Deux-Rivières and Matawa

Upon arriv­ing in Deux-Rivières, a small com­mu­nity located in Ren­frew County, High­way 17 nar­rowed and seemed to plunged right into the Ottawa River. The River was pretty wide and we felt like on a small island. Except for a sea­sonal ferry access to Québec and an aban­doned gas station/ con­ve­nience store, there wasn’t much. The scenery was beau­ti­ful though: the grey asphalt matched the dark stormy sky, but con­trasted with the deep blue of the River.

Townships of Head, Clara and Maria

After Pem­broke and Rapides-Des-Joachims, we fol­lowed the Trans-Canada High­way, look­ing for places to explore on that rainy week-end. As soon as I saw a sign say­ing “Head, Clara and Maria”, I wanted to check out the place. What a funny name!
The town­ships stretch along 60 kilo­me­ters of High­way 17. All the activ­i­ties are located nearby the road, the rest is mostly wilderness.

Rapides-des-Joachims, Québec

After Pem­broke, we headed to Deep River and spent the night there (more on that later). The fol­low­ing day, the weather was a lit­tle bit bet­ter, albeit chilly. We drove to Rapides-Des-Joachims, a small vil­lage located on an island in the mid­dle of the Ottawa River.

Pembroke, Ontario

To cel­e­brate the last long week-end of the sum­mer (Labour Day was today), we decided to take a short trip to rural Canada. We hit the road on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and fol­lowed the bumpy Trans-Canada high­way. Our first stop was in Pem­broke, Ontario, 150 km from Ottawa.

Niagara Falls In The Winter

After a few days in Toronto, we had decided to drive to Nia­gara Falls on Jan­u­ary 1^st. I was curi­ous to see the falls in the win­ter. Because the weather had been rel­a­tively mild in Toronto, we had for­got­ten how cold it really was in the rest of Canada. An hour away from Toronto, it started to snow. In Nia­gara Falls, it was cold and windy and there were huge chunks if ice here and there in the water.

Downtown Toronto

I will always remem­ber the first time I came to Toronto.

It was in 2002, after our crazy long trip from Mex­ico to Brazil. I had never been to North Amer­ica before and I wanted to see Canada, so I flew back to Toronto with Feng. It was Feb­ru­ary and I didn’t have any warm clothes after a few months in Latin Amer­ica. The only jacket I had was a thin leather jacket I had bought in Argentina dur­ing the Peso cri­sis. Feng had warned me: it was going to be cold.

Nathan Phillips Square

In Ottawa, we have the Rideau Canal. In Toronto, local pol­ish their skat­ing skills on Nathan Phillips Square, where the New Year cel­e­bra­tions took place.

Toron­to­ni­ans seemed to have a blast with friends and fam­ily as they were skat­ing around the man-made ice rink that cov­ers the square. I wanted to try it, but the queue at the skate rental was huge!

Yonge & Dundas

Dun­das Square, located at the inter­sec­tion of busy Yonge Street and Dun­das street, is famous for host­ing pub­lic events. This is one of the busiest inter­sec­tion in Toronto. The square is sur­rounded on all sides by gigan­tic com­mer­cial bill­boards, which is fairly unique (and con­tro­ver­sial) in Canada.