I arrived at Pearson at that familiar early hour, but this morning my next flight was to a different Ontario city.

Today was the start of my journey to reach Isle Royale National Park, a long slab of an island in western Lake Superior. There are three ferries that head to Isle Royale - two which I'm more familiar with in Michigan, but since it's hard to get from Newfoundland to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, I'd instead take the ferry from Grand Portage Minnesota, a miniscule village pretty much adjacent to the Canadian border.

Two hours after leaving Pearson, our little plane of 50 seats landed smoothly in cloudy Thunder Bay. My cheap Aeroplan flight had now put me within striking distance of Grand Portage.

I had about 8 hours to kill and having never seen Ontario's 13th-largest city - I've never done that Northern Ontario drive that every Canadian laments - it was time to head downtown.

It didn't take me long to find empty, silent streets. As I left the bus behind, there were a few people loitering about the downtown mall, but just a few turns brought me to an area with only the odd passing car.

Of course this was all fine with me, save for feeling sad for the residents of this town, but I was left with a relaxing walk amongst unimproved light industry and commercial buildings. There was some of that feeling like in Quebec towns, where the signs and paint jobs haven't been modernized. I felt like I was walking through 1977 at times.

Another part I liked was Simpson Street where there were old hotels and some worn watering holes. The small hotels reminded of the ones you find throughout Ontario, often abandoned or already wiped away in some old newspaper article. I appreciated that a few of them lingered here.

As for the watering holes, I wished that Steve and Donnie were here so we could see the insides. It was too bad I was an 18-hour drive from Windsor.

Thunder Bay surprised me with how empty & dead their downtown was, although I was only judging this city as some place I'd heard of, but actually knew very little about. It's funny how the places people disparage (like Oshawa, Hamilton, Sudbury) are the places you expect very little from, but every other place seems like it's going to be vibrant and happening when you don't hear any negativity towards them (like Thunder Bay, Kenora, Owen Sound).

As I cut through the neighbourhood wedged between Simpson & May Street, there were a few houses with odd colour choices and doors with strange window shapes, again like in Quebec, but also not as many as in Quebec. There were also more brick buildings than I noticed while walking through similar neighbourhoods in Drummondville or Baie-Comeau.

I'd never seen such a magnificent vehicle in Quebec though.

I continued along to the Fort William Gardens, an old relic of arena opened in 1951. I was hoping this would be one of those Northern Ontario jobs where it's a city-owned arena open to the public, but that wasn't the case. I found the front doors locked tight.

The Lakehead University Thunderwolves call this arena home and even though they've offered to work with the city to build a new arena, plans haven't went much further than that.

Other businessmen and people of interest have tried to bring a new arena here, as well as some city councillors, but they've also failed. There isn't even much for news articles about a replacement, with some of the old articles even having surprise quotes from city employees saying that the arena could continue to serve for 20-30 more years, it's just that it wouldn't be as good as a bigger, newer arena.

After trying the doors, I walked a few feet and found what I thought could be the world's largest curling stone. As it turns out, this was the world's largest curling stone, following its construction in 1960 to celebrate The Brier coming to the Fort William Gardens.

That is until tiny Arborg, Manitoba built a bigger curling stone and stole the title. People in Thunder Bay weren't very happy of course, with the stone's caretaker - sounds like a tough gig - Alf Childs saying that the Arborg Manitoba rock doesn't even look like a curling stone and that its an insult to granite.

I always say things get much more Canadian as you head into Canada from Windsor, and there's nothing more Canadian than a dispute between Thunder Bay and Arborg Manitoba over curling stones. Arborg here, bringing the beef to the door like Domino's.

From the Gardens, I curled back towards the taller buildings in town, skipping on a fancy restaurant in an old home because of my giant backpack. Instead I went for Lebanese in a strip mall. It was fine. The dark, faux brick decor reminded me of the old Captain's Galley restaurant in Belle River.

I then skipped out on going to the Newfoundland-themed "The Rock/Newfie's Pub" that was right downtown. It actually looks like a bit of a rough place. I wondered how many pleasant and polite Newfoundlanders end up with a bit of a surprise upon entering during their cross-country road trips.

Near Newfie's Pub was the downtown mall, which was strange with its red and yellow colour scheme upon nonsensical handrails, platforms and exposed steel trusses. It was also dying with downtown characters hanging around, so I went back outside soon enough.

I left the downtown confused about the idea of flattening part of your core to build a suburban style mall, but that's what the Victoriaville Centre was trying to compete with: Thunder Bay built this mall in 1979 as an answer to the trend of suburban malls stealing downtown businesses.

The mall has been a massive failure with losses of about $11 million over its lifetime. There have been recent meetings discussing the possibility of demolition and the city cutting their losses.

I spent the rest of my afternoon taking a city bus up to Thunder Bay's old baseball stadium, which was more locked up than their hockey rink. Even though I couldn't get inside, I could still appreciate a city that has two stadiums built in 1951.

I was growing tired by now and ready for a sit down. I nearly went all the way back to the airport, just to get off the bus right before and walk back to Happy Time Tours & Travel.

Now, the border crossing into Minnesota is only a 45 minute drive from here, but there doesn't exist a smooth way to cross the border without a car. No Greyhound Bus. No big community on the Minnesota side commanding a Thunder Bay bus. No airport shuttle. No rental car location until Duluth for a one-way rental.

There was nothing until I found the Grand Portage Lodge & Casino shuttle.

Located 9.5km (6mi) from the Canadian border, the Grand Portage Lodge & Casino is an evening destination for those in Thunder Bay - so much so that this travel bureau runs a shuttle between Thunder Bay and where I wanted to go, Grand Portage. I'd tried to research if you could simply take the shuttle as a means of transportation, but I suppose I would survive if they twisted my rubber arm until I spent some money gambling at the casino.

My worry about the shuttle caper grew as I arrived early and sat with my giant pack inside Happy Time Tours & Travel. Thankfully the teenage girl working didn't pay me any mind. My worry was rekindled though, as my fellow bus riders showed up and there wasn't anyone under 50 amongst the couples, and even more likely, no one younger than 60. It also seemed like these people were regulars on the shuttle, since the teenage girl remarked on one man's address & how he hadn't lived on that street for 29 years (the travel bureau had the man's address from 29 years ago in its system).

I thought about trying to blend in, so I skulked about as best I could with my pack and my youth. This was sniffed right out. The bus organizer was right over to let me know that it was fine that I was here for the ride to get to Isle Royale, but that they would immediately leave me at the border if there were any problems. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, looking at me for confirmation, "okay, works for me!"

The bus pulled away from Happy Time Tours & Travel and onto the highway.

Even though it was a grey day, we passed through some beautiful country that made me wonder about the drive through Northern Ontario.

We were at the border before I knew it.

The Pigeon River border crossing was tiny. A single guard came out and onto the bus instead of making all of the casino go'ers go inside the building. This border guard scanned the crowd briefly before beelining it to me. I thought the jig was up & I was going to be left here to argue with stern, remote guards; but it was only a matter of asking whether I had booze & how long I was going to be in Minnesota, then his acceptance and my welcome into America.

We pulled away from the outpost and it felt like a dream that had passed. As someone who's used to the stark difference between Windsor & Detroit, it remains strange the similarity between Quebec and Vermont crossings, or New Brunswick and Maine crossings. Ontario to Minnesota was very much that same feeling like you were in the same country and nothing had really happened.

The Grand Portage Lodge & Casino is only 10 minutes into America, so there was little time to happily gaze out at northern Minnesota.

Now as for accommodations, a tiny motel attached to the gas station closed within the last couple years. The only option here was the casino and I'd called months ago about a campsite, only to find that they were already all booked up because this was the annual Rendezvous Days Powwow weekend. There also weren't any $139 lodge rooms available if I decided to be reckless with my money.

I'd decided that I would dive into the woods somewhere, stealth camping up a hydro line or 100ft off of whatever road. I really didn't like this idea and wanted one of the great campsites on the Lake Superior shore, so I wandered down in hopes that there was a cancellation or they weren't really that strict about small tents (there was a lot of open campground here).

Walking into the modest campground headquarters, as luck would have it, even after all my internet research and calling, there was an overflow area that I didn't know about. The overflow area was for 6 campers and they had 2 spots left. Score!

Throwing down my pack and happily setting up my tent, the next stop was the gas station up the hill for some dinner and provisions. I was going to be taking a boat from here to the National Park for a week and I had read that the National Park's store had next to nothing, and what they had was at "insane" prices. I needed to buy a week's worth of breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks here at this gas station with its 4 or 5 aisles of food.

In addition to food, I could also use a beer after this long day. Now prior to this trip, I thought to look up the beer laws of Minnesota and found that only statewide liquor stores can sell beer, while gas stations are resigned to selling 3.2% beer. Of course tiny Grand Portage didn't have a licensed liquor store, but as I stood in the gas station there was beer that looked legit. It didn't have any markings of near-beer or lower percentages on the case, so I grabbed a box of Coors Banquet to head back to my campsite and read by evening's dimming light.

It was only after it started to rain and I had to squeeze into my 6'6" tent, that I thought about how I had a slight headache and was feeling a bit off. And as I was sitting there holding my Coors in this small area, I looked at the ridge and read "3.2% max". Sigh.

It was a good thing the ferry was leaving early the next morning, because it was time for bed.

Continue to Part 2