Blind River Marine Park

August 7 -9, 2019

Bo decided to help us get underway this morning. He woke Sue with a nice big slobbery kiss before the alarm was set to go off. The wind had begun picking up overnight and he thought he was due for some attention.

We departed Little Current on 8/7 at 8:35am after helping a boat named Endorphin get underway. The trip from Little Current to Blind River covered 56 miles of mostly open water so we were able to travel at our normal cruising speed without having to watch for rocks every minute.

The wind continued to pick up from the west as forecasted. Fortunately, we were going west so we could head straight into the waves. We had a great deal of up-and-down movement, but at least we did not have to put up with a lot of rolling. Bo was not happy but hung in there. The wind and waves began letting up around 1:20pm.

We approached the channel to Blind River at 2:15pm. We stopped at the fuel dock to pump out and take on fuel and were at our slip by 2:45pm. The Blind River Marina Park is a very nice marina located in the area of the bay where logs used to be stored after floating down river while waiting their turn at the sawmill (see old photo of town in the photo section). The sawmill has since closed, so the town is working hard to become more of a tourist attraction.

We walked into town for dinner at the Mustang Grill/ Ironhorse Bar. We met some very nice locals that live in a beautiful old house along the road to town decorated with various seafaring items. The owners gave us a couple of souvenir pins and told us to stop by anytime we were walking by their place. Later that evening we had a visitor stop by our boat to welcome us to town. She told us about some of the history and things to do during our visit. We found out later her name was Sally Hagman, the mayor of Blind River. We have been traveling through lots of towns over the past year, and this is the first time we received a visit from a mayor.

Significant storms passed through during the morning of August 8 as forecasted. We had already planned to stay in Blind River three nights due to the weather forecast. Bo was not pleased with the wind and thunder and quite eager to sit as close to Sue as possible. The sun came out by 10am, so Bo got to have some fun in the water by the boat ramp. The remainder of the day was taken up with boat chores and planning the next few days of the trip. We took another walk into town to visit the 17 Restaurant and enjoyed daylight until nearly 9pm.

We visited the Timber Village Museum in town on August 9 and a small art gallery. The museum was small, but had some great pictures, exhibits and old movies of the local timber industry in its prime. Hard to believe they could survive the conditions they experienced. The rest of the day was preparing for the next couple days of travel and our return to the USA.