Gitchigami

....or "big water" as the Ojibwe called Lake Superior.

Becca and I left the tip of the mitten crossing over the straights of Mackinaw North to Sault St. Marie on our great Canadian summer adventure. Crossing into Ontario was one of the more relaxed border crossings I've ever done and so quintessentially Canadian it made me laugh. When we passed through the guy even said, "Welcome to Canada, eh".

Canada, eh. Yeah, Canada. A vast, vast land stretching from the lakes and North woods all the way to the Arctic. Originally our trip was planned for almost a month but with Peace Corp things coming up and her sisters wedding later this summer Becca's had to shorten it down to less than two weeks to make it from here out to Nova Scotia and bacK. As such we've been toying around with the idea of doing a shorter trip around Lake Superior instead.

Growing up outside of the Lakes region in the US I think most people overlook and take for granted these enormous inland seas. I know I always did, but having discovered the Great Lakes as an East Coaster I am continually astounded by this "third coast". And amongst the Great Lakes none is as wild, ominous, and imposing as Lake Superior.

Some food for thought; Lake Superior is the largest Fresh Water Lake in the world by surface area and only barely outdone in volume by Baikal in Russia and Tanganyika in Africa. Lake Superior alone holds roughly 10% of all the world's fresh water and to give you some sense of its scale it is larger than the entirety of Scotland. In short, it is a vast inland sea of fresh water bordered by a rugged and wild coast. It is bordered by Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula but because of the rugged climate few centers of population border the lake. Rather vast areas of Lake Superior are wholly wild harboring moose, wolves, black bear and thousands of miles of boreal forest with little road access.

All this makes me intrigued and enamored of ol Gitchigami. And so deciding to sleep on it we kept heading North instead of East and camped our first night on a sandy beach at a place called Gargantua Bay deep into Lake Superior Provincial Park. It was a long way in by gravel road to our spot and there were only a few other campers given that it is Canada Day weekend. A small island rose out of the bay in front of us and we could hear the resident loon call down the beach line. The big waters were calm as a cloudless day and the shadows were just beginning to lengthen as we pitched camp on the sand. The perfect night to fall asleep under the stars.