by In recent years, Mario Gionet has had the same dreams: his grandmother, on fire, and cedars being cleared. “She gives me my lessons,” explains Mario as we walk in the Hiawatha Highlands, fog rendering the deep forest as befits a dream. “She speaks in Ojibwe, and I’m speaking it too.”
This is odd, because in the waking world Mario can not, much. Although he is 50, he is only now learning the language of his ancestors. “It’s difficult,” he admits. “The words are so long!” (“Blueberry pie”, for example, has 66 letters: miinibaashkiminasiganibiitoosijiganibadagwiingweshiganibakwezhigan.)
“I never remembered my dreams,” he continues. “I think it’s because my mind is more open now, and I’m finally learning about my culture.”
Mario is a generation of native Canadians whose parents were sent to residential schools, raised alienated from their heritage. Now he is not only accepting it but sharing it. Together with his partner, Cheyene Nanie, he has launched Walk Among the Trees, which offers hikes full of tradition and honesty: medicinal plants and identity crises. It makes for an authentic eye-opening experience.
“We can share what we know and what we’re learning,” says Mario. “I don’t mind people seeing that struggle in us.”
“Our parents were more embarrassed; they couldn’t talk about things,” says Cheyene. “Now we are breaking that chain. Recently I realized, I didn’t lose my culture; it was just sleep.”
The Hiawatha Highlands are on the edge of the Canadian Shield, the ancient bedrock that shapes half of Canada. It is also on the outskirts of Sault Ste Marie. “The Soo”, as the city is called, is located in northern Ontario’s Algoma Country, between lakes Superior and Huron, on the edge of Canada itself: Michigan can be seen across the St. Mary’s river. But despite being so close to the United States – or perhaps because of it – Canada could be the largest in this region. I would come to find out.
The story of the Soo is very Canuck. It was a gathering place for First Nations long before French missionaries and fur traders arrived in the 17th century. And long before the opening of the Sault Ste Marie Canal in 1895, the last link that created a navigable waterway from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes.
The canal is now a National Historic Site; Most of the original machinery still works the giant lock – 253 feet long, 44 feet deep – although these days it is only for pleasure traffic. Looking at the big empty tank in a flash, I’m not sure I want to paddleboard through it.
The Soo is also home to the hangar-sized Bushplane Heritage Center, which celebrates airborne exploration and defense in this vast nation. The irrepressible guide Tim Murphy shows me around the various historic trades used to fight wildfires. Sadly, this could not be more timely: Canada’s 2023 season was the worst on record, with 6,669 fires destroying 18.5 million hectares.
The museum registers the extraordinary innovations over the years, from Noorduyn Norsemans fabric wing to the development of roll tanks, which fill pilots with water through skimming lakes with real precision. Although I do question modifications to the iconic Beaver, which included an ashtray for each passenger.
Then, at Soo’s Algoma Art Gallery, I am introduced to the Group of Seven. This early 20th century group began to capture the essence of Canada through contact with nature – and they were repeatedly drawn to the landscapes of northern Ontario. Their bold, emotionally charged paintings of the region helped shape the artistic identity of a young, growing nation.
I meet this cohort again soon. Driving north from the Soo, I pull over at Chippewa Falls. Here, a documentary in the shape of an artist’s easel – one of several on the Moments of Algoma Group of Seven trail – marks where AY Jackson painted the Rapids. A chunk of water over billions of years old pink granite and a fisherman casting a line. I would put myself in a very Canadian picture. I was also buried in the heart of the country: Chippewa is the halfway point of the Trans Canada Highway; Victoria and St. John were now 2,300 miles away.
The coast-to-coast highway was completed in 1962, making travel by car easier. But it’s the canoe that really defines the country, connecting Canadians to nature, each other and their heritage. I head into Lake Superior Provincial Park, 600 square miles of lakes, islands and native pictographs, where sugarcane gives way to boreal forest, to try it out.
First, go there. The section of the Trans Canada Highway from Chippewa through the provincial park is arguably one of the most spectacular drives in the country, the road twisting and turning with great lake shores, endless trees and ancient rock. But there is hardly any traffic.
The busiest place is Batchawana Bay, where I stop – as I was inspired to do – at Voyageur’s Lodge for their apple fritters. “Taste joy for them!” says a sugar-lipped man outside. I order one: hot, fresh, heavy as a steak. It takes me the entire 90 minute drive north to my canoe rendezvous to eat it.
Debris from my knees, I meet Shana Shipperbottom and Ryan Walker from outdoor operator Forest the Canoe at the turn off Lake Mijinemungshing. They will be taking me on a one-night adventure in the countryside. Mijinemungshing (“where loons eat”) is the largest lake in the park, with a handful of well-spaced campsites. We load two boats and push off, paddling into clear skies, dark waters and silence – it’s July but there doesn’t seem to be another soul here.
Soon we pull up on a small island and set up our tents; there is a fire pit, picnic table and, hidden in the trees, a bush loo. Basic. But then Shana brings out the “canoe-terie” – a spread of local smoked trout, cheese and pickles served in a raised canoe, on our own beach – and life feels more five-star. She’s forgotten the coffee filter, so Ryan whips one out of birch bark.
“The canoe is part of the national consciousness, but we’re always taught about them from a colonial perspective,” says Ryan, who was Mohawk, as we paddled out again in the late afternoon, glistening with whites and with beaver dams. “The canoe is a very indigenous invention. When the settlers came, indigenous people taught them their ways – otherwise the settlers would have died.”
There is no such risk on our mini-adventure. Shana and Ryan have brought enough food to feed a flotilla, the water recedes gently, and the fire ban has just been lifted, so we can spend the evening chatting around the campfire . I feel my Canuck-ness sink deeper every time Canadian is whispered. The night is overcast – a shame, the park’s Dark Sky Preserve is one of the darkest around. And the day gets humid. But Shana and I “bath” anyway: verging-on-transcendent lake swimming, light rain skimming on the side, nobody for miles.
Without any urgency, we make breakfast – bacon, pancakes, maple syrup. Ryan teaches me to fish (I catch a stick). Then we pack up and disembark, taking the long way back to the jetty, through small islands and archipelagos of lilypads. It’s a key, leaving what felt like a private wilderness. Fortunately, my last stop, a few miles up the road, offers a ready recapture of civilization.
Rock Island is a greenstone peninsula where the Michipicoten River flows into Lake Superior. David Wells, a keen canoeist, came to paddle here in the 1990s, and was blown away; he bought a cottage. Now, in a contagiously laidback way, he runs Naturally Superior Adventures and Rock Island Lodge, so that others can paddle and overnight here too. It’s a kind of cut-off jeans, endless water trees, a really nice place to be. During the community dinner, another guest, from Toronto, summed it up as follows: “Basically you’ve arrived at the pinnacle of Canada.”
I don’t sleep in the lodge itself, but a geodesic dome on the beach – anything closer to the lake and I’d be on it. In fact, I will soon be: Tate’s guide I take kayaking on Superior. The largest freshwater lake in the world, it is more like a sea, with its own weather and whims. Thank God it’s calm as we blast north. We talk about property porn – there are some thatched houses on the shore. Then we enter a cave and pull up on a long sandy beach.
“If there’s five people here we think it’s busy,” Tate says. Today, there is no one at all, just some driftwood and another Group of Seven easel of knowledge: AY Jackson painted the scene I am taking in now. Jackson had a strong desire to paint the Canadian landscape, and traveled widely, up to the Arctic. and from coast to coast. It was here that he chose to buy a summer cabin, which he owned until his death in 1974. Well, if northern Ontario was good enough for a father who established Canada’s artistic identity, it is certainly good enough for me.
Fundamentals
Air Canada (00800 669 92222; aircanada.com) flies to Sault Ste Marie, via Toronto, from around £550 return. Canadian Sky (01342 395583; canadiansky.co.uk) can arrange custom vacations to Northern Ontario.
Walk Among the Trees offers walks from C$40pp (walkamonthetrees.com). Forest the Canoe (forestthecanoe.ca) offers two-night backcountry trips from C$675pp including guides, equipment, permits and food. Naturally Superior Adventures (naturallysuperior.com) offers many paddling options, including half-day canoeing (from C$105) and multi-day trips; Rooms at Rock Island Lodge (rockislandlodge.ca) cost from C$185pn B&B, GlamDome from C$110pn.
Admission to the Canadian Airplane Museum costs C$15.50 (bushplane.com). For information on the Group of Seven track, see momentsofalgoma.ca. For more information, visit destinationnorthernontario.ca
