures of the North Country

Aurora and Carina moored on the dock above the Narrows Lock, Rideau Canal.

Not the Only Americans

Maybe it’s our advertising that’s done it, but we’re used to thinking of ourselves as Americans -- the only Americans. We are Americans . . . and so are Canadians, Mexicans (gasp!), Central Americans and South Americans. When talking with Canadians, we’ve tried to be careful to say U.S. or States. We slipped this week at the grocery store, asking the clerk if the store took American money (because we are getting low on Canadian money). Whoops! Canadian money is American, too. We made a quick correction.

The $2 coin, called the toonie, was designed by someone in Campbellford. That’s the reason they have this larger-than-life monument to the toonie. Why's the coin called a toonie? Because the $1 coin is a loonie, for the loon shown on it. Campbellford is a nice town along the Trent-Severn Waterway with a chocolate factory across the canal. 

Safe Harbors for Canadian Animals

Carol and Rick on the powerboat Never Say Never, whom we met along the Trent-Severn, are animal lovers, especially Carol. She and Rick adopted their pets from Ontario pet shelters. Like in the U.S., homeless Canadian animals go to pet shelters. Unlike in the States, she told us that those shelters are no-kill shelters. We don’t know how no-kill shelters became the Canadian standard, but we admire them for it and wish the U.S. would do the same.

Yes, Canada geese are in Canada, too, not just Tennessee.

A Mix of Sun and Clouds with the Possibility of Rain

With no Internet service or smart phone apps, we depend on VHF radio and the Canadian version of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for daily weather. Yesterday we asked a lock master why the weather and forecasts were so different from home. When rain moved through at home, the next day was usually clear and sunny. Not so here, not lately. The lock master laughed and said that the weather had been really unusual in the area for the past few years. (We wish we had a dollar for every time we’ve heard those words on this trip.)

We asked about every day’s forecast being the same – “a mix of sun and clouds with the possibility of rain.” He laughed even more. “Can’t be wrong that way. Can he, eh?!”

The weather forecasters were right! It’s certainly a mix of sun and clouds with the possibility of rain here.

Talking About the Weather. . .

Mid-July in Quebec was blistering hot. Storms and cool fronts brought a break in the weather. Now each morning is cool – in the low 50s, we think – great sleeping weather, but we’re usually up and going by 6:30. We don’t really know the temperatures because they are given in Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. When it was really hot, the local weather said it was 30 degrees and higher in some places. Our U.S. minds weren’t impressed at the time. Now when they call for 10 degrees in the mornings, that gets our attention.

It’s August, and we have Polarfleece on.

Freezing Lakes and Locks

Outdoor activities are so different in Canada. In the summer, Canadians are outside every minute they can. They have such a short time to enjoy summer.

In the winter, the locks on the Canadian canals and waterway that we’re traveling through are drained. When the canals freeze over, some like the Rideau Canal below become a skate way that goes for miles and miles.

People from over Ontario come to
skate the Rideau Canal in the winter.

Ontario and Quebec boating season is late spring to early fall after the lakes have unfrozen. In the fall, boats are pulled from the water and stored on land over the winter. Docks – all of which are floating docks – are pulled from the water onto the banks for the winter. Marinas only operate the few months of warmth.

During Mike and Cindy’s 31st Anniversary get-together with several cruisers, we described Tennessee for them. We said that the water doesn’t freeze and the docks stay in place year-round. The thought was alien to the Canadians in the group and even to Mike and Cindy who are from Minnesota. We are so lucky to live in a place where we can sail and be outdoors comfortably for most of the year.

You can’t get much clearer than this sign on the Trent-Severn Waterway. 

Canadians and cigarette boats

Most likely you’ve seen a long flashy power boat that sounds like the mufflers were left off. Their roars will put your hearing out.  Those cigarette boats are everywhere on the eastern Canada waterways, usually driven by people from Quebec. For three days, we locked through the Rideau Canal with two cigarette boats. By the third day, they were helping us with our lines in the rain. We were waving to them as they roared by us. We didn’t speak French, nor did they speak English, but we communicated.

Okay, true confessions: we got a kick out of them roaring by, then meeting them two hours later at the next lock where they’d waited to lock-through. It’s the boating version of the tortoise and the hare.

Here's a prime example of a cigarette boat. Why the Mystery Machine 

has Scooby-Doo on it is a mystery to us. 

The Hospitality of Canadians

Our first night in Canada at a very French-speaking marina, we met Pierre who offered to take us to the nearest town to provision the following day.

At the same marina, Michel (a guy, pronounced like Michelle) talked with us for a long time about how to navigate through the St. Lawrence Seaway around Montreal. He even offered us dock space at his yacht club in Montreal if we were able to stop.

Out looking for a restaurant, Mike on Aurora met Cathy, a retired school teacher in Kars, near Ottawa. She took the lot of us to the Red Dot Café in the next village where we had excellent food and companionship. She was a teacher of mentally challenged children for the last 15 years of her career and loved those children. Maybe that explains why she took us cruisers under her wing.

A mist rose, along with the sun, at Kars, Ontario.

We hope that we in the U.S. are as helpful to travelers as Canadians have been to us. We feel certain we’re as interesting to them as they are to us.

The beautiful wooded scenery we're starting to see along the Trent-Severn Waterway.