Halfway to Sudbury and Halfway to Heaven

As many of my friends know very well, I spend a couple of weeks every summer in the small Ontario community of Parry Sound.  What is it that draws me back to this place, and no other, year after year?

That question has both a simple answer and a more detailed one.  You can read about the simple answer in my blog Large Stage Live, in which I give reviews of the marvellous classical concerts at the Festival of the Sound (follow the link on the right side of the page).  My love affair with the Festival began when my sister Kathie moved to Parry Sound in the 1990s and quickly got drawn onto the Festival's board.  A year later, she had twisted my arm, and I came, saw, heard and was hooked!

The music draws me, but there's more to Parry Sound than that, and it's the total experience that keeps me coming back here for so much time each summer.

The headline is actually a tad misleading.  By the time you drive to Parry Sound from Toronto you are certainly past the halfway mark on the road to Sudbury, but Parry Sound is the most convenient stopping place for food and fuel anywhere near the halfway mark.  So, as you would expect, the area closest to the highway is liberally stocked with gas stations, big box stores, and chain restaurants.  To really get to know the Parry Sound area, you have to drive farther in -- or farther out.

This little map gives the basic outlines of the area.  The main 400-69 Trans-Canada Highway extending south to Toronto and north to Sudbury is clear, as are Highways 141 (east to Muskoka and Huntsville) and 124 (northeast to Sundridge and on to North Bay).  The really key feature of course is the beautiful wide basin of Parry Sound itself, a well-sheltered refuge for vessels of all sizes.  What is not shown on this map is the multitude of smaller islands, thousands of them quite literally, which dot the waters of the Sound and the outer edges along Georgian Bay.  These are known by the name Thirty Thousand Islands, and that number is said to be short of the mark.

The surrounding region of forests and lakes is well-supplied with small lodges, B&Bs, campgrounds, and a few bigger resorts.  The large deluxe resorts of the Muskoka Lakes lies to the southeast, but within an hour's drive.  A short drive to the northwest is Killbear Provincial Park.  This is a beautiful place to camp along the edges of the Sound, but it's so popular that reservations in summer --especially on weekends -- are essential!  In the town itself there are more B&Bs, plus over half a dozen small hotels and motels.

The town is located right at the innermost end of the Sound, where the Seguin River empties into the bay.  It's a unique location, with water all around in different sizes and directions, and the in-between spaces filled in with plenty of boreal forest, as this aerial fall view shows (looking southwest across Parry Island).

Although Parry Sound is served by VIA Rail's transcontinental train, that train passes through only three times a week in each direction (twice a week in winter) and always in the middle of the night -- when the train is on time!  So, for practical purposes, the public transport alternative is the Ontario Northland bus network.  In practice, most people come and go by car.

None of which alters the fact that one of the truly iconic sights of Parry Sound is the long CPR trestle spanning the wide mouth of the Seguin River valley.  Despite its oddly mixed appearance, it actually was designed by one person and built all at one go.  It crosses the river and three roads, and spans the recreation trail twice.  If you're anywhere near the waterfront you can't miss the sound of a long freight train rumbling across the trestle -- always northbound because the CP and CN routes pool their traffic now, and all southbound trains from both companies use the CN route.

Though there are now two train lines through town, at one time there were three!  The third, long since vanished, has given birth to a spectacular recreation trail which runs for several kilometres along the waterfront, crossing an old trestle over the mouth of the river, passing marinas and cruise boat docks, running through the forests past two beaches and the Coast Guard station, and finally ending at the salt dock where freighters come in summer to discharge the cargo of salt that will be spread on roads all over the region during the coming winter.  Being an old rail right-of-way, it is level, firm, and easily used by people of all ages and ability levels.

The best place to start a tour of Parry Sound is to follow signs along the road in from the highway (Bowes Street) to the Museum on Tower Hill.  This is a municipal park such as you will see in few other towns: mainly forested, with the Museum tucked unobtrusively among the trees and only a small area of landscaped garden -- which somehow maintains the aura of being more wild than civilized.

On the crest of the hill above the garden is the tower, on the site of a former watchtower for fire fighters.  Climb the stairs to the top (a little over a hundred steps) and your reward is a splendid view of the region in every direction, especially on a clear day.

The large building with the dark roof at the water's edge beyond the marina and parking lot is the Charles W. Stockey Centre.  In a typically Canadian pragmatic compromise, it houses two quite separate facilities under one roof: the 470-seat Performance Hall (under the high-angled roof) used by the Festival of the Sound, and the Bobby Orr Hockey Centre (at the near end of the building) -- since Parry Sound is Orr's home town.

Here's a picture from the Stockey Centre's website of the interior of the concert hall, where I pass so many wonderful hours each summer immersed in beautiful classical music.

In the ultimate flexibility for a small-town hall, the entire audience seating of the main level can be removed, and the structure supporting the raked seating collapsed backwards into the rear wall.  With inserts dropped into the lowered section at the front, you get a flat-floor hall suitable for banquets and other similar events.

Lest you get the wrong impressions, the Festival isn't just about classical music!  The August Civic Holiday weekend is always given over to a jazz festival within the main event, and this draws huge crowds.  Also, the Festival sponsors several cruise concerts a year on the two larger tour boats operating out of the harbour, the Chippewa and the Island Queen V -- and these often feature more popular styles of music.

On the day I took all these pictures, the sun had deserted us by the time it was 7:00pm and the Island Queen pulled away from the dock.  The entertainment was a rousing evening of lively Dixieland jazz played by a Toronto band called the "Dixie Demons" -- and it was terrific toe-tapping music.

Since the Island Queen does its full 3-hour tour circuit for these evening cruise concerts, you can combine whatever music is on tap with the gorgeous scenery of the Thirty Thousand Islands.  The Queen wends its way through wide lake-like areas and narrow needle-threading channels all the way around Parry Island, out to the edge of the open waters of the bay, and then back through the main Sound to the Town Dock.  In spite of the iffy weather, and a couple of little rain showers, I did get a few good pictures:

Along the way you pass this island restaurant, accessible only by water, and serving excellent fish and chips (or so I've been told).  You can also get here by air!  There's an air tour company on the waterfront right by the cruise boat docks which will fly you out for dinner and a tour and back again in a light float plane.

If you get lucky -- and we certainly did -- you can see one of those spectacular Georgian Bay sunsets while you are among the outer islands and rocks on the edge of the open water, and there's no place on earth where I would rather watch a sunset than right here!

Add a much better than average selection of good local restaurants and shops (with not one but two bookstores) into the mix, and I think you'll see why I love my time spent in Parry Sound every summer so much!