Letter from Canada: Bruce beauty

My Swiss cousins aren’t interested in Toronto’s boutiques and galleries – Europe has better – they want to see wilderness. So, leaving Guelph, we take Highway 6 North, up the Bruce Peninsula, the narrowing spine of escarpment that divides Georgian Bay from Lake Huron. Its western edge is lined with sandy beaches, but on the east side dolomite cliffs rise vertically from the blue water of the bay. At Cyprus Lake, we hike out to the Grotto, where a ribbon of limestone, crowned with elegant paper birches, forms an arch over a clear shallow pool.

We return inland along the Marr Lake trail, traversing the great expanse of round pebbles between the little lake and the bay. A ringneck snake crosses the path, slate-coloured, with delicate black lines along its back and a tiny brown head; the neck-ring is merely a reddish spot.

It’s October, already cold. Rain begins to fall and we hurry back to the van.

The peninsula and the highway end at the harbour village of Tobermory. We check into the Princess Hotel. The dinner special is fish and chips: Georgian Bay yellow perch. We go to bed early and fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof.

At the tip of the Bruce, the escarpment submerges, scattering a cluster of rocky islands. In these treacherous shoals lie the wrecks of many 19th-century Great Lakes schooners, and the area is protected as “Fathom Five”, an underwater national park. A few kilometres north, the escarpment rises again to form the largest island on a freshwater lake in the world – Manitoulin. In the morning, we board the MS Chi-Cheemaun ferry, and when we disembark at South Baymouth, two hours later, we are in the northland. The trees are at their peak of autumn colour; what symbol other than the scarlet leaf of the sugar maple could say “Canada” so authentically?

At Red Lodge on the shore of Lake Manitou (a lake on an island in a lake!), the only other guests are a group of schoolteachers on a weekend retreat. Brigitte is puzzled to hear their unfamiliar language; it’s Ojibwe. Much of Manitoulin is unceded indigenous land, and the names of its towns reflect the coexistence of European and native traditions: Providence Bay and Silver Water; M’Chigeeng, Wikwemikong and Zhiibaahaasing.

On Sunday, taking the advice of the lodge’s proprietor, we drive to Kagawong, where the river of that name descends over Bridal Veil Falls and flows swiftly out to North Channel. The salmon run is at its height and the Kagawong river is filled with the fish, desperately struggling upstream to spawn in the pool beneath the falls. The river is partly diverted through a channel into a hydroelectric plant. Electrical current is generated at the expense of river current. The diminished flow gives the fish less depth to clear the rocks and fallen logs. Many fail to reach their destination; dying and dead salmon lie along the banks of the river. A local man walking his dog along the trail says: “By the time they spawn, most of their flesh has turned to mush, and even the bears won’t eat ’em.”

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