Day 45: Thunderbay

If you were asked to name the five places you would like to live in Canada, I bet Thunder Bay would not be on the list. But we dug a bit deeper and found some hidden treasures, maybe you should reconsider.

We started the day with oodles of absolutely delicious crepes at the Finland Club served in a wonderful spirit by club members from 14 to 64. The restaurant was started more than a hundred years ago because the immigrant bush workers had no place affordable to get a hearty meal. A century later they are still serving wonderful meals in a cooperative spirit that encourages everyone to get to know each other. The old pictures were special, and with us five looking pretty scruffy we could have fit right in.



So Thunder Bay has great food, but what about the people? Check out the Cycle Path bike shop. We turned up with five bikes in need of various levels of overhaul on a Saturday morning and by the end of the day they were all done for what was a modest price, with lots of smiles. So we always have friends in Thunder Bay.

It's by now 6pm, we need a campsite, and there are none in city limits. There is only one choice on the route out of town. Ooogh, the younger members among us had never heard of KOA's, but Ginny and I were immediately worried about what might be the quality and noise level of our campsite on a warm Saturday eve. After a pleasant evening bike ride out of town (Thunder Bay also gets high marks for ease of getting in and out without obnoxious sprawl, at least for the routes we chose), we arrived at the "KOA". Our stereotype was immediately challenged by the huge colour coordinated flower garden at the entrance spelling "KOA" like they do at the entrance to fancy places. In fact this campground won the 2010 Award for best KOA and it deserved it with the pool, mini golf, music in the bathroom, etc.(though the country music selections were a bit suspect). It was also a very friendly community of people. One woman near us loved it so much last summer on her visits that she has moved in for the whole summer and commutes into work.

So the moral of this story is don't judge a place by it's reputation, you might want to rethink Thunder Bay on your list (I know, we didn't visit in the winter... But).
Distance: 14.14 km
Time on bikes: 0:54:24
Average Speed: 15.5
Distance from Vancouver: 3557 km
Start: 7:15 pm
End: 8:15 pm
Wind: Southeast (head-light)
Conditions: sunny


Cheers
- The Warpotay Team

Location:Thunderbay, Ontario