Two Walks; Nice and Nicer

Yesterday we decided to venture out to another of the places recommended by our host here at the Manitoulin Resort. This is the boardwalk at the beach at Providence Bay.

There is not much to Providence Bay besides the beach; the little village is only about three blocks square.

For such a small place the welcome center was large and very well done.

Matey could only be up on the boardwalk, so we loaded him in the stroller and set off. This beach is on Lake Huron, not the Georgian Bay.

It’s a nice beach and on the day after Canada Day it was not crowded.

I had heard a rare thistle grows on Manitoulin Island so when I saw this I took this photo. It is the Cirsium pitcheri, the Pitcher’s thistle. It only grows on sand dunes on lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior. Most of them are in Michigan. Ontario only has thirty sites where they grow, so I felt lucky to have spied one. The tap root on this plant might go 2 meters deep and it’s been growing for four to twelve years before it flowered, and after these flowers go to seed this plant will die.

The boardwalk was about a quarter mile long and we expected to just turn around at the end, but instead we found we’d come to a dog beach.

So I parked the stroller and let Matey out.

We walked further to an area of flat stones. I tried to get Matey to take a drink from the lake, but the little waves put him off.

Having the dog beach made this a nice little walk.

Today we decided to go a little farther. We crossed this causeway across one of the many bays on Manitoulin and drove to Misery Bay Provincial Park, also a recommended place.

Behind their visitor center were several trails.

These led through areas of Alvar. Alvar is a habitat made of thin soil or no soil over limestone or dolostone.

The first three quarters of a mile was on a wheelchair accessible trail down to the bay. Most of it was a lot rougher than this boardwalk and it would take a good bit of effort to get a person in a wheelchair down it, but it was easy for us with Matey in the stroller.

There was a bit of beach on pretty Misery Bay.

We walked on across more of this interesting landscape.

There were a lot of flowers out. This is a tickseed, not sure which one,

this is tall anemone,

and this is one of my favorites, creeping dogwood.

We came back to the bay at another spot where there was a lot of bare rock.

A lot of bare rock.

Small pockets of soil…

had some sweet surprises.

We took a little break here. Matey was content to stay in the stroller for his drink.

Then we walked back through the woods and Alvar. We took a different trail on the way back and it was definitely not wheelchair accessible like what Bud is on here. Altogether we went just under three miles, but it was a good workout pushing the stroller.