Abitibi Canyon Trip Summary
Most of our trips take us south. In many cases, south of the border. This time we headed north as far as we could go in a more-or-less straight line.
Below is a summary of our trip with links to specific posts with more details and lots of pictures.
Our first stop was near Huntsville for a fun visit with friends and an impromptu YouTube video interview! We continued north and stopped briefly at South River and Mattawa. We spent the night by the Mattawa River and continued on the next day to the Temagami area.
After a pleasant stay at Finlayson Point Provincial Park and a visit to Cobalt, and Haileybury we entered the Arctic Watershed.
We spent the next night at Kettle Lakes Provincial Park, visited the Cochrane polar bears. and headed as north as we can go to the abandoned Abitibi Canyon community.
That was as far north as we could go in this part of Ontario. A train line goes all the way to Moosonee, but it is now operating on a limited schedule.
The road came to an end. The wall of black flies that waited for us in Abitibi indicated that we should start heading back home. More waterfalls to visit in Sudbury and a lunch on the shores of French River, and home.
Finally, a bit about our search for boondocking spots in Ontario. We will write more about crown land in future posts; the good, the bad, and the ugly, so stay tuned for that
This was a very short trip, but looking back at how much we did during this trip, we realize how much Ontario has to offer. We kind of took it for granted and fell back on the true and trusted Algonquin Park.
To think that we travelled almost 2,000 kilometers and saw only such a small fraction of the province is amazing. Think about it, Ontario is about 50% larger than Texas—there’s got to be a thing or two to see here!
BY THE NUMBERS
- number of days travelled: 5 (4 nights)
- distance travelled: 1775 km (1103 miles)
- gas: 75 gallons or 283.57 litres
- cost of gas: US$234 or C$307.91
- average fuel consumption: 14.8 mpg or 6.29 kpl
- average camping cost per night: CAD$32.35 or US$25.6(1 free night)
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You managed to cover a lot of ground over 5 days! It’s crazy to think how big (and scenic!) Northern Ontario is. I have yet to visit many of the places you hit up on your road trip, but sure want to. We were contemplating going on a road trip up to Timmins, but somehow the summer got away from us. Maybe in the fall when the leaves are changing colour (and there are no bugs).
There is so much to see and the history of the area is fascinating! Fall should definitely be a great time to visit that area!
Way to go! You packed in a lot in a short time. Great fact about Ontario in relating it to Texas’s size. I think I commented on this last time, but I love it when you include a map of your travels. I’m a bit of a geography nerd, and I like learning about new places I haven’t visited before. By the numbers appeals to my math mind because those kinds of things interest me. Getting 15 mpg isn’t bad considering the size of your vehicle.
I remembered your map comment 🙂 I’m a huge map nerd too, so it certainly spoke to me and I am happy to oblige! 15mpg is the worst mileage we had on the van, we had 17 – 18 before. Lots of head wind…
What a wonderful trip. Was not aware of how big Ontario is. I was also not aware of how warm it could get so far north!
It’s not even the biggest Canadian province. Quebec is bigger! You should come visit once they opw the border 🙂
I especially want to visit now that Canada was ranked the number one country in the world for quality of life!
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-rankings
I wonder if they are taking long winters into account when coming up with the formula. Actually, it may be part of the reason; when I look at the list most of the countries at the tp have very cold winters!
the cold weather thing always stands out to me as well, and probably the main reason I would never move to those countries, as great as they are. Give me hot and humid…
I agree on the vastness of Ontario or Quebec, but it’s mostly woods and bugs, the points of interest are quite far apart and it means a lot of hours of driving between each. But once arrived somewhere you always find something interesting, it was worth it. Thanks for the road trip.
Thanks for coming along! Yes. Lots of driving and lots to see. My kind of road trip 🙂
Amazing. The Abitibi Canyon article was extremely interesting. We had similar things in the Snowy River Hydro Scheme.
I googled Snowy Hydro, very interesting history there. I am always at awe by these projects: the feat of engineering on one side, and the environmental and cultural impacts on the other. Orchestrating it all is the power of water.
Great trip fellow Canadian. Wonderful place to visit.
Thanks! Maybe we’ll bump into you guys one day!
Oh, what a nice trip. Do you usually like to pack in a lot in one go?
In many cases we end up packing a lot into our road trips, but it’s not planned. We don’t usually have an itinerary, we usually pick a couple of optional end destinations and check out things along the way. As soon as we hit the road we go through a transformation and become unstoppable ninjas that just have to see everything 🙂
This looks so beautiful! I’ve never heard of this place:)
It is very beautiful in an eerie sort of way. We also didn’t know it existed until we put our finger on this spot on the map 🙂
Hi, found your blog while googling ‘abitibi canyon’, nice blog! My parents lived in abitibi canyon for 2 years in the ‘40s before I was born. They referred to it as ‘the colony’, there was no road in then. I hear there is nothing there now, abandoned in the ‘80s.
Thank you! How cool that your parents lived there. Did they have interesting stories to tell about the place? I think that the only way in was by train. The place is abandoned, but the dam is still standing and as you see from our post there are still structures and some equipment there. Thanks for stopping by and visiting Abitibi with us!