We took a short drive north of Sudbury to the site of the original Murray Mine that is now filled with water and then headed west to Sault St. Marie.

About 55 km from Sudbury is the small town of Espanola. We had been through there in 2014 when we went over to Manitoulin Island, but decided to take another tour around since we had lots of time and Sault St. Marie is only about 3 and a half hours from Sudbury. There was a geocache hidden at a little park on the way into town that we stopped to find. The park had lots of plaques around a stone wall that told the history of the town. Espanola is a pulp and paper mill town. I did not know pulp paper was created by a Nova Scotia man.

I took this picture to insert in my blog because the caption caught my attention. The little boy on the dog sled in the lower right is six years old and delivering the laundry his mother cleaned for the logging camp. Who knows how far away from his house this little guy came to bring the laundry all by himself at such a young age.

Espanola was a POW camp during WWII. The mill had closed and the big buildings became the camp.

This dam was built to supply power to the paper mill.

Once we left Espanola it was just driving until we arrived in the Soo. Mostly we just drove by Ontario’s many trees, rocks and water, but we also passed some farmland.

We arrived in Sault St. Marie a little after three and decided to go see the Bush Plane Museum. It was a fortuitous decision. They were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Beaver and admittance was by donation. There were games and balloon animals and food and live music and lots of people enjoying the day.

Bush planes were used a lot in early forest fire fighting in Ontario so there were some good displays about those days. This campsite showed the typical set-up for the 1940’s.

Just a standard canoe right? Nope.

This plane was equipped with skiis for winter landings.

It appears to be birthing a canoe.

The water buckets dangled below helicopters to fight forest fires are pretty big.

We climbed up a couple of flights of stairs to the fire tower and were able to see most of the hanger. There was a big space behind the wall on the left (which is a 3D forest fire display) is a huge area that was set up with tables for food and a large section of the wall was open to the outside where there were more tables and bands playing music. They had gone all out in their celebration.

A 1919 Stanley Steamer

1953 half-ton GMC truck

As we were leaving the museum, which is right on the waterfront, I snapped this photo of a freighter coming up the channel. Sault St. Marie is located at the northwestern tip of Lake Huron where it joins Lake Superior, so is a major point on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The land on the other side belongs to Sault St. Marie, Michigan.

Sault St. Marie Museum.

We found our hotel and settled in before going down to the restaurant for dinner. We have fun trip planned for tomorrow.