We drove from Pinery Provincial Park into London, Ontario and had breakfast at Katie’s Kitchen on Oxford Street. The food was fresh and the people were kind. We had internet access so we got caught up as best we could. We went to Walmart to get some essentials and then the real adventure began.
I had done a web search earlier and found Dave’s Apiaries. He not only had honey, he had Canadian maple syrup. So we drove to Dave’s house, but when we arrived, it didn’t look active. So Jackie called and Dave said that he had retired recently but he gave us the name of his local maple syrup supplier: Rolling Ridge Maple Syrup.
“Talk to Joel,” Dave said.
We called and Joel said, “Yeah, I know Dave. Come on out.”
It took us about 20 minutes to get to Eight Mile Road and find Joel. He was very kind. He told us the story of Rolling Ridge. “It’s a family project,” he said. I believe he said they had 20,000 maple trees tapped up on the ridge, north of his homestead. “It started out at about 5,000,” he said, “but we’ve been adding more, little by little.”
I asked him about the Detroit Red Wings tee-shirt he was wearing. I mean, my American ass has been a Montreal Canadians fan since I was 10, so what’s a real Canadian doing wearing a Red Wings shirt?
“I’m the youngest of four brothers,” he said. “When we were young, all of us got Montreal Canadiens jerseys, but there wasn’t one in my size, so I ended up getting a Detroit Red Wings jersey and I’ve been a Red Wings fan ever since.”
Joel redeemed his Canuck Card in the most Canadian way possible: By running over to the “sugar shack,” with only socks on his feet. I couldn’t help but smile and appreciate the unassuming informality of his heart-felt cordiality. He was a syrup farmer and we traveled all the way out there to but a batch, so a trip to the next building in socks was just something you naturally do. We ended up buying five of the little ones (500 ml) and three of the litres,
So now we’re all kind of having a chuckle about hockey and maple syrup and American political lunacy when Joel goes over to the register and ring up the bill. I’m sort of a numbers guy, myself, so after doing a basic computation in my head, I pulled out my phone to calculate a hard number.
Phone said $92.50 CAD but Joel turned to me and said, “That will be $164.63.”
“I don’t think that’s right, Joel,” I said. “I’m at $92.50.”
He furrowed his brow, cleared the machine, and said: “That will be $92.50.”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Sometimes the machine doesn’t clear from the last transaction.”
We nodded, chatted for a bit longer, and then said goodbye and climbed into the van. Yes, it was a bit of a detour out of town, but we like to find mini-adventures when we travel, so this was our Maple Syrup Adventure for 2025. We were able to bring back lots of gifts and I’ll tell you what, gifting people with authentic Canadian maple syrup is a big deal.
So, where to go in London? Initially, we thought about going to the art gallery at Western University, but we figured that it was a whole thing to go on to a university campus and pay to park and then walk half a mile to go to the gallery only to have it close at 3 p.m.
We decided to skip that and go to straight to Dundas Street.
We parked the van in an open lot and meandered. We saw several beautiful murals and then went directly into Covent Garden Market, which is–truth be told–a huge coincidence because–can you believe it–there’s also a Covent Garden in London, England!
We had been to Covent Garden, London, England two years ago and I did a blog post on that adventure, so imagine our surprise when we learned there was another one in London, Ontario. It’s almost as if it was intentional.
Um, yes, I’m poking a little fun: London, Stratford, Exeter, Peterborough, Queensboro, Canada. There’s a whole list below. But the truth is English settlers came to Canada and quite often said, “Oh my, doesn’t this look like Stratford-On-Avon?” So they named the town Stratford-On-Avon because God Save the Queen.
I did some research and came up with the following:
List of locations in Canada with English Names.
List of locations in Canada with Indigenous Origins.
List of locations in Canada with Scottish Origins.
List of Canada City Name Etymologies.
Here’s the French, but the Wiki page needs help.
We went to Covent Garden Market and Jackie bought a cute little hooded poncho. Then we got sushi. We also had access to internet again so we got a little bit more work done, followed by coffee and pastry.
We headed over to Dundas Street and went into Heroes Comics. They had as many comics as I’ve ever seen in any comic bookstore. I bought a hardcover Batman which was marked down. Pretty cool.
We poked around a few other stores, then we went back to the van and headed north. We stopped at Clark’s Grocery Mini Mart about halfway back to the campground and filled up the tank. I went inside because I like to look for interesting stuff and I bought some cold lemonade, a can of Moscow Mule for Jackie and a can of golden lager for myself.
I asked Jackie what she had in mind for dinner and she said, “We have sardines and crackers.”
“I think we can do better than that,” I said.
We stopped at a tiny strip mall and went into the Dollarama which is–for the record–the exact place you want to buy Canadian souvenirs. Our artist friend, Reilly Fitzgerald of Clarenville, Newfoundland and Labrador, says the best white artist’s paint is available from Dollarama, so we thought of him when we were there. We bought Canadian souvenir magnets and postcards and a maple leaf bottle opener for $6 and went across to the Foodland (Lucan).
We bought one pound of hamburger, one sweet onion, and a package of buns. We already had pickles and condiments. Then we made a beeline back to Pinery and went out to one of the day use beaches. There was only one car in the parking lot, because it was getting to be dinner time and that’s when everyone heads back to their campsites to eat, so we had it all to ourselves.
We set up the little butane stove and cooked the burgers outside. Put a little slice of cheese on there and sauteed the onions. We had butter pickles from the farmers market. It was all delicious. Jackie drank her Moscow Mule and I drank my lager. Then we along the pathway and out to the beach where I swam in Lake Huron for the second time and Jackie dipped her toes into the water and took pictures. We made our way back to the campsite, set up for the evening, and eventually went to bed. We sure do have a good time together.
My Writing Wanderland 