Our Great Northern Adventure - Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park (Kakabeka Falls, ON)

Aug 18

Our last night in Quetico brought the worst thunderstorm I’ve ever been in. I could hear thunder off in the distance when I laid down in the tent. I kept checking the radar before I finally fell asleep.

I’ve never seen a band of pink like this before. Heading right for us, heading right for those who are camping in the backcountry completely unaware of its arrival.

I shot up from my bed when I heard deafening cracks and bangs of thunder overhead. My husband was up too. I could see him, I could see everything because there was so much lightening.

It was so.loud.

I remember hearing a BANG of thunder and then just listening to it roll around in the sky above. It was directly over us.

We were in a clearing and on our sleeping pads. Not sure where the safest place would have been for us. Definitely not in the tent incase a tree fell, or we were hit by lightening. I know we should have moved to the Sube and drove into a clearing.

Eventually it passed on, but slowly. There was hardly any wind.

Severn slept through the whole thing.

The next morning we were swarmed by mosquitos so we packed everything up wet, including ourselves, and got the heck out of there. I think Quetico was booting us out!

We didn’t know it at the time, but forgetting Severn’s potty at this pull off site along the highway caused a lot of aggravation (on top of a mounting concern for the sound coming from our Sube’s front wheel).

My husband made a wrong turn leaving us 40 minutes away from Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park we were checking into and we all didn’t have breakfast until 11am!

I did a grocery shop while my husband and Severn wolfed down breaky sandwiches and hash browns in a parking lot... he had to deal with a poop in the new potty we had to stop and buy.

This was all before 11:30am. And then we managed to get our Sube looked at and fixed ($700 later...) We spent many hours making fun in an industrial shithole where the auto shop was.

Narvi’s Auto in Thunder Bay were AWESOME!!!

With hours to kill we tried to make our way through all the fenced-in lots into big box store country where we were left trying to still find our way to a sidewalk or at least a road in search of a patio - a place where we desperately needed a beer.

We didn’t get to our campsite until 4pm at which point it was raining. Despite all of the mishaps, we had fun at Kakabeka Falls and tried to keep the mood light.