Kincardine to Midland, Midland to Algonquin

We had passed a small turning that said Kincardine Hiking trail on our way to supper last night so we decided to check it out before we set off for Midland; a town on a small peninsula jutting out into Lake Huron; where we wanted to go on a boat tour of the 30,000 islands.

The hiking trail was absolutely amazing, it was a locally maintained path through a wooded valley along a small river (the type you would expect to find in Scotland or Wales with big boulders and stony beaches on the inside of the river bends). Tristan learnt to skim stones and we wandered for over an hour through the woods looking at brightly coloured yellow finch like birds, an amazing variety of plants and marvelling at this unspoilt valley in the middle of the town. Unfortunately our camera battery went flat as we tried to take our first pictures so we are unable to share the beauty with you.

Then again we drove northwards along the dead straight roads. They are loosing their interest now (especially with a speed limit of 80kmh, about 50mph), but we do always go 'wow' when we see the road stretching off to the horizon. We passed through the Blue Mountains on the way where there is a big skiing resort, so in the winter the locals must spend their time on the slopes and then in the summer they have the lake to do all sorts or water sports... seems idyllic.

We got to Midland just around 5pm and went to an information office. The last boat tour of the day was at 4:15, so we had just missed it, but they gave us lots of other information on the area and some discount vouchers for motels.
We set ourselves up in the Super8 and then went to eat at a local steak house with yet more HUGE portions of food (no wonder there are quite a few fat Canadians around!)

The next day it was pouring with rain, I went to do some laundry and tried to read my book but the thunderstorm was so close and so loud that it was impossible not to watch the rain smashing down, each drop rebounded about 8cm in the air making the ground just look like a frothing whirlpool bath. We decided to give the 10:30am boat ride a miss and went to look at one of the other places that the Info assistant had told us about called Sainte Marie among the Hurons. The first western (French)settlement in the region. It was founded by Jesuit priests in 1639, they called the local Indian tribe the Huron (that is where Lake Huron gets its name) because they had spiked hair that reminded them of a type of pig called Huron (in French); but the Indian name for themselves is the Wendat. The area was then known as New France and there were about 60 Frenchmen living here; Jesuit priests, volunteer craftsmen and workers such as cooks, carpenters and blacksmiths and their young apprentices (perhaps 10 or 11 year olds) who only received food and shelter in return for their services; this number being about 1/4 of the Western population in New France! Everything that could not be grown had to be brought in by canoe from Quebec and the Iroquois (another Indian tribe from the Montreal area) kept on attacking the Christian Wendat converts and the supply canoes, so eventually in 1650 the settlement was abandoned.
The place was great, there were demonstrations on how things worked such as a lock system that allowed canoes to come up from the river into the settlement and also allowed for water to be flushed from the settlement down into the river once chamber pots had been emptied into the system. Celso got hands on in a fire making demonstration, he tried both the French method with a piece of iron and a flint stone that were struck together to make sparks that were then allowed to fall onto a piece of linen (from old shirts) and then blown on to encourage the flames (he was completely successful with that one). Then he tried the Wendat method with a bow, stick and flat piece of wood, he made smoke... but no fire.. and was exhausted by the whole experience but satisfied to have had the opportunity to give it a go.
Tristan made a candle by dipping, again and again, a wick hanging from a piece of wood into animal fat that had been heated up over and open fire, it got fatter after each layer from the dipping dried. We tried some corn bread which was the staple diet, along with squash and runner beans that the Wendat grew as "The Three Sisters" on raised mounds. One of each seed on each mound, the corn grew tall, the beans grew up the corn stalk and the squash grew around on the ground with its spiked leaves to discourage mice to climb up and steal the beans or corn.
We were able to try out the tools in the carpentry shop, feel all the furs that were collected in the area (now from road kill!), make Wendat charms from clay and write with quills made from Turkey feathers. An Indian woman told us about the clothes of the day, both French and Wendat, and explained that western men always tended to stand with one leg in front of the other with the toe pointing outwards (the sort of pose you see actors in the old Robin Hood movies doing in their tights) because, apparently, in those days women always looked at a man's calf to see if he had good strong muscles! I asked about how the Wendat chose a partner, apparently it was a matriarchal society, you chose a man from another clan and then he would leave that clan and come and join the woman's clan and basically do what he was told.... just as it should be!!
We spent a happy 4 hours at the place but, even though the weather had cleared, we decided to leave the boat trip for another day as we wanted to get up early for our canoe trip tomorrow. We drove on to Algonquin and arrived at the Wolf Den backpackers hostel at around 6pm. It was a series of wooden cabins in the woods, we were in a shared dorm (8 beds in total) but spent the evening playing chess and cards in a shared cabin with kitchen etc.