July 29th to Aug 2nd:- Slate River Dairy, Wabigoon, Stony Hill Farm

Packing up from Rainbow falls we headed through Thunder bay along our last stretch of North Superior. I’d like to say we checked out Thunder Bay…I have had several recommendations that we go to the Terry Fox memorial…..but the risk of heading into town with the big silver bullet seemed foolhardy without knowing the road.

Discretion being the better part of valour…we headed for Neebing…just south of the city to our first Harvest Host experience….https://harvesthosts.com/

Slate River Dairy ( https://www.slateriverdairy.com/ )…..nice level gravel parking lot…very friendly…….bought some milk butter and cheese…all quite excellent….

After what was also…correct me if I’m wrong Scott (Editors note, you are correct ) ….our first boondock night….back on the road headed for Wabigoon Lake RV park…just slightly east of Dryden.

Editors quick aside. Before we left, the large family sized Instant Pot was sold and we picked up the weenie 3qt size. When boondocking or dry camping ie. no services we are are on battery/inverter power. The Instant Pot only draws 800W so we can have a proper meal without heating up the trailer and let the sun recharge us.

Wabigoon Lake is approximately the halfway point on the journey from home to Bronagh in Calgary….1,781 kms from Paris…..

The road becomes slightly less challenging….and it was a day of considerably less smoke…so we actually got some sky…!!!

Wabigoon Lake RV Park is about 20 minutes east of Dryden….

Very friendly little park…..right on the Trans Canada….we stopped for a couple of days…good showers, good laundry, good fishing and full service pull through sites for $35 per night… (http://www.wabigoonlakervpark.ca/)

Some one..(pointing no elbows ) caught a pike…….not sure what else to do with it so it got tossed back in…..apparently they are not that great for eating anyway…!!

In the lake …the vegetation you see is mostly wild rice……the guy at the park said another couple of weeks before its ready for harvesting….!!!

Side trip to Oxdrift Farmers market on saturday morning…we had high hopes……..and met some nice people…….but I guess there is not a lot of produce happening north of Superior yet…!!!

Sunday it turned out there was a Dryden Road Runners get together in the park….

The local ‘convenience’ store in the town of Wabigoon is called Green Achers ….the first five times I looked at it I saw Green Archers…but no……we went in for milk one day…and had never seen the vast range of hostess old Dutch chips products…everything from jerky to nachos…products we had never seen or imagined…in the smallest, most “rustic” store you could possibly imagine……Oh…and it was also the local LCBO…….!!!!! The owner was serving the person in front of us and was gone for a while. Upon his return he was soaked to the elbows and handed the customer a couple of bags of minnows. Full service indeed.

Next stop Manitoba……..Stony hill farm…. our second harvest host. A jaunt north of the Trans Canada….but part of a loop to take us to Wasagaming and Riding Mountain National Park.

Stony Hill Farm.… ( https://stonyhillfarm.ca/) Beautiful place, lovely host……..and a super little store with fresh produce, a variety of organic stoneground flours, and a freezer full of bison and organic pork and beef sausage, steaks and ground meat.

Brenda, the host, is a grain expert ………so long discussions about sourdough ensued…….a child of our starter was given residence……..I do hope Brenda has success with the starter and the sourdough bread blog post from this site…we very much appreciated her thoughtful packaging of fresh greens already picked and washed…ready for campers….

Stony Hill farm has a large flat parking area close to the farmhouse, but Brenda gave us the option of pulling off further up the drive onto a flat area of grass…….which we did……(it was a little nerve wracking pulling off between the trees…but we survived…and it was well worth it….Thanks again Brenda…!!!

This spot is a bit out of the way…but we would recommend the spot for sure….

Back on the road again……..heading for Wasagaming……