Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada

Friday, September 29, 2023

Our day began in Niagara Falls, Ontario at KOA Campground. All four of us slept in later than usual this morning after a late night visiting Niagara Falls.

All four of us were definitely moving at a slower place today. It was a beautiful fall morning in Niagara Falls with temperatures in the mid-60’s, so Andi spent some time putzing around outside the camper, talking on his phone, and cooking chicken stir fry outside on a propane stove for us to take along for future meals. Aden rode circles around the campground on his bike, and I did a deep clean of the RV. With four people living in a small space, the RV gets dirty quickly but it also cleans up quickly too. Our almost-teenager Tory was still in bed during all of this, of course.

By 11:00am, we were finally packed up and on the road toward Tobermory, Ontario. For once, it was nice not being in a rush. This road trip, especially, feels like we’ve been go-go-go. Tobermory is about 5 hours from Niagara, but Andi and I weren’t sure we’d drive all the way there or stop somewhere along the way. In Tobermory, we planned to take the Chi-Cheemaun ferry from the tip of the peninsula across Lake Huron to Manitoulin Island.

Traffic was terrible in and around Hamilton, Ontario near Niagara. Lots of construction and the fact that it was Friday afternoon made driving through the city feel even worse than Montreal. This added at least 30 minutes to our already long driving day.

Once we got onto the other side of the congestion, we stopped in the town of Arthur for fuel and lunch around 2:00pm. We pulled over in the back of a gas station parking lot, put out the RV slide, and warmed up the chicken stir fry Andi made earlier this morning. While we ate, Andi decided to call the ferry company in Tobermory to check on the ferry availability for tomorrow. We never make reservations for anything when we’re traveling, but Andi thought he’d call since we’re driving a longer vehicle (RV + Jeep). The operator from Ontario Ferries was super friendly in helping Andi with our travel arrangements. Unfortunately, she informed him that all the ferries tomorrow were booked, so we’d either need to be on the 5:00pm ferry to Manitoulin Island tonight or wait for the next ferry on to depart on Sunday. Yikes! We didn’t want to wait around here until Sunday, so Andi told the operator we’d be there tonight at 5:00pm. I typed the port address into Google Maps and it said we’d arrive at exactly 5:00pm — not a minute of drive-time to spare. The operator hesitated in taking Andi’s payment over the phone because the tickets were non-refundable. “I don’t want to take your money unless you’re absolutely sure you’ll be there,” she said. “We’ll be there,” Andi responded. We didn’t really have a choice if we wanted to stay on track with our travel plans. I quickly pulled in our RV slide and we were on the road again.

I took over driving the RV in Arthur, Ontario. We had 2.5 hours left to drive and passed through so many small towns. I felt like I was constantly slowing down and speeding up, never gaining any ground. Since Canada follows the metric system, the speed limit is posted in kilometers which makes it challenging to know how fast I’m driving. I made a little cheat sheet so I could quickly glance down & see the mph/km conversion. Eighty kilometers (which is 49 mph) is Canada’s highway speed limit and it feels painfully slow by American standards.

The Ontario Ferry operator told Andi we needed to be in line for the ferry by 5:00pm, and we arrived at 4:46pm. Whoo! We made it in time. I was literally sweating from the stressful drive by the time we got there.

I pulled the RV into the ferry line and then we waited. Turns out, the ferry didn’t actually load until 6:00pm. Most of the next hour was spent measuring cars and lining them up to load. During that time, we were able to get out of the RV and walk around the pier. There were quite a few campers and fishing boats heading to the island for the weekend.

Since we weren’t planning to travel all the way to Manitoulin Island tonight, we didn’t have a campsite booked for tonight. Andi talked to another RV traveler in the ferry line and he told us he was planning to camp in Providence Bay. Andi called Providence Bay Tent & Trailer Park and reserved us a spot so we’d have somewhere to go once we arrived tonight. Good thing we were on tonight’s ferry — this was the campground’s last night of openings before they closed for the season.

Ferry travel is so convenient. At 6:00pm, the mouth of the ship opened and we drove our RV right onto into its underbelly. Protocol states that passengers need to leave their vehicles while the ferry is in route, so once we were safely parked we walked up the stairs to the top levels of the ship. Instead, there were several lounges with chairs and tables, a cafeteria, and an outside viewing deck.

Andi, Tory, Aden, and I stood on the outside deck and watched the ferry depart from Tobermory, Ontario. It was a gorgeous evening without a cloud in the sky. I’d hoped to catch up on some blogging during the voyage, but there was no internet connection on the ferry which made using electronics challenging. Tory and Aden brought their iPads along, but of course watching Netflix or surfing the internet didn’t work for them either.

Andi suggested we eat dinner in the ferry cafeteria. Tonight’s special was chicken pot pie. They also had several other entrees to choose from such as chicken tenders and hamburgers. Poutine was on the menu, of course, since we were in Canada and brown gravy topped everything unless specified otherwise.

The four of us ate our meals and then returned to the deck on the bow of the ship to watch the sunset. Tonight’s harvest moon shown brightly over Lake Huron. It felt like we had a front-row seat under the stars.

It was dark by the time we arrived on Manitoulin Island at 8:00pm. I’m glad Andi booked a campsite ahead of time so we weren’t trying to find a place to stay in the dark. It always feels like another world when we arrive someplace new at night. We couldn’t see a think it was so dark out tonight.

Luckily, we were going the same place as the RV traveler Andi talked to in line for the ferry. Both our RVs drove to Providence Bay Campground and found our check-in details taped to the front door of the office. The campground roadways were narrow and heavily wooded, so it was a little tricky finding our campsite in the dark. It didn’t help that the map the campground provided had been photocopied a million times and was hardly visible. After looping around the campground a few times and consulting Google Maps on Andi’s phone, we finally found our site number and parked the RV for the night. It’s hard to tell where we are in the darkness, but Andi said Lake Huron is directly across the street. Tomorrow, we’re excited to see the lake and explore.