Stokes Bay and the Bruce Peninsula

From Goderich we drove north toward the end of the Bruce Peninsula to a little town bordering Lake Huron named Stokes Bay. This area is way more remote than most of our travels so far.  Miles of tranquil, scenic bicycle riding undisturbed by sight or sound of another human being proves my point.  Being this far north also means the nights are cooler and the leaves have started to put on their autumn coats.  And it’s only the middle of August!

Further up at the end of the road is the town of Tobermory, which not long ago was a fishing town, but is now replaced by tourism.  From here you can take a boat ride to Fathom Five National Marine Park.  The price is steep at $28.95 a person for 1½ hour tour.  Tobermory has nice shops, but they are very expensive.  I suppose that the short tourist season leaves little time to make a living.

The entire Bruce Peninsula was once the territory of the native tribe, the Chippewas, who have a reserve on the east coast of the peninsula. The Chippewas own and operate the Cape Croker Indian Park, an enormous natural setting campground with an amazing view of the Georgian Bay.

The Singing Sands National Park is well worth a visit for its bird watching, easy walking trails and its wide sand beach.   There are gorgeous photo ops of sand striations made by the water.

We stopped in Wiarton, a 20 minute drive from Stokes Bay, and the nearest town for shopping on the peninsula. There we found the only library so far that charged us for the use of their internet.  Needless to say, pay internet is better than no internet at all.

As for food, we found nothing unique except skunk stew from the Indian recipe book, but we didn’t have the pleasure to try it.

Chef Patrick did make a specialty from this region: a pecan maple pie and of course we had to top it with vanilla ice cream.