(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

For today’s post, I’ve decided to go way back…25 years, to be precise. I was just starting my 2nd work career, and funds were relatively scarce for summer vacation purposes. We accepted an invitation to visit one of my law school friends in Timmins, Ontario, and hit the road in my (then) trusty Dodge Neon.

Wikipedia describes the Timmins economy as “based on natural resource extraction.” In other words – lumber and mining play a huge role. More than 40,000 people live there, and it is the largest city in northeastern Ontario. As it is about a nine-hour drive due north from Kingston, we stopped overnight in North Bay before making the final push.

On the way, we stopped in small Ontario places like Khartum (which consists of a sign but no actual community), Eganville (home of legendary french fries), and Matheson (an important highway junction). And we also visited Rapides-des-Joachims, a tiny Quebec hamlet on an island accessible only from Ontario.

While my friend’s house was in the city of Timmins, we didn’t spend too much time there. He also had a cottage just outside the city, and that turned out to be the base for most of our visit. Staying on a remote lake is a good way to experience this part of Ontario. Our only real “sightseeing” stop in Timmins itself was at the Hollinger Mine, where we went on an underground tour. The photo at the very top of this post is a restored typical miner’s house (a “Hollinger House”) from the glory days of mining in Timmins.

As a child, I had usually spent a week or so each summer at a friend’s cottage on Eagle Lake. It was about 45 minutes north of Kingston, close to the village of Sharbot Lake, Ontario. It was a special place, with neighbouring cottagers from all over Ontario and the northern U.S. I guess I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with cottage life, but whatever cottaging skills I had were already quite rusty by 2000. By now, they are probably non-existent! But I could still handle a canoe when we visited Norway in 2010.

Staying at the cottage was a great way to “get away from it all.” But all good things must end. Our circuitous route home took us through Ville-Marie (northwestern Quebec) and then through and around Ontario’s Algonquin Park. The pictures from that journey seem to be from a completely different era. And I suppose they are.

I’m particularly struck by a picture of a disused church (formerly known as St. Leonard’s Anglican Church) in the ghost town of Rockingham, Ontario. It had been abandoned since 1941, but the local community restored it in 1999-2000. The setting, at the edge of a thick forest, is very evocative. It’s well worth a visit if you find yourself in the area.

Coming soon: my 2025 travel destinations revealed!