Severance Travels: Thunder Bay, ON. Ft. Harrison Provincial Park

We left Two Harbors on Wednesday, July 3rd and entered Canada. (Yes, I know, we missed the 4th of July celebration!!).
Nice views of the lake all along the way. Saw a lot of flowers along the road - lupine.

The border crossing was easy - only a couple of cars ahead of us and just a few questions.

We found our campsite in the Provincial Park and went to the Center to check in.

We got checked in and found our campsite. That's us up on the hill overlooking the river and The Center.

After getting set up, the rains came down for about 3 hours and then cleared up.

Yesterday, Thursday, we went back down to the center and got our passes to visit Ft. William. The Center is neat:

Maps of Ft. William.

We walked along the dock to watch the fur traders come in by canoe.

This gal was the fur trader. She enlisted a couple of young boys to help her carry the furs to the trading post.

Once in the post, she bargained with the proprietor for goods in exchange for her furs.

After those transactions were made, the furs made their way over to the baling building.

Here they weighed the furs and then packed them in boxes to be shipped to Montreal and then London.

We walked from building to building to see how they lived in the early 1800's.

At one point I got caught up in a game of lawn hockey.

This was their lookout.

A canoe-making building.

Axe throwing - Judy tried but wasn't able to get them to stick. No one else could either, for that matter.

They had barns for chickens, sheep, goats, and other animals.

There is an interesting story behind the occupation of the fort. There were clashes between the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Company as to who rightfully owned this area. There was the "Seven Oaks Incident" between the two, and, as a result, they sparred from time to time.
These two gentlemen here represented the two companies and were continually bickering about who was right and wrong.

So, they replay the 'Seven Oaks Incident.'

The Hudson Bay group win out and take a hostage.

It was fun to watch and listen. If you look this up on Google, you will be able to read all about it.

If you didn't know better, you could think that this is a real, working fort due to the housing, the animals, the garden, etc. But it is not.

Just outside fort is this encampment.

It was a fun morning/afternoon at this fort. And it was not crowded. Today when we went down to the gift shop, there were many more cars in the parking lot.

We walked over to the river (Kaministaquia) and saw a few fisherman.