Blog Windsor

Plopped in the middle of Lake Erie, a bit south of Leamington, Ontario, is Pelee Island. I’ve got a special affinity for the place because my father and grandmother were born there and I spent my childhood summers playing in the sand and water near my grandparents’ farm on the East Side.

This week will be all about Pelee. I just took an over night trip back to the Island and although there have been plenty of changes since I last made it there four years ago, many things are exactly the same. This week is an Island reflection, starting with getting there on the Jiimaan ferry.

Jiimaan means “big canoe” in Ojibwe and that’s what you see here, a piece of the 61 metre long ferry. This is one of the lifeboats from the upper deck. Funny thing my father has always joked, is that if the Jiimaan went nose down to the bottom of the lake there would still be some sticking above the water. Lake Erie is no more than 20 metres deep at any point between Pelee and the mainland and the ferry is 61 metres in length (you can check out these bathymetric maps to get an idea of the geomorphology of the Lake Erie basin). I’ve always found this quite comforting.
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Thanks to all the flickr photographers for sharing. Be sure to check out their photostreams — just click on a name or an image. And tell your friends to come check out the site! It’s cheaper than a boat ticket.

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