Cochrane to Pembroke

My last day of my drive here was last Sunday.  Today, I’m finally getting around to writing a brief post about it…

Upon leaving my hotel in Cochrane, I noticed that the car beside me had Saskatchewan plates.  I guess that was because I’d previously noted I hadn’t seen other cars with Saskatchewan plates since leaving Manitoba!

Not that far past Cochrane, I stopped at a sign for the 49th parallel.  It is funny how what is considered very north in Ontario is very south out west!

49th parallel sign

I ended up stopping a bit less this day as I kind of just wanted the driving to be over with.  It did take pictures of a giant lumberjack outside of Iroquois Falls and a bridge in Latchford though !

The lumberjack.

When I stopped in North Bay for lunch I was struggling a bit to stay awake but I took my time with lunch and the rest of the drive wasn’t too bad.

Thunder Bay to Cochrane

Today’s drive was much, much better as there was way less traffic and on the few occasions that I need to pass it was quite easy!

As I was leaving Thunder Bay, I stopped at the Terry Fox Scenic Lookout which was indeed very scenic!  Not long after there was a group of about half a dozen black vehicles obviously traveling together at fairly high-speed; at least a few of them had small green lights at the back.

There looks to be quite a lot of work being done on that bridge in Nipigon that closed the highway (the only way across Canada) a while back.

In a place called Beardmore, I stopped to see the giant snowman holding a fishing pole.  The town has a nice-looking building housing a library and other places but otherwise the town looks rather rundown.

Beardmore’s snowman

I took a picture of an abandoned church in a beautiful location in Longlac.  I saw another couple interesting churches today but didn’t take pictures of them.  I keep finding interesting looking churches for some bizarre reason!

There was a fair bit of construction today but it really didn’t slow me down much as the lights didn’t stay red for long and no more than a handful of vehicles got grouped together.  There were a lot of transport trucks headed the other direction but very few headed my direction.  I saw one truck with Saskatchewan plates but I haven’t seen any other vehicles with Saskatchewan plates since leaving Manitoba though I’ve seen plates from just about everywhere else.

I found an interesting mural on the side of the library in Hearst.

Kapuskasing had a nice looking train station/museum but I looked at it from outside.

I stopped to see the UFO in Moonbeam.  While it certainly isn’t Roswell, it will suffice for now!

Moonbeam’s UFO

In Smooth Rock Falls, I saw the seemingly abandoned Smooth Rock Cafe adjacent to a most definitely abandoned gas station.

Tonight I’m staying in Cochrane which is big on polar bears and even has a polar bear painted on its water tower.  Their whole downtown looks to be under construction but I think it would normally be rather nice.  I had supper at Harvey’s.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this small town had a location.  They really do have the best veggie burgers!  I also noticed that a former Bi-Way location still has a sign after all these years.

Cochrane’s polar bear water tower