Ok, I am going to section Canada off pretty oddly on this page. It’s going to be two different sections of Canada including two different trips – mostly because we only visited Canada in October for a total of three days, and two of those days were just driving through to our next destination. It was a part of a New England/Canada road trip we did to see fall foliage, of which was kinda a fail but also a win. I’ll get to explaining why in the post about New England in the ‘Adventures in America’ tab; but we basically started in Montréal and made our way to Toronto/Niagara Falls before crossing back into the American border.
The second section I will share about my Canadian adventures will be from a different road trip I made back in July of 2022, because that one was a camping trip that focused heavily on some beautiful hikes I would love to share.
I digress, the section of Canada 2025 should be pretty quick. Even though the weather was low 50’s, not having the sun to boost my mood and warmth was a great reminder as to why I moved to New Mexico. We had already been on the road through New England for nearly a week at this point, and I missed the mountains and 70-80 degrees. Even though the sky was gloomy, we still caught a glimpse of the bright colored trees before all of the leaves fell off for the winter. We (many times a day) got to enjoy Tim Horton’s since we don’t have that luxury back in New Mexico, though when we drove through Montréal, we were quickly reminded that even though most of the population can speak English, they primarily have everything in French. This made walking around interesting, and we found eavesdropping into conversations even more interesting! French is such a beautiful sounding language.
Our first day crossing into Montréal, we got settled into our hotel and walked around for dinner, taking in the quaint city. We brought back sushi bowls that we wanted (to the best of our ability from looking at pictures of the bowls rather than reading what the ingredients of each bowl were in French), and broke out a huge block of cheese we purchased at a creamery back in New England. We thought it would bring additional joy to also crack open a bottle of wine while in bed and watched a movie until bedtime. The next day we traveled to Toronto, a long 5.5 hr drive of fields wilting away for wintertime. But nonetheless, signs in English and good ol’ Canadian accents. We spiced up our drive with more treats from Tim Horton’s though. We settled into our rather disappointing Toronto AirBnB, and thought it would be fun to go downtown and catch some dinner at a local pub. We wound down the night with polishing off our block of cheese and watching movies in bed again. Hard life. 😉
We left Toronto and crossed into Niagara Falls, where we really wanted to do an immersive tour of the Falls. Part of the reason why we eloped the way we did was due to the episode of ‘The Office’ where Jim and Pam get married. If you don’t remember, they have originally set up a normal church wedding, but are over it pretty quickly and decide to quickly and quietly escape while legally eloping on the Niagara Falls tour boat, getting married by the captain of the boat. They also tried to keep positive spirits by taking “mental pictures” of special moments of their day, but holding an imaginary camera up to their face and pretending to take a picture. (This is important for a reason later in the story, I promise.) Anyway, so doing the whole “you’re gonna get really, REALLY wet” tour was a non-negotiable.
The tour did not disappoint, but man we got soaked to the bone regardless of wearing our ponchos! They advertise that they are waterproof, but when you have thousands of gallons spraying at you from all angles, it doesn’t seem to matter. We wanted to explore downtown Niagara Falls for a bit, so we went and found ourselves a glow-in-the-dark indoor mini golf course. This was a lot of fun too! We finished by grabbing a bite to eat and then classically, got our tattoos for crossing off another country on our list. Remember the whole imaginary camera Jim and Pam held to their faces as they were taking their ‘mental pictures’ during their wedding day? Yeah. We got that tattooed on us. I unfortunately can’t post exactly our tattoos due to our placement choice, but I will share the photo we gave the tattoo artist for our inspo. We then crossed back into the American side of Niagara Falls and that concluded the tail end of our New England/Canada trip of 2025!
For the Canada road trip in July of 2022, it was more accessible to get to since I lived directly underneath Canada. I left Milwaukee, went down and around to get to Michigan, and crossed the border into Canada just above the border that lines Detroit. I also explored Niagara Falls during the beginning of this trip, but instead of doing the boat tour, I ate at the Skylon Tower as the sun set, and got to watch a firework and light show they projected onto the Falls once it was dark enough. It was so beautiful and was a luxurious dinner.
The next day I hiked the French River in Killarney, Ontario. Specifically this hike was of the Recollet Falls Trail. It was a quick mile hike that led to an open body of flowing water, and was so gorgeously peaceful. I’ll let the photos do the talking for this one.
Next, I made my way up to another hike in Killarney called the Lake of the Woods Trail along Turbid Lake. This hike was a little over 2 miles but was much more difficult with steepness. The views were worth the workout though! That night I traveled to Agawa Bay for overnight camping to move onto the next city, but this one is definitely one of my top ever camping sites I have stayed at in my life. Highly recommend! The last two pictures are from the camping site I stayed at.
The next day was by far the most eventful, so much that I think I will have to break up the day into two different paragraphs and picture galleries!
First, I wanted to see some of the famous pictographs that makes the Agawa famous. So, that morning, I set off to Agawa Rock to see them. This was a super short “hike” to see the pictographs that were offset by the waters of Lake Superior. I had the most beautiful weather this day, so I decided to trek on to the most long and difficult hike of the trip, Nokomis trial in Algoma, Ontario. It is only a little over 3 miles, but has extremely steep terrain that you literally have to climb. I really wanted to see if I could beat the recommended 3-5 hour recommendation time allotment that is posted on the beginning of the trail, and I indeed did the whole trail in about 2.5 hours. The views were spectacular, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
I then ended the day visiting two bodies of water – Aguasabon River Gorge and Rainbow Falls. Both had waterfalls, which are always a must to see. The gorge had a view of Lake Superior in the background, and the Rainbow Falls were a uniquely cascading bunch of waterfalls you can explore. Again, pictures are way better to describe the beauty of these landmarks, so please take a look for yourself. I ended my journey in another waterfront campground in Rossport, Ontario, where I was privileged to sit my lawn chair next to the calm waters and watch the sunset colors rise from them.
The following morning I set off to a quick but steep hike of the Back Forty trail. This was again, only around 2.5 miles long, but had an elevation gain of around 830 feet. As always, the views were so worth it! After that trail was a wrap, I set out to see the Ouimet Canyon. This is a huge gorge that spans nearly 500 feet wide and has over a 300 foot drop. It is very echoey ;). There are steep overlooks and bridges you can cross to get more thrilling views! For my final night, I stayed in Sleeping Giant campground, surprisingly another lakefront campground. This night, the sun didn’t set until after 10 pm! It was such a beautiful place to wrap up the trip.
This concludes my Canadian experiences. Truly a breathtaking country that hits close to home for me, literally and figuratively. These trips were so grounding, it makes you appreciate the simplicity of the woodsy side of nature that I think a lot of us Northerners take for granted because we see so much of it. Ontario has similar structure but amplifies it just a bit for us to really take in what beauty “Up North” holds. We plan on going back, but now to explore the western side of Canada in 2027! So, stick with me for a bit longer, ey? Thanks again for reading. K thanks bye, n tell yer folks I say ope how’re ya now.
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