Deer Trail Touring Route
The Deer Trail Touring Route is a circle of highway running through Elliot Lake, Iron Bridge and Blind River. Its got some neat geology, has some different forest types, has plenty of lakes and takes you along the Mississagi River where it is most calm and joyful. Since my parents made the move to Elliot Lake, it's something that's been on my list.
Today, my partner and our Squish Squad crossed it off The List Formally Known as the Remission List. I don't know if it'll be my final road trip, but all future trips have to take Highway 17, a highway I've been familiar with my whole life, which cuts the sense of adventure.
I tried to find a good puddingstone outcrop, but construction equipment and blind corners foiled us. Puddingstone is a rock with large cobbles embedded in a fine grained matrix, and the Southern Province of the Canadian Shield has some excellent outcrops.
We looked at rivers and river stones, the Little White River meandering across the landscape, leaving marshy oxbow lakes full of water lilies and lily pads. Areas with deep, rich soils supporting mixed wood forests, and wind blown sand deposits dating from glaciation, covered only in jackpine.
As we came out of the forest and began to approach Iron Bridge (no longer home to its bridge), we entered the pasture land that we always looked forward to growing up, because I've always been an animal person and cows are just not a thing you saw in Chapleau. I don't recall seeing any today.
We resupplied (aka bought props) in Iron Bridge (the bridge is mostly iron, but it's not the bridge the town is named for) and headed off to the Mississagi River Rest stop for our little picnic photo op. In the past, I'd have been too self conscious to bring that kind of silliness into the world where others could see it, theoretically, much less a dozen people seeing it in actuality.
This is the sort of strength and resilience I've grown over the past two years. I've grown free of parts of myself I needed to let go of. And it's never to late to relish that kind of joyful freedom