For the last few years, Mario Gionet has been having the same dreams: His grandmother is by the fire, in a clearing with cedar trees. “He gives me my teachings,” Mario explained as we walked through the Hiawatha Highlands, the mist making the deep forest look absolutely dreamlike. “He speaks Ojibwe and so do I.”
This is weird because Mario can’t do much when he’s awake. Although he is 50 years old, he is only now learning the language of his ancestors. “It’s hard,” he admitted. “The words are so long!” (The “Blueberry Pie” example has 66 letters: miinibaashkiminasiganibiiiitoosijiganibadagwiingweshiganibakwezhigan.)
“I never remembered my dreams,” he continued. “I think it’s because my mind is more open now and I’m finally learning my own culture.”
Mario is one of a generation of Canadians whose parents were sent to boarding schools and who grew up alienated from their heritage. He no longer just embraces, he shares. With his partner Cheyene Nanie, he started Walking Among the Trees, which offers walks laced with both tradition and honesty: herbs and identity crises. It makes the experience eye-openingly authentic.
“We can share what we know and what we have learned,” Mario said. “I don’t mind if people see this struggle within us.”
“Our parents were more ashamed; they couldn’t talk about certain things,” Cheyene added. “We are breaking this chain now. Recently I realized that I haven’t lost my culture; “He was just sleeping.”
The Hiawatha Highlands lie on the edge of the Canadian Shield, the ancient bedrock that shaped half of Canada. It’s also on the outskirts of Sault Ste Marie. The “Soo” as the city is known is located in Northern Ontario’s Algoma Country, between Lakes Superior and Huron, on the border with Canada: Michigan, visible across the turbulent St. Mary River. But despite — or perhaps because of — being so close to the United States? – this region might be Canada at its most Canadian. I was coming to find out.
Soo’s story is very Canuck. Long before French missionaries and fur traders arrived in the 17th century, it was a meeting point for First Nations peoples. And long before the opening of the Sault Ste Marie Canal in 1895, it was the final link in creating a navigable waterway from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes.
The canal is now a National Historic Site; Many of the original machines still operate the massive 77 meter long, 13.5 meter deep lock, but these days it is purely for recreational purposes. I’m not sure I’d want to paddle board there when the big trough is emptying in the blink of an eye.
The Soo is also home to the hangar-sized Bushplane Heritage Center, which celebrates aerial exploration and conservation across this vast country. Irrepressible guide Tim Murphy showed me a variety of historic tools used to fight wildfires. Painfully, this couldn’t be more timely: Canada’s 2023 season was the worst on record, with 6,669 fires destroying 18.5 million hectares.
The museum lists the remarkable innovations that have occurred over the years, from fabric-winged Noorduyn Norsemans to the development of rolling tanks in which pilots skimmed lakes with extreme precision and filled them with water. Still, I questioned the changes to the iconic Beaver, which included ashtrays for each passenger.
I was later introduced to the Group of Seven at Soo’s Algoma Art Gallery. This early 20th-century collective aimed to capture the essence of Canada through contact with nature and was repeatedly drawn to the landscapes of Northern Ontario. Bold, soulful, impressionist paintings of the region helped shape the artistic identity of a young, developing nation.
Shortly after, I encountered this group again. Driving north from the Soo, I stopped at Chippewa Falls. Here is an information board in the shape of an artist’s easel (one of several examples in the Algoma Group of Seven Moments) marking where AY Jackson painted the streams. Water was flowing over billions of years of pink granite and a fisherman was casting a fishing line. I would put myself in a very Canadian picture. I had also placed myself in the heart of the country: Chippewa marks the halfway point of the Trans Canada Highway; Victoria and St John’s were now 3,700 kilometers apart.
The coast-to-coast highway was completed in 1962, making travel by car easier. But canoeing is what truly defines the country, connecting Canadians to nature, each other and their heritage. I was heading to Lake Superior State Park, 600 square miles of lakes, islands within lakes, and native pictographs where sugar maples give way to boreal forests, to give it a try.
Getting there first. The section of the Trans Canada Highway from Chippewa to the provincial park is arguably one of the country’s most spectacular roads; The road plays and twists with wide lake shores, endless trees and ancient rocks. But there was almost no traffic.
The busiest spot was Batchawana Bay; Here I stopped at the Voyageur’s Lodge for apple fritters – as I was urged to do. “Their taste is pleasure!” said a sweet-lipped man outside. I ordered one: hot, fresh, heavy as steak. I drove 90 minutes north to my canoe appointment to eat it.
While I was dusting off pieces of pastry on my lap, I ran into Shana and Ryan from outdoor operator Forest the Canoe at the turnoff for Lake Mijinemungshing. They were going to take me on a one-night village adventure. Mijinemungshing (“where divers feed”) is the park’s largest lake and has several well-dispersed campsites. We loaded into two boats and rowed away into beautiful skies, dark waters and silence; It was July, but there didn’t seem to be another soul here.
We soon arrived at a small island and pitched our tents; There was a fire pit, picnic table, and a thunderbox (bush latrine) hidden among the trees. Basis. But then Shana came up with a “cano-terie,” a sort of local smoked trout, cheese and pickles served in an upturned canoe on our own beach, and life felt even more five-star. She had forgotten her coffee filter funnel, so Ryan made it out of birch wood.
“Canoeing is part of the national consciousness, but we are always taught about them from a colonial perspective,” Ryan, who is part Mohawk, told me as we paddled again in the afternoon, gliding past inlets and beaver dams. “The canoe is an ingenious invention of the natives. When the settlers arrived, the Native people taught them their ways; otherwise the settlers would have died.”
Our mini adventure contained no such danger. Shana and Ryan had brought enough food to feed a fleet, the water was flowing slowly, the fire ban had just been lifted so we could spend the evening chatting around the campfire. Every time the Canada jay whispered, I felt the Canuckiness sink deeper. The night was cloudy; Unfortunately, the park’s Dark Sky Preserve is one of the darkest areas around. And the day dawned damp. But Shana and I ‘bathed’ anyway: we swam in an almost transcendental lake, light rain falling sideways, no one for miles.
We had our breakfast without any urgency; bacon, pancakes, maple syrup. Ryan taught me how to fish (I caught a stick). Then we packed up and set off, taking the long way towards the pier among small islets and water lily archipelagos. This was a key to leaving behind what felt like a private wilderness. Luckily, my final stop a few miles further down the road provided a gentle re-entry into civilization.
Rock Island is a greenstone peninsula that lies where the Michipicoten River flows into Lake Superior. David Wells, an avid kayaker, came here to paddle in the 1990s and was fascinated by it; He bought a summer house. Now, with an infectiously laid-back attitude, he runs Naturally Superior Adventures and Rock Island Lodge so others can paddle and spend the night there, too. Sort of cut-off denim shorts, endless water and trees, it’s such a beautiful place to go. At the joint dinner, a fellow guest from Toronto summed it up: “You’ve basically arrived at the top of Canada.”
I wasn’t sleeping in a hut, but in a geodesic dome on the beach; The closer I was to the lake the more I would be there. Sure enough, not long after, guide Tate took me canoeing in Superior. The world’s largest freshwater lake is more like a sea, with its own weather and whims. Fortunately, the weather was calm as we paddled north. We were into real estate porn; There were jaw-dropping houses on the shore. Then we entered a cave and pulled up to a long, sandy beach.
“If there are five people here, we think you’re busy,” Tate grinned. There were no people today, just a piece of driftwood and another Group of Seven information easel: AY Jackson painted the view I’m currently taking in. Jackson had a strong desire to paint the Canadian landscape and traveled extensively, as far as the Arctic. and from coast to coast. But right here he chose to buy the summer cottage, which he owned until his death in 1974. If Northern Ontario was good enough for the founding father of Canada’s artistic identity, it was certainly good enough for me.
Fundamentals
Air Canada (00 800 669 92222; aircanada.com) flies to Sault Ste Marie via Toronto for around £550 return. Canadian Sky (01342 395583; canadiansky.co.uk) can arrange special holidays to Northern Ontario.
Walk Among the Trees offers walks starting from C$40 per person (walkamongthetrees.com). Forest the Canoe (forestthecanoe.ca) offers two-night backcountry trips starting at C$675 per person, including guides, kit, permits and food. Naturally Superior Adventures (naturallysuperior.com) offers many paddling options, including half-day kayaking (from C$105) and multi-day trips; Rooms at the Rock Island Lodge (rockislandlodge.ca) start from C$185p, while the GlamDome starts from C$110p.
Admission to the Canadian Bushplane Museum is C$15.50 (bushplane.com). For information on the Group of Seven route, see momentofalgoma.ca. For more information, visit destinationnorthernontario.ca.