Island In The Sun

For most of the last 4 years, Helen and I have met once a week to spend a day on a trail – either near or far. We’re either chipping away on a big project – like our current Trans-Canada journey – or occasionally we will *play hookey* and go off on an unrelated adventure.

That’s exactly what we did this week.

There are 5 National Parks in Ontario*, and in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday this year, I have a goal to visit 4 of them.  Each of these 4 parks are within a reasonable drive from Toronto while the 5th is at least a 2-day drive away.

Last month, Helen and I visited Point Pelee and this week it was Georgian Bay Islands – the smallest of Canada’s National Parks.

It was a beautiful day for the 2-hour drive and the 15-minute boat ride from the mainland to Beausoleil Island** which is the largest of the 63 islands that make up the park.

These are some of the pictures from this week’s excursion.

At the dock to catch the DayTripper boat (on the left)

On Beausoleil Island

The rock terrain on the island is typical of the Great Canadian Shield – the world’s largest area of exposed Pre-Cambrian rock, which is 2.5 to 4 billion years old.

I’m completely baffled as to why I find this stuff so interesting now, when it bored me to tears as a teenager. Who can even wrap their head around a billion years anyway?

Helen strolling across the smooth Pre-Cambrian rock

The mosquitoes were fierce and we had plenty of bites to show for our outing, but we also saw birds diving into the water to catch fish, turtles and snakes.

Now, snakes will never be on my must-see list, but surprisingly one snake sighting proved to be the highlight of my day.  He was a big guy (by my standards – anything bigger than a worm is a large snake) and swimming just off shore.

He had caught a fat bloodsucker in the weeds and proceeded to lunch on it on the edge of the shore.  I was too terrified that it was going to come out of the water for me to get close enough for a reasonably clear photo … but it gave me joy to see an arch-enemy destroying another arch-enemy.

Please don’t judge me.

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* There is actually a 6th National Park in Ontario with last year’s creation of the new Rouge Urban National Park on the eastern edge of Toronto.  I visit the Rouge on a regular basis so I’m not counting it.

** Beau Soleil means “good sun” in French.  It’s pronounced bow (as in bow tie) so-lay.

Post title was taken from the song of that name by Weezer