I’m home. I return with two small tokens of our 9-day road trip, a coffee mug and a small stone.
The fine porcelain mug was bought at Ten Mile Point Trading Post on Manitoulin Island, a shop full of Indigenous art and souvenirs. The cup is designed by Chipewyan Dene artist John Rombough. He calls the design “Remember” and it includes hands extended over a landscape of sand, rock, and trees, painted in a Native Art style. It comes in a box on which is written, “As the two ancestors watch over the land, they pray for all the children – every child matters.” We passed through many Indigenous communities in our nine days of travel from Tobermory in the Bruce Peninsula, to Manitoulin Island, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, North Bay, and Orillia/Barrie area, journeying almost 1,500 kilometres past stunning rock outcroppings and cliffs, shining lakes, and forests just coming to life in their fall glory. On September 30, Canada celebrated “Orange Shirt Day – Every Child Matters,” and on our trip from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury, we saw many people wearing orange T-shirts or waving flags and banners as a reminder of the native children lost in the residential schools, as well as their survivors, families, and communities. My mug will always be a treasured memory of our trip and First Nation lands and culture.
My second little souvenir is a small fossilized stone picked up beside the train rails in Agawa Canyon. For Christmas my daughters bought us a ride on the Agawa Canyon Train Tour, a one day wilderness excursion from Sault Ste. Marie to Agawa Canyon Park near the south edge of Lake Superior Provincial Park. The trip included four hours of travel past small communities and breathtaking wilderness scenery to the beautiful Agawa Canyon. At the canyon, we had 1 ½ hours to eat our boxed lunch and explore a high lookout for the brave and tireless or hike shorter trails to two spectacular waterfalls. We chose the waterfalls. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, the trees were just beginning to change colour with hints of pastel yellows and greens and occasional slashes of brilliant oranges and reds. The cascading waterfalls fall over 225 feet at the highest and are beautiful enough to be captured by more than one of the Group of Seven artists. The engines looped back on a side track to reattach at the other end of the 17 car train for the 4 ½ hour return trip. The train ride was both exciting and relaxing. Leaving behind the city, we enjoyed breathtaking views of morning mist rising over lakes and forests, looked up to rising rock faces of ancient, weathered stone, and took in spectacular views from towering trestles. My little gray stone will always be my reminder of the majestic and rugged landscape of our one-of-a-kind train ride and journey across northern Ontario.