The Ontario Bust

Hey y'all, it's your boy Felix again.

We made it to Ontario....... and we can't leave quick enough.

It's only been a week or so since the last update, and unfortunately we have decided that being in Ontario, Canada, does not bring us joy. So after only a few days, we're leaving. In fact, we're gonna leave Canada and start heading towards the north east area of USA.

Ever since we started traveling I have been very excited to see the Great Lakes, and I imagined we would spend many weeks on the Canadian side enjoying it.

I feel like we really tried to make it work, but we ran into enough problems that finally we called it quits.

To focus on some the reasons we left:

• Weather - Hot and humid, when it wasn't raining of course.
• Access - Found out land management and access issues are out of control here. Locals are being very protective of their land and do not want climbers, or tourists around. I bought a guidebook for the area, only to find out half of the areas are closed. The popular areas require reservations many days/weeks in advance, and some of them are only 4 hour parking passes.
• Money - This area seems determined to suck every penny out of you. Hefty National and Provincial parks passes. Most areas are pay to park (even after you bought the entrance pass). Campsites often start at $50USD/night. "Cheap" motels at least three times as much.
• Not vanlife friendly - There is a very limited selection of places to stay the night, and those few places are far away from the acton. Additionally, we read many reports online about vandalism and theft from vanlifers, who happened to interact with the locals. Reports also stated big fines without warning in basically the whole peninsula for parking in the wrong place.

I'm sure there are incredible views, climbs, and experiences in the Bruce Peninsula (the area north west of Toronto), but the area is unbelievably unfriendly to travelers. We are also deciding to skip Toronto. Big cities are hard in the van. I think getting our bikes stolen in the last city we were in really put a damper on our city mood too.

BUT!

Let's focus on some good things! We stopped at many very pleasant areas, and down below I'll try and capture what we've been up to!

After Edmonton we stopped by Elk Island National Park just outside of town.

We didn't see any Elk, but we both saw our first Buffalo, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the lake.

After the park, we spent the next days driving. 

Canada is big.... driving through Saskatchewan and Manitoba took up most of our days. We tried to stop and enjoy a good workout, and view once in a while.

Haha what a bunch of nerds!!! Matching shirts for our long road trip.

Just lungin'

This is pretty much what all of Saskatchewan looked like.

Comment below what you think is growing here.

Saskatchewan is known as "the land of the living skies". This picture really doesn't do it justice but we had incredible cloud formations the entire drive. Loved it!

But..... all those clouds lead so something else.

If Saskatchewan is "the land of the living skies", then Manitoba is the land of "oh $h*t, of f***, I think the sky is gonna kill us".

You may think that the scariest moment of our trip will be climbing something crazy somewhere, I think it will be driving through Manitoba. The skies of Saskatchewan turned dark in Manitoba. Rain started pouring like I've almost never seen it before, you couldn't even see out the windshield. Tornado warnings showed up on our cellphones, just in time for our reception to cut out. All other cars on the highway had disappeared, and lighting was striking several times a second, literally all around us.

Megan was worried about flash flooding, I was worried about getting struck by lighting and crashing. The worst part was that we were driving on an elevated freeway, without even a bush anywhere in sight. We were the highest point for miles and miles, in the middle of a thunderstorm. We didn't speak much, just the occasional curse words, and words of encouragement "sure would be silly to die here". Megan was driving and I was trying to navigate. We finally made it to a town and made an emergency exit and stayed the night. We woke up alive, and continued our drive.

We stopped somewhere random and Megan did a great job trimming my beard. Before/After shot below.

Megan is digging the pony tail, so I try to rock it sometimes

Finally we made it to Ontario!

The western part of Ontario, along the great lakes, was actually very nice and beautiful. Unfortunately, it wasn't blessed with rocks. So we didn't stay in one place for more than a few hours.

This is lake Superior. It might as well have been the pacific coast. Impressive!

We found a nice trail to hike

Random lookout spot that we stopped at

This guy did some impressive stuff. Terry Fox. Ran across a lot of Canada with one leg while battling cancer. His fight raised a lot of money for cancer research.

Finally a table that can handle our appetite!

 Found ourselves at a lovely spot to hang out at until sunset, so we took lots of pictures!

We found a great morning spot too!

I was SHOCKED, at how nice this town called Sudbury was. If it had better climbing we would have stayed much longer.

Incredible lake and boardwalk/trail

Megan and I comparing form. Straight v rounded back

We managed to find some climbing by the water

Approached beta includes using big sticks to jump across floating docks.

Accidentally punched a frog in the face while climbing. That's what happens when you're climbing next to a lake

Frizzy!

Wild post climbing treats

Near Sudbury bouldering

After that we kept driving to what seems like the heart of Ontario. Toronto, the Bruce Peninsula, and the Niagara escarpment in between. We were able to fit in one day of climbing. Here's proof.

We spent an afternoon in a town called Owens Sounds to prep for the craziness of the Peninsula.

Finally finished my first book of the trip! "Viking Economics"

Aaaaaaand then, for the reasons we talked about in the beginning, we decided to leave instead.

Next up is Niagara falls and then back into USA and upstate New York. Exciting!

Ok. Since we are leaving Canada, here's my Canadian hot takes:

•     Small Canadian parks are incredible. Large Canadian parks are awful.
• We stopped by so many city and county parks that blew us away. Incredible additions to the areas they were located in, many with great ocean/lake views, grassy fields, beaches, large trees, boardwalks etc.
• Large parks seem very poorly designed. For such big areas, they sure have designed it to only work for a small amount of people.
• Canadian truckers are somehow even worse than you thought.
• I know your expectation for Canadian truckers were literally at rock bottom.... but go ahead and lower them even more. They were absolutely terrible. Imagine a young, reckless, Ferrari driver breaking all common sense and safety rules... now imagine semi trucks doing that. Speeding, passing on blind turns, cutting people off, tailgating. In the past I have given credit to American truck driver's and I'll do it again. American truck drivers are amazing, don't take it for granted!
• Squamish
• Squamish is the best place on the planet.
• Bruce peninsula
• No thanks. Y'all wanna make nice place shitty. Go ahead. I'm glad we didn't spend any time or money there.

        

And to end it all... please enjoy this picture of some of the incredible food we're cooking up, but more importantly.... How do y'all feel about Megan peeling an avocado and eating it like an apple? Please comment below..... I need answers.