Maniac Roadtrip, Part 2: ...Followed By Another Errand
In Part One of this eighteen-hour adventure, I documented the first three hours' worth of lead-footing that took me from Toronto to Gravenhurst. It's one of those small-towns-in-the-woods that was kinda sleepy until Cottage Country took off in a big way. Since then, it's been expanding.
Like larger municipalities, it has subdivisions. But unlike those cities', one of Gravenhurst's subdivsions is separated by the main town by a stretch of woodland that starts a little beyond the town's only school. Beyond it, evincing the prosperity, is a park outfitted by both a baseball diamond and bleachers:
and a nice collection of athletes. With wings:
Yep: when I took the photo, the field was hosting a convention of Canada geese. If the image makes you hungry, shame on you. ;)
Muskoka's Hidden Gem
From the Gravenhurst pass-through, I headed to the small lakeside town Bala. Like Gravenhurst, it was sleepy back in the day. But unlike Gravenhurst, it's more-or-less stayed sleepy. Even though it has a hidden gem of a venue that's held a surprisingly large sway over popular music for a place in a poky town.
It's also one of the hubs of Cottage Country. This image, taken from a small park right on Lake Muskoka, shows a few apparently poky cottages...
...most of which would command prices well north of C$1 million. Suffice it to say that the cottage areas of Muskoka Lake contain a nice demographic.
To the left is a harbor which borders Bala's secondary drag. It's dominated by that hidden gem I mentioned above:
Namely, The KEE To Bala:
Okay, it looks poky too. But it's been hosting huge acts all through the rock and post-rock era. Some of the acts that have played there are Chubby Checker, Rush, The Ramones, Blue Rodeo, Sum 41, Snoop Dogg and Drake. As this sign in front says,
it hosted huge acts even in the big-band era. One of the attractions for the bands is boating around the area. Somewhere between a dust-covered archive and Youtube is a lost video of Rush's Geddy Lee chatting to the camera while being driven by a boat around Bala's part of Muskoka Lake. I think it was filmed in the early 1980s. The boating fun jibes with the good demographic.
It's quite the gem, well worth stopping for on the way to my intended destination.
The Second Sin
That would be in the Wah'Ta Reserve, whose welcoming sign:
takes several miles to reach from Bala on a two-lane road called Muskoka 38. Back when the Wah'Ta was called the Gibson Reserve, that two-laner was Provincial Road 660.
Shortly after that sign, I turned off to my destination:
No, not for fireworks, but for something else to do with fire. One of the native rights wrested from Canada's governments is the right to sell ciggies without excise tax. In Toronto, a carton of good-quality smokes can reach eighty Canadian dollars. The good-quality but basic carton-in-a-baggie sold by First Nations Liquidators goes for twelve.
Yes sir or ma'am, you read that right. Two hundred cigarettes for twelve Canadian dollars! No wonder why I divested my wallet of C$240 and carried off twenty baggies:
Stick 'em in the freezer - I know this from experience - and they'll be good to smoke more than a year after they're bought. Given how much I damage my lungs, the savings will effectively cover the cost of my entire trip.
Yep: given my addiction, this was a necessary errand. Shame on me :)
But it was only the first leg of my eighteen-hour drive-a-thon; I had much farther north to go. From Cottage Country to the city that's an unofficial border to Northern Ontario and on to beyond....
- A Necessary Errand...
- Followed By Another Errand (You're Here!)
- From Cottage Country To The Border Of The North
- Tourists And Traps
- Night Driving And Peculiar Hazards
- The Long Journey Home, With Barrenness And Wake-ups