Silver Pines (Aug 7)
Gravenhurst and Bracebridge are the gateway towns to Ontario’s “near north”, the Haliburton Highlands and Muskoka Lakes region of Ontario. The terrain here is formed by the old mountains of the Canadian Shield (Laurentian Mountains) with thousands of small lakes in the hollows joined by streams that have been blocked by countless beaver dams.
These are some of the oldest pre-Cambrian rocks exposed on the earth’s surface; millenia of erosion have worn them down to their granite cores. Any lake that is big enough has islands where mountains used to stand. Any hill that is big enough has a lake. One of our fellow campers works for a company that quarries and slices the granite for construction and this lovely polished slab outside his camper shows what it can look like when polished and sealed.
We debated whether to camp near the highway (or usual plan) or near a lake. The lake won out. It was a bit nerve-wracking to wend our way along the small roads to get to Silver Pines, but we do have a lovely view over Sparrow Lake. And we went kayaking before supper visiting several islands.
Sparrow Lake is bigger than it looks on the map, however, and there are lots of motor boats.
The campground is a bit different from others we have been at. Its claim to fame is its restaurant, which is sometimes very crowded and seems to be well-known in town. There are only about 40 campsites, and only 4 of these are transient. So the residents know each other quite well. In this situation, people could be either completely indifferent to our presence or very welcoming. In this campground, everyone has been extremely nice, remarking on our bird feeders, suggesting places to go and stopping to chat. One couple, Richard and Nicola from Alliston, have been particularly friendly.
Gravenhurst is on the road to my mother’s cottage, and so we have passed through quite often. As it goes through town, the road goes over a bridge separating two lakes. Our plan for Tuesday was to kayak on these lakes.
We started by having lunch at Tim Hortons, a Canadian donut store chain which is Canada’s answer to Dunkin’ Donuts. The chain was started in 1964 by hockey star Tim Horton, who died before it really became a huge business. Now there seem to be franchises on every corner in every Canadian town and city. The lunch food was very good, and Chuck enjoyed his dessert donut as well.
We then headed for the Gull Lake Rotary Park in Gravenhurt to launch the kayaks. The park has a band shell (behind Chuck in the photo) which is actually out in the lake. Gull Lake, which is the lake to the west of the highway, is very pretty, with many granite islands and rocky shores covered in forests.
I was reminded of the camp song “Land of the Silver Birch” whose lyrics include “still lake and rocky shore, I shall return once more”. Although I grew up in Toronto, I spent so many summers on lakes like this that it feels like a home-coming to be here.
Gull Lake is much larger than I realized. After following the shore and paddling around several islands and through several inlets, we began to tire. Since the wind was picking up and blowing against us, we decided to return to the park for a snack.
The extent to which Canada has embraced cultural diversity is amazing. Fusion of local cuisine with the cuisine of many countries can be found everywhere. Gravenhurst is a small town, yet the park snack bar food includes (along with the traditional ice cream, hotdogs and hamburgers) shawarmas, falafel, samosas and my personal favorite menu item, butter chicken poutine. (i.e. I like the idea, it was too close to lunch to sample the poutine. Poutine is a French Canadian dish built in French fries, and usually includes at minimum, fries, gravy and melted cheese. Butter chicken is that creamy chicken dish served in north Indian restaurants.) We settled for ice cream, though.
On Tuesday, a glance at Wednesday’s weather forecast (bad) made us reconsider our plan to see the town, in favor of enjoying the good weather while mountain biking at Buckwallow Cycling Center. It came highly recommended on TripAdvisor and other searches. The staff member who met us recommended a number of easy trails. These trails may be easy for mountain bikers, but for us, on our touring bikes, they were pretty challenging. Although the routes were almost flat, there were a lot of tight curves, protruding tree roots, and steep (although very short) ups and downs over the rocky outcrops as above. 
After just over a hour, we were ready to pack it in. However, when we got back to the car, the attendant who had taken over asked us if we had seen any moose at the bottom of the trail. We decided to go back (using the easiest route) to take a look. Just a few feet from the trail there turned out to be a bog that was perfect moose and bird habitat. Alas, our efforts were rewarded only with a view of the vista and a lot of dragonflies. Still, we were happy that we went back.
After grocery shopping we returned to our campsite to find that the restaurant was packed, with cars parked up and down the street. I abandoned any thought I had of going there for dinner, and pulled together something in our kitchen. While we were sitting outside after dinner, Nicola came by with a huge bag of veggies. Apparently, most of the residents, including her husband, had gone home, and she had been left with a huge bag of veggies from someone’s garden. She also invited us to sit by her fire, as she was planning to visit another campsite. However, we declined, as it felt a bit like using a new acquaintance’s living room while they were out for the evening.
Gravenhurst is pretty far north, so we were quite surprised when Richard told us that there are a lot of hummingbirds here. However, a neighbor who is not home left a full feeder, and it has a regular hummingbird visitor. We have put up a general feeder, finch feeder and a hummingbird feeder and have attracted mainly chickadees, sparrows and woodpeckers.
One of the owners came by to meet us and we chatted for over an hour. They have run the campground for 9 years. She and her husband built up the reputation of the restaurant. They love running the campground, but ill health (and the current high value of the business) has made it expedient for them to sell, so they are doing lots of repairs, including the toilets. As I mentioned, we cannot flush our toilet. It will be repaired in two weeks, but in the interim, we prefer to use the campground facilities. During our visit, there was a single (men’s) stall available for use. With almost everyone gone this was not a big problem, but I did worry about needing to use the bathroom and finding it in use. There is also a public beach with its own outhouse a few yards down the road in case of emergency.
Rumple is still going for long walks with us, but clearly at his age and with both arthritis and a heart condition, he cannot run beside a bicycle. As well, he really does not like being in the kayak. As a result, we have been leaving him alone in the RV (where the air conditioning can keep him at a comfortable temperature). He will be the only one of us to be happy that the days and particularly evenings are getting cooler.
Wednesday was our 30th wedding anniversary. We can hardly believe it!
The rain started early. Since we both had work to do, this was not necessarily a bad thing. Once the rain stopped we headed to Gravenhurst to see the town. It has a cute main street with lots of restaurants and shops. The farmers’ market is on Wednesdays, so we walked to the wharf where it is held. It is more of a crafts market than a farmers’ market, but we picked up some strawberries and then spent time chatting with the folks manning a book sale for the library.
We had lunch at a fancy restaurant overlooking the wharf area. The wharf is not on Gull Lake where we went kayaking, but rather on the much larger Muskoka Lake. It is a beautiful setting, although some of the scenic aspects are being marred by development.
We then went to Bracebridge, the other gateway town for the region to look around. Bracebridge also has a cute downtown, as well as a waterfall. With all the rain we have had recently, the waterfall was really roaring.
To celebrate our anniversary, we went to the Silver Pines Restaurant, for their specialty – fish and chips. It is deservedly well-known. Our westward facing window seat gave us a great view of the setting sun.
Our final day in Gravenhurst was mostly a working day. However, in the late afternoon, we took another paddle. Richard and Nicola invited us over in the evening, and it was nice to get to know them. Richard ran a heavy machinery company at one point and now runs and maintains construction equipment. Nicola had a variety of careers. Most notably, she worked for Hard Rock Cafe, who she said were a very good employer. One perq – when they open at a new location, senior staff can apply to go for three weeks to help train the new staff. She got to travel to a number of interesting places world-wide this way.
Leaving on Friday was a bit tricky, due to the location of the dump station right by the bathroom construction. With some help from Richard, Chuck maneuvered us into position.
In a last-minute decision, we headed towards Presqu’Isle, on the north shore of Lake Ontario.