June 8, 9. Chutes Provincial Park, Massey Ont

June 8:

The Chutes is a lovely park, with just one excellent hiking trail. The Chutes hike is just over 6 kilometers in total and winds along the Aux Sable River, following a substantial set of water falls. There are numerous lookouts and viewpoints along the way. We needed a really good hike and got one here.

The weather was spectacular, sunny and downright hot, which was OK with us.

Along the way we encountered the local plague of this year, tent caterpillars, or army worms as some people call them. They come raining down from the trees after feeding on leaves to go to ground and come out as a moth in the late fall and lay another batch of eggs. This is year 7 of a 7 year cycle and the population should crash by next year. But they are everywhere, harmless, but yucky at times. One landed on my hat:

And here is a nest of them:

We wiled away the rest of the day back at our campsite, A lovely opportunity to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. The Chutes is past its peak for black flies, but the mosquitoes are on the rise, so it is not perfect, but much more enjoyable than our experience at Algonquin.

We also got our laundry done and up to date and did some more organization on TaJ, so the day was not all pleasure, unless you count clean clothes as a pleasure. It has been great to be able to use our onboard water for this stop.

June 9:

We did a walk down to the Chute itself. Back in logging days (1850-1930) in this part of Ontario, logs were harvested all winter long and stored on the river ice. When the ice broke and the river was a full flood in the spring the logs would be floated down the river to the mills on Lake Huron. The falls here were a problem, and many jams occurred here. The solution was to build a 180 foot long wooden chute and to direct the logs into the chute to bypass the falls. Hence the name.

This is our second trip to the Chutes, we were here in 2014 on a similar trip west. The park is right on the edge of the Town of Massey, which is a sleepy little place of about 1100 people. Friendly folks here, always ready to welcome a visitor.

While we were on our walk today we came across the Ontario Provincial Flower, the Trillium. Here is a beautiful example:

We also came across the scourge of many campers, poison ivy. Lots of it in the woods here.

There is one other R-pod here, a 2016 179 model, with the added tent feature:

And lastly, here is a shot of TaJ in our nicely treed campsite.

Tomorrow we head north of Sault Ste. Marie, our planned destination is Lake Superior Provincial Park, Rabbit Blanket Campground