Canada Road Trip: Mont Tremblant QC to Ross Lake ON

327 miles, Day 2

Dear Friend,

Whew! I’m behind in writing this letter.

I left Mont Tremblant around 9am after a not very restful sleep, I could hear the people in the room next to me taking a shower, snoring etc. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my cozy Bronco tonight. Breakfast at the cafe next door, at O Cafe, was invigorating and delicious! The O is meant to look like a bicycle tire, it’s part coffee shop, part bike shop (repair and sales), part cafe. A super busy place, teeming with locals this time of year and fun french afro/caribbean music. Employees and customers were unconsciously bopping around the tunes. Their offerings included delicious breakfast options, croissants and the full spread of espresso drinks. I had an oat milk latte with lovely art and texture, the espresso its self was a little on the dark side, ehhhh, I’m spoiled!

The Trans Canada Hwy 117 took me north, still a divided highway for about 30 miles, then decreased to two-way with stop lights and roundabouts. The roundabouts are masterful, truly, working as they’re designed to, making traffic efficient and easy. Canadians know how to use them too, very refreshing.Speed limit was 90kph the whole way.

Rolling forested ski areas eventually gave way to the wild and beautiful La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve. At 4,861 sq. miles and containing 2,000 lakes it’s truly a wonder of nature. For reference, the entire state of NH has 9,350 sq. miles. There’s no towns or amenities the entire way through, so I gassed up at Lac Saguay before venturing on. (Met a couple driving a white, mid 90’s VW cabriolet at the gas station that gave me fun road trip flashbacks).

The preserve is full of natural beauty, a stunning lake vista around every turn, there’s no way I could stop for all of them but I managed to pull over for a few, these are typical of what it looks like throughout the park.

Somewhere in La Verendrye Wildlife Preserve

Near Chutes Lac Roland, La Verendrye Wildlife Preserve, QC

It’s a boat camping enthusiasts dream, it’s also renowned for its hunting and fishing. Interestingly, I saw zero animals, heard and saw some birds though. The usual crows, robins, community birds. Maybe they just have so much space to roam and be that they don’t need to busy themselves with crossing stupid roads all the time? It made me so happy for all the critters in their nests, dens, holes out there just living their best life in the early canadian spring.

I stopped at a scenic pull out to admire the Chutes de Lac Roland. There were impressive walk walkways and stairs constructed to facilitate viewing the falls. It was beautiful and smelled so, I don’t know, verdant.

Chute de Lac Roland, La Verendrye Wildlife Preserve, QC

Chutes de Lac Roland, La Verendrye Wildlife Preserve, QC. Impressive walkways all the way around the falls.

I should note, that I haven’t lost cell service, not even once, since entering Canada, even these remote stretches of 100 miles or more with no amenities, I’ve never dropped below two bars.

The trans canada highway is often not-so-well maintained, there will be stretches with ripples that rattle my shelves, potholes to dodge and ruts to avoid. It’s a bit like Route 4 back home honestly.

Once out of the Preserve, I was now on the road leading to Val d’or, the soil got lighter in color, yellowish sand and dune-ish in places. The Canadian Shield geological area starts to emerge here, a giant horseshoe shaped exposed area of precambrian igneous and metamorphic rock.

Image from Wiki. i was essentially driving from the yellow portion to the red portion as I entered Val d’Or.

Glaciation has left the whole shield with only a thin layer of soil, there is no way to describe this area, other EXPOSED. It looks exposed, I felt exposed, the trees are either growing in boggy wet areas or out are struggling to grow out of pure rock. It was beautiful in its own way but also so so stark. The area from Val d’or all the way to the Ontario border felt, just, weird to me. I honestly just wanted to be on the other side of it. I stopped in Val d’Or and took only two photos, I guess it’s pretty fitting. This whole area is very industrial, lots of mining, mining, mining, logging and more mining. The scale of the mining operations were mind blowing, the photos don’t do it justice.

No idea why I had to pull into this cemetery in Val d’Or, but it was the most unique set up. All the graves laid out in a grid, directly next to trees. There were tire tracks rows passing through that were named numerically. 1st Ave, 2nd Ave. etc.

A huge mining facility outside of Rouyn-Noranda QC. For scale that weee white rectangle on the hill in the middle is a tractor trailer sized container. The rocky hill in front of it has to be 9 or 10 stories tall. I can only imagine how huge the actual hole in the ground is. What are they mining? Copper and Gold. Hence the name Val D’or, Valley of Gold.

Again, I have no explanation for it but this how I felt in Western QC, I just wanted to slingshot myself into Ontario, to release this chokehold? So I pushed the driving a little and put in the coordinates for the ‘Welcome to Ontario’ sign.

The sun sets a little later here than at home (getting farther north ya know), it sets at 8:45pm so I knew I had a little time before it got dark to find a secluded little spot pull over and call my own. I crossed the border into Ontario at about 7:30pm. The landscape was easing a little as I got closer, more water, more trees, I was breathing easier, there were lots of little snow mobile roads that crossed the highway and many many abandoned little pull outs. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble finding a spot but I wasn’t expecting to find one RIGHT AT the welcome sign.

Phew!

As I took this photo I could see a pretty well worn snowmobile trail cross right in front of the sign on both sides of the road. A little stroll down the lanes and I found my perfect spot!
It’s right next to a little pond, with the view of this Devil’s-Tower -ooking rock formation, it grew dark to the sound of peepers, the moon rose around midnight and this morning there were two ducks on the pond. But that’s tomorrow’s blog. ;)

Love ya!

Deb