The morning after that rainy day we headed out of Grand Beach and toured around Winnipeg. The touring part was pretty accidental, because we were specifically searching for a Canadian Tire, a Walmart, and a place for Chris to get his hair chopped off, so really we just drove in circles looking for those places and in the process saw most of Winnipeg. After we finished hair chopping, returning broken shovels, and buying propane, we headed to Hecla Provinincial Park. We were there for almost less than 12 hours, because after our Winnipeg adventures we got in late, and the next morning we were up by 6 and out by 8 after hot showers to make our long trek north to Thompson. It was about an eight hour drive, and truly, not much happened along the way. One funny thing that did happen was that a big Texan truck came barreling by us at about 140 or 50 in a 100 zone, and then about an hour later we saw him pulled over by the cops. We thought he would have learned his lesson but about an hour after that it was like de-ja-vu ... he came speeding by us again and was out of sight within minutes! We also went through Grand Rapids, which blew our minds a little bit because it appeared that the gas station was the town's main hangout, and there were kids running around everywhere and all the adults were standing around inside the convenience store/cafe part smoking and chatting! Life is a little different up there - apparently the only rule was don't smoke too close to the gas pumps and everybody will be happy.
We also saw a sneaky little gopher who was on the shoulder as we approached and as soon as he saw us he crouched down and shuffled backwards back into the brush ... apparently the gophers up north are much more talented.
Anyway, eventually we got up to Paint Lake Provincial Park, where the campsites were unfortunately quite open, and there was an infestation of weird silkworm-like crawlies that hung from every leaf or every tree. We couldn't walk anywhere without going through their drapery of webs, and they managed to even infiltrate our tent and crawl all over our bed. It was disgusting. However, we trooped through it and even had our first s'mores of the trip. They were amazing. The next day we drove to a nearby provincial historic site, Pisew Falls. There was a 22 km hike there, that suggested hikers allow 12 hours to do the full loop. We laughed at that because so far in our hikes we have averaged about 1km/15-20 minutes, which at the most would have had us hiking for 8 hours with stops. Since we were leaving at 3, and the sun stayed out until after 11, we thought we would be fine. We came with food and were excited for an adventure, especially because it was basically an abandoned trail with lots of brush and dense woods. In any case, about 4 km into the hike, after very long steep slopes and bushwhacking our way through mossy forest, as well as seeing tons of bear prints, we realized we were in a bit over our heads. We kept going for another couple of kilometres, and then after seeing more and more prints (huge ones bigger than my hand stretched out, accompanied by little baby bear ones which meant protective mommas), we decided it was definitely time to turn around. It got a wee bit scary when I stopped to look at a particularly large print and suddenly in the near distance we both heard the cry of a baby bear -- we picked up the pace a bit at that point! We came ready for adventure and definitely got it. We had our butts kicked by that trail but in any case the 11km we did do felt great after so much driving, not to mention we made it out in one piece! (Don't worry, we read the 'bear aware' pamphlet ... so everything that we could possibly do to warn the bears of our presence we were doing! We're practically pros.) :)
That night, it goes without saying, we slept like babies after our adventure. The next morning we were back on the road again ... headed for Clearwater Lake Provincial Park with no clue of what was in store.
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