Tales from the Trail
My family’s 1974 summer vacation happened because of a geography book that was lying around the house. Our book about Ontario included several pages on the Bruce Trail , and we decided to give it a try. We had done lots of camping already but had never attempted a long hike. My siblings and I pored over the book, estimating speed and distance, coming to the optimistic conclusion that we could get close to the end of the trail at Tobermory . We even equipped ourselves with a snake-bite kit, in case we made it to the Bruce Peninsula and encountered one of those fearsome Massasauga Rattlers . This just goes to show how little non-hikers really know about distance. It’s just as well that we weren’t really determined to finish the trail. In our three-week vacation, we barely made it off the Niagara Peninsula. My family and I set off on this adventure in our usual fashion, which was by walking to the Longueuil Metro station. Fully equipped with knapsacks and hiking boo...