Christmas is a pretty lonely time when you're 15,000km away from your family. We decided to distract ourselves with a road trip - Stephen couldn't get time off work, so we only had 4 days, and we spent it driving along the Trans-Canada Highway to a town called Kapuskasing (don't ask us how to pronounce it, we still don't know). It was a 1,682km round trip.
Part of the reason why we wanted to go was because Toronto has been having unseasonably warm temperatures - it hadn't snowed at all by Christmas, and it was mostly above zero. None of this was helping our "white Christmas" plans, so we figured that if the snow wouldn't come to us, we would go to the snow instead.
And snow there was!
No, really. There was a lot of snow.
The other reason for going north was to try to see the Northern Lights - and just like on my last trip, they decided to not show up. We did see a red glow in the sky behind the clouds which is technically the Northern Lights, but it wasn't quite what we were hoping for. So we will keep trying! Apparently October is a better time to see it, so we may go back then.
All in all, it was a pretty uneventful trip - we had been emphatically warned against driving up north in the winter by a number of Canadians, but we decided to go anyway (crazy Australians) - we just made sure that we rented a car with winter tyres, and it handled the snow quite well. There were no freak snowstorms (although driving in a car at night when it's snowing looks like you're going into hyperspace), and the temperature never really got that cold - probably the coldest was -12ish, and it gets to that in Toronto. We were lucky that it didn't get much colder - apparently when it goes below -20, you need to plug your engine block into the electricity so that it doesn't freeze, and we didn't have that attachment on our rental car. It was amusing to see parking lots where every park had a powerpoint at the front of it though! (We forgot to take a photo!)
Unfortunately, part of the problem of travelling with a dog is that one of us always has to stay with him in the car, so for most of the trip we ate fast-food in the car (I never want to see another burger again). Considering that it was Christmas, we came prepared with a car fridge and a basket full of food, which we had to use on Christmas Day to have our brilliant Christmas Dinner of 2 minute noodles because not even fast food was open. Yum!
Jax loved the snow. I can't really put into words how much he loved it. It wasn't like the dodgy wet mushy snow that we usually get in Toronto - this was 30cm of white powder on the ground.
The snow was up past Jax's legs, so watching him get around was pretty funny - when it got really deep, he hopped through it like a rabbit!
From what we saw, things were quite a bit different up north. For starters, there were snowmobile paths next to all of the major roads, and people were making heavy use of them. Apparently taking your snowmobile to the burger shop on Boxing Day is a commonplace sight here! Another thing we learned, is that the further north you go in Ontario, the more people speak French as their first language - I was fairly surprised when I walked into McDonalds and heard the cashiers switching between serving one customer in fluent unaccented English and the next in fluent French.
We tried to stop the car every couple of hours to get out and stretch our legs and give Jax a break, and that meant that we discovered a few parks that we are going to need to go back to in summer. In one park, we walked along a boardwalk that was the start of a trail, following a set of tracks that we have now worked out belonged to a Canadian Lynx. Jax sniffed at and followed the tracks enthusiastically, but stayed very close to us and wasn't keen to go chasing off after them into the forest - smart dog.
Narnia!
The trip was a nice break - it was good to get out of Toronto and do something fun for a few days, and we had our white Christmas after all (even if we did have to suffer 2 minute noodles to get it!). Unfortunately, it's now back to work tomorrow.
The other reason for going north was to try to see the Northern Lights - and just like on my last trip, they decided to not show up. We did see a red glow in the sky behind the clouds which is technically the Northern Lights, but it wasn't quite what we were hoping for. So we will keep trying! Apparently October is a better time to see it, so we may go back then.
All in all, it was a pretty uneventful trip - we had been emphatically warned against driving up north in the winter by a number of Canadians, but we decided to go anyway (crazy Australians) - we just made sure that we rented a car with winter tyres, and it handled the snow quite well. There were no freak snowstorms (although driving in a car at night when it's snowing looks like you're going into hyperspace), and the temperature never really got that cold - probably the coldest was -12ish, and it gets to that in Toronto. We were lucky that it didn't get much colder - apparently when it goes below -20, you need to plug your engine block into the electricity so that it doesn't freeze, and we didn't have that attachment on our rental car. It was amusing to see parking lots where every park had a powerpoint at the front of it though! (We forgot to take a photo!)
Unfortunately, part of the problem of travelling with a dog is that one of us always has to stay with him in the car, so for most of the trip we ate fast-food in the car (I never want to see another burger again). Considering that it was Christmas, we came prepared with a car fridge and a basket full of food, which we had to use on Christmas Day to have our brilliant Christmas Dinner of 2 minute noodles because not even fast food was open. Yum!
The trip was a nice break - it was good to get out of Toronto and do something fun for a few days, and we had our white Christmas after all (even if we did have to suffer 2 minute noodles to get it!). Unfortunately, it's now back to work tomorrow.
