History of previous days





Day 1: (Thursday & Friday, February 16th, 2005) We arrived safely in Searchmont, Ont. late Thursday evening at 7 P.M.  We started Thursday morning in St. Ignace, MI. at the Quality Inn. We left at 8:00 A.M. and rode north and then east across the eastern UP, riding to Detour Village and taking the ferry to Drummond Island. We stopped for lunch at a bar before riding across the ice bridge to St. Joesph Island, Ont. It was windy and snowing, making it hard to see the stakes or christmas trees that marked the way across the lake. When we arrived on the island, we were greeted by a small brick building with a sign that said "Custom Phone" . To clear customs we had to pickup a phone inside this building and answer questions about where we were born and model and make of our snowmobile.
 
 


Entering Canada at Customs and historical marker

We rode the short distance across the island and then tried to find the ice bridge to the mainland. At first we could not find it due to the increasing blowing snow, using the GPS we were able to locate the 1st marker and proceded the 7 miles across to Bruce Mines, Ont. If the wind and blowing snow had increased much more we would have been forced to stay on the island, not sure where? Riding on torward Searchmont, Ont. we ended up on the wrong trail (very poorly marked) and had to navigate using the GPS and ride on back roads to get us back to the main trail. Unfortunately we did not plan for this and now would be very tight on fuel to get to our destination.. by late afternoon the snow was coming down very hard and made visablity difficult! We arrived at the only gas station in Searchmont, Ont. to discover they were out of gas and the gas truck had slide off the road and the earliest would be around 9:00 A.M. in the morning before they would get any fuel. We then realized that John'sled had just ran out of fuel! We had to tow him the last f
 
 
 


The "RIDERS", just south of Cochrane, Ont.

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