2025-08-01 – Wawa, ON
Our first stop this day was at Pukaskwa National Park. The Visitor Center there is sited on a gorgeous small bay protected by rocky headlands all around. A staff member recommended we try the South Headland Trail for a moderate short hike. It was a stellar recommendation!
The trail works its way up and down a rocky trail topping off at an overlook appropriately equipped with a pair of red chairs. The sight was delightful, but would have been much prettier were it not for the smoke!
Winding among more rocks and woods, it eventually descended to a sandy beach and, eventually to a boardwalk that returned us to the area of the Visitor Center. Very nice one-hour hike!
Next, we stopped at the town of White River for one specific reason, to visit the Winnie the Pooh Memorial. But why is there a memorial to the little bear there?
A female black bear cub named Winnipeg, aka Winnie, was purchased by a Canadian army veterinarian, Lieutenant Harry Colebourn, when his train stopped in White River during WWI. The bear became the regiment’s mascot but was left with the London Zoo when the regiment was deployed to France.
Author A.A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, frequently visited the zoo and became fond of Winnie. The young boy had a teddy bear that he renamed Winnie-the-Pooh and, so, the story was born.
Since we gave our little motorhome the name, Wawa, we would be remiss to skip Wawa, ON, on our tour. We took a campsite at Wawa RV Resort and Campground, just a couple of miles down the road from town.
Our intention had been to eat at a restaurant recommended by the campground owner. Unfortunately, they were fully booked when we arrived. After making a reservation for the following evening we returned to the homestead and made a ham and veggie stir fry. It was a chilly evening.
2025-08-02 – Wawa, ON
A note on the “Circle Tour” we are doing. The tour is widely promoted along the way, especially in Ontario. The idea of such a tour was first organized in the 1980s and was formalized with official signage in 1986, after Michigan First Lady, Paula Blanchard, proposed it at a tourism conference. We encountered signage for it with recommended area stops at virtually every place in Ontario that we stopped along the way.
Wawa is famous for its prominent Canada goose statue that you can’t miss as you drive past the town on the Trans-Canada Highway. The idea for it was proposed and developed in 1963 by a business owner named Al Turcott. Its purpose was to attract tourists to stop in Wawa on their Trans-Canada trips. It has certainly been a success since it is one of the most photographed places in the country. The current rendition, sited at the town’s Visitor Center, is made of steel after an earlier one of plaster didn’t hold up. At 28 feet tall, 22 feet long, with a wingspan of 20 feet, it’s hard to miss!
People frequently ask what Wawa means. Most people, including us, believed it had something to do with the Canada goose. The town of Wawa would beg to differ. Their signage states that the name Wawa is derived from the Ojibwe name Wawungonk. Wawungonk is the original name for Wawa Lake, a lake next to the town. The Ojibwe name translated to “place of clear water.”
There are other big goose statues and we took pictures of all of them. But geese aren’t the only animals celebrated. For instance, Young’s General Store, has a real mounted moose on its front porch!
The town also features a couple of nice beach parks on its lakefront with benches, sand beaches and gazebos.
Also, old mining equipment is scattered around town to recall the town’s rich mining heritage for precious metals like gold and silver.
There are two cool waterfalls on the area’s Magpie River. Upriver is the 75 foot high Scenic High Falls and near its mount is Middle Silver Falls. We visited both falls and they were both very nice. The Magpie River has hydroelectric installations at each of the falls. Visitors are put on notice that both of them can surge dangerously without warning when the respective dams release water.
On a beach near the mouth of the Michipicoten River is a place called Government Dock. While there is nothing remaining of the earlier government installation, the beach received men and supplies for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s.
Next door is an outfit named Naturally Superior Adventures & Rock Island Lodge. While they offer lodging, their thrust is all about paddling, be it canoe, kayak or stand-up-paddleboard. They rent gear, give lessons and lead adventures. And they are located in a really nice, secluded area to do all that.
That evening we headed to the Kinniwabi Pines Restaurant for the dinner we’d hoped for last evening. Recommended by our campground host, there really weren’t any other choices for a good restaurant. Interestingly, the menu featured a Caribbean section and there were posters about Trinidad on the wall. We asked our server, who turned out to be the owner, about that. His parents moved to Wawa from Trinidad and started the restaurant. What a shock the change in climate must have been for them!
A Canadian with a sense of humor who we spoke to commented that:
“Wading in Lake Superior can give you an ice cream headache!”
2025-08-03 – Wawa, ON
People told us about a “Potholes Trail” but neither Google maps nor our Garmin knew about it. But people told us how to get there, so, taking it on faith, we drove thirty miles on road that lead us through nothing but wilderness. Finally, we saw a sign. And we walked. And it was good!
The stream that funnels through them is small but the potholes tell of times when glaciers were melting and huge rivers with rushing waters wore these round holes into solid rock. They are truly fun to explore.
And there was a bonus; wild blueberries in the sunny areas were ripe and we scrambled around the rocky landscape to pick some for ourselves.
Returning to our camper, we decided to do some laundry since the campground had a couple of washers & dryers. Then, it was time to think about dinner…we were getting thin on fresh groceries and it is something of a food desert here. But Sandy managed to conjure up a great salad from whatever she found lurking in the fridge.