The Adventures of The Roving Route #45
Happy Spring Everyone! With the ice road officially closed for the season, we thought it would be fun to put a little compilation of how we've spent our off-time this winter. With amazing weather, we tried our hardest to spend as much time as we could outside. Luckily we have situated ourselves in one of the coolest places to live so our backyard gave us an endless amount of activities. Some may have seen a few of these posted on our social media accounts but it's always nice to hear a bit more of the backstories! Did you get up to any fun (socially distanced) adventures this winter?
Snow Creations
Way back in October, an early-season snowstorm dumped inches of wet sticky snow on us which was perfect for building with. It would have been irresponsible of us to have not spent some time outside and built a few friends to keep us company. Tika was quite confused during the whole process but was pleasantly surprised when she realized she had another "dog" to bark at.
Ice Fishing
We have tried ice fishing during some of the previous winter trips here but have always had pretty poor luck. This year has been quite a bit better, and best of all, there is no need to go far to catch some great fish! Thanks to several groups fishing just 20 seconds from our dock, we figured it must be good and dropped our lines. Fishing just a half dozen times for only an hour or two each time, we have caught 6 walleye and kept a few to eat! This may not sound like very much success, but in previous years, we had only ever caught one small fish so it is exponentially better in our opinion!
Luge
Though we didn't have anywhere near the snow we often get and were expecting, it didn't stop us from having some fun in the snow. While we probably should have gotten some knowledge of how to build a proper luge track before actually trying to create one, our failed attempts did lead to some great bloopers, a few big spills, and lots of laughter from Jacki!
Snow Maze
By now, you are likely bored to tears to hear about the surprisingly popular attraction we created this winter on the ice so we will not bore you with it much longer. The walls have now melted down to nothing but the memories of it will last forever. Not only was it a great way to talk with community members during this weird time in the world, but it also marked a few firsts for us. Everything from Q104 in Kenora, to the CBC North Radio show and even BlogTO reached out for a chat. No matter if the organization was small or large, it was really cool to talk about Northern Ontario and Kenora in general.
Skating Through the Maze
Before the warm weather took the maze walls away forever, it gave us the opportunity to do what we had dreamt of from the very start; we skated through the maze! When it started to gain popularity, keeping the maze scraped down to the ice became an obvious safety hazard so we let mother nature take its course and allowed a thin layer of snow to build up. When the top layer melted and then refroze thanks to a +8 day, it made our dreams come true- though the surface was pretty rough to skate on!
Skating on the Ice Road
It has not been just the maze that has become a skating rink over the past weeks though. Pretty much the entire ice road became what has to be the world's longest skating trail. One evening Derek went for a nice skate and ended up about 3kms away before the car traffic got to be too much and turned around to do the whole skate back. Jacki has never been a fan as she has a major fear of falling and proclaimed many years ago that she would never skate again, but the amazing ice surface slowly changed her mind and has given her growing confidence. Hey, with sunsets like these, how could we not strap on skates and glide around!
Ice Bocce
Our latest weekend project with the family was to try our hand at Ice Bocce. With the smooth-ish surface all around but unpredictable cracking, it didn't make any sense to paint rings on the ice as you would for curling, so we settled for Ice Bocce. Throwing an orange hockey puck for the target and using milk jugs for the "rocks" we were off to the races! Even with its simplicity, it was hours of fun!
Now that spring is here we are officially in isolation once again. Stay tuned for next time for some fun stories. Have fun with adventures in your backyard! The Roving Route