9/15/12 Thunder Bay to Nipigon, ON

Now we're off onto the Canadiana part of the tour.  Gone are the bakeries but we still had some treats tucked inside our Bob bags, including the rum and brandy cakes from the Jam Pot up in the  Keweenaw Peninsula.  Being a Saturday morning there wasn't much traffic in town so we took the most direct route to the Trans-Canadian Hwy., east on Arthur St and follow it around through the old downtown as it changes directions and names then head over to Lakeshore and take that to the highway about 20 miles total.  The Great Bakery Tour is now the White Knuckle/White Line Tour because this part of the Trans-Can Hwy is the only east/west route, there's no shoulder, it only 2 lanes wide and full of trucks.  By the time we got to the highway the trucks were in full force coming so close to us I could reach out and touch them, instead I was holding on tight trying to keep upright on the white line.

This highway doesn't have rest stops or roadside picnic tables like the US.  It does have cross roads and snowplow turn-arounds.  Much to Tom's surprise I pulled onto a cross road, still standing over my bike a declared this is our lunch stop.  He wanted a place to sit down and take a little break, but that's not an option.  After this rude awakening he became used to our new lunch stops.

We made it to Nipigon about 3:30pm and stayed at the Northland Motel.  These motels are mom and pop places and the owners take great pride in their property.  They were all clean, most also had a restaurant or one very close by.  We had to ride into Nipigon for dinner at the Nipigon Cafe, the only place open.  There we met a couple in the road construction business.  They said that section of the road is being made into a 4 lane highway, unfortunately it should have been done years ago when the government had the money and there were more trucks on the road.  More info was the trucks take highway 11, just a little further east of here because it's flatter, so even though they drive further, they save a lot of fuel.  Highway 17, which we're on gets very hilly, more so than in the US.