A family visit to Sault Ste Marie and environs (2)

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2025

A photographic record of whatever leapt out at us

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

A family visit to Sault Ste Marie and environs (2)

The Pancake Bay Nature Trail and the Bushplane Heritage Centre,
6-7 August 2025

Fresh from lunch at the Voyageurs' Lodge, we've moved up the coast a bit to Pancake Bay, determined to attack the famous 'Nature Trail'.

3.5 kilometres of 'a journey through the past', because, after a 'bog-standard' pleasant but uninspiring walk along a forest path, we head upward onto the 'forested ancient beach ridges' with a genuine bog (lit. a fen) and meandering creek. Complete with jury-rigged boardwalks.

(NB: 'bog-standard' is UK slang for 'ordinary, unexceptional')

So off we go.

A well-maintained path with a slight upward inclination . . .

. . . through the kind of forest that makes us glad that we've got a well-maintained path.

A little more uphill. The lesson here, we're told, is that over aeons of physical changes in the climate and geology, a succession of new beaches have arisen around the lake shores, leaving behind raised 'beach ridges'.

There's bound to be an awkward nature story there.

Starting up onto the main beach ridge, and . . .

. . . pausing at 'a huge billion year-old conglomerate boulder'.

William is an aspiring wall climber with his grandmom, and has to take a closer look.

The terrain underfoot is potentially very swampy, but presently just swampy enough to make the boardwalks welcome.

Not all of the boardwalk elements are matching, but they do the job they're intended to.

-- Have we still got everybody?

The blue markers on the trees help us keep from wandering off the trail.

Our leader at present is having no trouble keeping us on the right track.

It's all still very foresty, but soon . . .

. . . it all begins to open out a bit.

Like this.

A wealth of marshy sorts of vegetation, and some very wet ground beneath it all.

Identifying some of the plant life on display. It's said that there a number of rare and vulnerable species of vegetation here, as well as 'the majestic peregrine falcon'. especially around the 'beautiful and ecologically sensitive fen' (Wikipedia).

Alison and Ryan (photo by Alison)

Back off the open fen and . . .

. . . joining a creek running down out of it.

We're making good progress, with leadership of a high order.

Generally ambling downhill, but not entirely so.

We should soon have to cross this creek to get out of here. Oh, good . . .

. . . that's already been foreseen by the staff.

But somehow we're back on the other side of it. We'll rely on the relevant authorities, as usual.

A good description of what we've just been doing for the past hour or so.

Still another casualty

Our last uphill. Not too taxing.

A hundred metres along the road, the sign said -- right you are.

The Pancake Bay Provincial Park offers a lot of other amenities along the 5.5km (3.4 mi) sand beach (3.5km of which is within the park), like (according to the brochure) some 325 RV and camping spots and various hiking trails, from our 3.5km Nature Trail to others of 5.6km, 10.5km ('Pancake Falls'), and the 14.8km Tower Trail ('5-7 hours'). There are also swimming areas along the beach, watercraft rentals, picnic areas, cycling routes, moose-spotting, and what not. The Park was established in 1968 'to help preserve the fragile beach dune ecology' (and, presumably, to attract tourists).

Once back in Sault Ste Marie, we dined at Ernie's Coffee Shop on Queen St, which was recommended to us: quite good food but surprisingly expensive.

We're relaxing in the evening back at the Quality Inn and Suites . . .

. . . with an obviously complicated board game, for those who relish board games. A few of us had no idea what that involves and spent our evening reading about new Trumpish criminalities (which is seldom relaxing).

Three of the participants are familiar with this game, and only one of them is not.

And, of course, Ryan, the uninitiated participant, triumphed.

The next day: Bushplanes (7 August 2025)

We set off in the morning from the Quality Inn across the welcoming parking lot of the Station Mall across the street.

Along the St Marys River we follow the shoreline 'Hub Trail' most of the way along. The BeaverTails ('world famous pastries') is part of the complex of that tent arrangement behind it, which is the Roberta Bondar Park and Pavilion, commemorating Dr Roberta Bondar, a neurologist who was Canada's first female astronaut, on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1992.

A number of artifical inlets with boat facilities run along the Canadian side of St Marys River.

The Robert Bondar Park and Pavilion hosts all kinds of community events, with covered space under the tents for 1,750 people, a farmers market in its parking lot, and of course the BeaverTails (we'll be back).

What to do with this Alice-in-Wonderland oversize lawn chair, apparently placed here to embarrass us.

But to the right clientele, it can be a treat.

Teamwork on an enigmatic cultural expression on a brick wall

The Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre (listed first amongst the city's attractions), celebrating Canada's 'aviation pioneers' who worked courageously and ingeniously to 'master the Canadian wilderness'.

-- Careful! Careful!! Oh, false alarm.

Apparently from the 1920s onward, the government and private companies worked to provide contacts and communications with the truly vast Canadian wildernesses.

And this enormous collection will suit any afficionado's interest in these old airplanes.

See?

One hopes that we won't have to caption every one of these things -- they sort of speak for themselves, and in any case there are far more of them in this huge warehouse than we can pass along here.

Some of them also come with educational information plaques (as above) and some even have . . .

. . . gripping historical videos.

Captionwise: that's from the old Green Airways!

And that one looks very like an old Fairchild F-11 Husky.

The nose of that thing seems to say 'Alward Cheeseman', and indeed it does: subsequent research has revealed that Silas Alward Cheeseman (1874-1957) was 'one of these pioneering bush pilots of the Canadian North who became an aviation legend' (source). Good to know.

The Fokker name recalls to mind the first synchronized machine gun firing through the propeller, in 1915, which 'The Red Baron' von Richthofen was so fond of, but the company was also admired by Admiral Byrd in 1927, and Amelia Earhart in 1928, but the Dutchman Anthony Fokker himself moved to the US in 1923, and apparently that's where this was made.

Kids are invited to go up the forward stairs and descend by the stern stairs. One wonders what they get to see inside, behind those kid-size doors.

Imagine that plane tightly packed with firefighters headed out to forest wildfires in the far North.

In the back room is the Entomica, a small 'Insectarium', which appeared to be moderately interesting for people who really like insects, and it was included as a separate attraction on our group tickets.

That's Mr Alward's plane again.

This is one of the few specimens actually in flight, sort of.

The inevitable search for suitable souvenirs.

Next up: A few more downtown Sault Ste Marie sights