view from tallest trestle - a power plant
The canyon is 114 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Today was the first ride of the season, so about 6 cars without their 80 passengers each. Some summer days there are 800 passengers. It was a sunshiny, blue sky morning so the pics turned out well. It turned cloudy all afternoon. There were 2 neat, high trestles, several pretty lakes and a river and thousands of trees by the tracks. Of course it was built as a logging train many yrs ago.
They said that in the late 1890's the steel mill needed 25 acres of trees a day to make the charcoal to heat the plant. The bosses decided to buy coal from Va. instead.
The Canadian National RR has one of the 2 indoor roundhouses (for turning trains around).
We had 1-1/2 hours in the canyon, so took a 45 minute hike to see 3 waterfalls. Flies and gnats were terrible. We declined to climb 372 steps to an overlook, which shows miles.
Interesting fact for the day: they have toilets in the restroom in the canyon that are called a Clivus Multrum system. It looks like a regular one, but it composts the waste, which they use on the flower gardens in the canyon. The toilets have no negative impact on the environment.
There was a family across from us and we discovered in the first 5 minutes that she was born in Iowa, too. We visited a lot all day. They said their Ontario hotel room has recycling boxes. The afternoon was long since we had seen everything and the total trip was 10-1/2 hours, minus the 1-1/2 hrs off it.
Today I realized I made 2 mistakes in last night's entry. I forgot we are going one more place in Michigan tomorrow. It will be our 5th boat ride. Then, I said I had never heard of sugar maples. Duh, those are the trees used for making maple syrup. Hey, I'm on vacation, so guess my brain isn't in full gear or something!
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