Day 9 - Scanterbury MB to Fort Frances ON

Today we said goodbye to the prairies although to be honest as we drove from Scanterbury (65 km northeast of Winnipeg) it didn't feel like the prairies. Everything seemed greener and at times we even felt as though we could have been anywhere but the prairies. I guess topology doesn't stop at the borders.

Most of the driving today was at a much slower pace. The first bit we zig zagged our way southwest until we picked up the Trans-Canada.
We were only on the TC for about 60km before we headed south on highway 71 which was really nice starting at Kenora ON.

Our destination was Fort Frances which is a border town with Minnesota (International Falls) being just over the border.

The drive took us along many ponds, swamps, lakes etc and was very picturesque. The road is actually called the Heenan highway which took us from Kenora through Sioux Narrows, Nestor Falls to Fort Frances.

We saw a furry little fellow by our lunch rest stop so I snapped a couple of pictures. We weren't 100% sure what it was. We thought it was either a marmot, groundhog or a woodchuck. We debated this for some time.
When we got to our hotel (wifi) we looked it up and found that a marmot, groundhog and woodchuck are actually all the same, however round these parts they tend to call them woodchucks.
Had I known this at the time I could of asked him how much wood he could chuck :-)

For those who do not understand the chuck wood reference there is a a tongue twister that goes:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood

Non domestic animals count:
Woodchuck = 1

Fishing by the falls at Neston Falls

A Woodchuck

The Woodchuck again