It’s after 10:00 Sunday night and just getting in from dinner at the Sportsman’s Inn, where we are docked. We have had a very decadent weekend, eating there last night as well. There is a piano player here whom we have met on our last two trips and we always get a seat near the piano and test him on how many songs he knows. He hasn’t faltered yet. And it makes for a lovely relaxing evening.

Our groceries are shopped for and stowed; we have walked the town three or four times; checked out the shops; and had lunch at Herbert’s Fish and Chips.

Herbert’s Fisheries has a wharf and a processing plant - a big shed with some employees who prepare the whitefish - fresh and smoked - and package it for sale. But beside this building, there is an old school bus painted red and white stripes from which they sell fish and chips. The fishing boats, flat, ugly things with full sides about 10 feet tall housing where the fish are iced down, are parked at the wharf on the channel side. And on the huge dock itself, there are about a dozen very large picnic tables and umbrellas. So you go up to the bus, request and pay for your order, they take your first name, and when it is cooked, they yell out “Phil!” and you have to hear them over all the noise of the plant and the people milling about the place. Take your fish and chips off to a table which you will share with lots of other people from all over and enjoy your lunch. It was a very close day today, exceedingly humid and sunny and hot, and everyone was trying to get their own little space under the umbrellas. But the fish was delicious.

Herbert's Fish & ChipsNext door to Herbert’s is the LCBO (liquor store) and it even has its own dock which Phil thinks is the greatest idea. There is no bank in town so the LCBO will act as one but there is now an ATM machine in Pitfield’s, the grocery store.

Pitfield’s is a white store with a store-front right out of a John Wayne western, the kind with the tall flat roofed false front that doesn’t match the actual roof in behind but makes the store looks pretty impressive. Inside, they have a little bit of everything, from magazines to hardware to canned and fresh goods. They are about 20% more expensive than the regular shops but when you consider that they are on a dead-end highway about ½ hour from Sudbury and the road goes nowhere and the only people that visit are boaters in the summer and snowmobilers in the winter, you have to expect higher prices. Everyone that comes to town checks out Pitfield’s so it is always busy. It even has a laundromat on the side and its own dock as well. As Phil and I were getting our stuff rung in, the lady behind us was saying to the manager how busy the store was with all the boaters in on a Saturday and it made for long waits at the store. I turned to her and apologized for taking so long but I was one of those boaters. She was just a tad embarrassed. I grew up in a tourist town and, believe me, Killarney needs every cent that the boaters bring in and they should be out marketing themselves even more.

We were talking to the Post Office lady and she said there are about 400-450 permanent residents but they are dwindling at a great rate, especially since they closed the school which used to have one teacher and 11 grades. Now there’s a challenge.

There is an ice-cream shop and a small gift shop in town, as well as several marinas. It is the only town on the entire route that has its own map on the marine charts. It is so small that every single house is shown as a black square or rectangle on the chart! There are about 3 streets east and west and about 3 more running north and south. It has a cute little museum, a small recreation centre, a post office, a lovely stone Roman Catholic Church, St. Bonaventure Parish Church, and lots of sea-gulls and visitors. The locals are struggling this year because there are only about half the number of boaters, so far, as last year. Although we were told at Wrights Marina in Britt that the “season” is considered to be mid-July to mid-August, so maybe another week will change things.

Killarney ChannelKillarney Provincial Park is the main attraction between here and Sudbury. Accessible by land and water, the park is a hiking and canoe paradise, with campgrounds, remote camp sites, trails and tons of lakes. I picked up a copy of the Park paper and discovered all sorts of things.

Don’t loiter at the landfill site. “The bears natural reaction cannot be controlled.” Hmmm.

You can’t take either bottles or cans into the park. Everything has to be packed in and out but they are afraid that it is too easy to just “lose” a can or bottle so they aren’t allowed.

Inside the park you can’t have ATVs or snowmobiles because it wrecks the undergrowth: although the surrounding area has quite a few snowmobile trails.

In 2004, Ontario Parks collected nearly 50,000 empty propane cylinders - those small green ones that we all use. It cost $2.50 to recycle them and they cost less than that new so by asking everyone to use the small refillable tanks, this number has been reduced to 24,000 cylinders in 2005. We have a small refillable on board for our BBQ and it is sure a lot easier than all those silly little things that keep falling all over the place inside the transom storage. I read that in the Killbear Park paper as well so maybe I already mentioned that.

There is an active wolf research program in the park with several packs in different areas of the park. Maybe we will be able to hear them some night.

And, of course, they are still trying to save those silly old rattlesnakes.

Something that I didn’t really know about was that during the height of the smelting and mining activity in Sudbury, all the lakes in the area were basically “dead” because of the huge amounts of acid rain pollution. These lakes are now coming back on their own due in part to the research done here in the park area on the effects of acid rain.

Killarney is on a channel, several hundred feet wide, with docks on both sides. After settling in, it seems to be a popular activity to get out the dinghy and ride up and down the channel to check out all the other boats. We seem to be one of the smaller ones at 29 ft with our docking neighbours being 34, 42 and well over 50 ft. There are some even bigger. We’re not proud, we’re paid for!!!!

This afternoon we had one very loud clap of thunder and about ½ hour of rain that didn’t seem to be trying too hard. Just after the thunder clap, the phone beeped and it was #1 son Brent in Halifax telling us that the entire Great Lakes are under a severe thunderstorm watch. That means that you get to watch to see if they are coming. When you see them, it turns into a thunderstorm warning which is when I look for an empty hold in which to hide. Son #1 is just trying to get his name in the log again.

Tomorrow we are doing a few last minute thingees, off to the post office to mail the photos to Brent who will pick some for the new web site, checking the fluid levels in the cooler and probably making a beer run. And then we will be off for the next few days. Leaving the Killarney channel we will be trying out/viewing several anchorages in the immediate area and then maybe a day or two in one of our favourite spots, The Pool at the eastern end of Baie Fine. This is actually in the Provincial Park itself and it is a lovely spot to hole up in for a day or two and enjoy the LaCloche mountains.

As we were going up to dinner, we heard a boat calling on the radio that they were approaching the Inn from the south end of the channel. I suppose they are really correct in that they probably came from the open water to the south before getting to the channel but the channel actually runs east/west. Sort of reminded me of the politician - whoever it was - that thought the Detroit river ran east/west, not north/south.

The radio is frequently a source of amusement, especially when listening to the “Securité” notices to shipping. These are “safety” notices and, just in case you are interested, we have spent several days listening to the progress of a floating picnic table in Lake Superior; listening to the warnings that the Department of National Defence markers around the firing range near Meaford are “not visible, sunken, or off their spot” (common DND, get it together); and to watch out for and report sightings of a 12 m boat floating upside down in Lake Huron. Anyone want a cheap boat?

And so to bed.

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