Blind River April 2026

[Grant Lamontagne]

It's that time again!

I am heading off to the airport to go and spend time with my family. Usually I go in May for my father's birthday, but unfortunately this year there may be some work complications so I am going in April instead.

I'm a bit exhausted as it's pretty early (it's almost a quarter to four in the morning) and we spent the day at the camp yesterday, but I'll talk about that in the camp thread.

Fortunately I am not driving the plane so maybe I'll catch a few more winks in the air!

Def

[Chako]

Safe travels. I am happy to hear you are not driving it. So much flooding in the Algoma, Sudbury, and Manitoulin regions right now. Here is a photo taken a day ago. We hardly have any snow left. It all melted so fast. Manitoulin Island has flooded like the locals have never seen before. Some highways were closed all over the place. Goulais River just north is really bad this year. Even flooding in the Sault with a few local roads under water.

PXL_20260418_024226610 by Chako, on Flickr

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, I have been hearing about it and seeing it on the various groups on FB for the area.  I probably won't be adventuring too far on the ATV as a result, but we will see what happens.

Apparently climate change isn't the hoax that many people pretend it is!   

Def

[Chako]

Climate! What is that!?!?

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Well I didn't have long to wait in Toronto to change planes, but then halfway to Sudbury the pilot apparently forgot his lunch, so here I am back in Toronto.

Seriously, we seem to have broken the plane, and so we have to switch to a new one   I should have landed in Sudbury half an hour ago, but I'm in Toronto waiting for another plane.

At least I'm not in a hurry for a meeting or appointment or something!   

Def

[Chako]

  

[Grant Lamontagne]

Made it safe and sound to Dad's place just after 3pm.

Its been a long day.  I woke up at 2am after going to bed last night around eleven.

Up at 2am to leave by 3am to be at the airport for 3:30am, to take off at 5am.

All went well, except....

The first flight was Halifax to Toronto, but we sat on the tarmac in Halifax for a while because there was some shut down at Pearson airport in Toronto.  Not sure why, but if they aren't landing aircraft, we shouldn't take off, right?

Eventually we get the go ahead and take off, landing in Toronto about an hour before my connecting flight leaves.  That's good- it's enough time to get through the airport- barely.

Also, on the Halifax to Toronto flight I realize I have forgotten to pack my microphone for recording episodes of EDC-TV. We record on Mondays, and there are two episodes while I'm here, and I'm not prepared for either of them.   

I get to the next gate and I manage to sit down for a few and eat my "breakfast" which consists of an overpriced bag of peanut M&M's.  Breakfast of Champions, right?   

I don't make it all the way through the M&M's when we start boarding, which is great. Everything is on track to get in to Sudbury at a few minutes after 9am.  Nice, except it's Sunday and Best Buy doesn't open until 11, which means we have to hang around Sudbury before the two hour drive home.

We get about 25 minutes into the 45 minute flight to Sudbury and the aircraft develops a mechanical issue and there isn't an appropriate technician in Sudbury, so we have to turn around and head back to Toronto.

These things happen- they have another plane for us but we are unloaded into the terminal while the replacement plane is prepped.

Finally we board and are on our way again.  I feel bad for anyone that is flying for a meeting or appointment of some kind, but my brother lives in Sudbury so he and my father just went back to my brother's place to wait.

I arrive in Sudbury a couple of hours late, which is not a big deal, but I figure if better use the little boys' room before we go, and for some reason it's dark in there

Whatever, I need to go. It's a small, regional airport and the door is propped open enough that there's enough light to do what I have to do.

It turns out that the reason the lights in the washroom are out because the washrooms are considered low priority and the airport is running off its emergency generators because someone went off the road and took out power to this whole end of the city.

Oh well, I landed, I'm happy enough.

I am hungry though, see we stop at Tim Hortons, a popular doughnut shop in Canada. I order a turkey bacon club sandwich, which, according to the people at this particular store, shouldn't have turkey on it   

I'm remind d of that scene in Lethal Weapon. If you know, you know. If you don't, search "Lethal Weapon Drive Thru" on YouTube, and make sure no one around you is offended by a little bit of foul language.

After that we swing by Staples and I got a new microphone, not the one I'd been looking at online because when I looked what was in stock I was looking at a different location than the one we ended up in, and this one didn't have the one I'd intended to get in store.  Fortunately they had a more expensive one.... 

But, we eventually made it back to my father's house and now I am having a frozen pizza for supper because I didn't have the energy to make anything else. 

I am beat and I imagine I won't be up too late tonight!

Def

[Grant Lamontagne]

After an early night last night I am channeling my inner John Astin this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8KdtJOCzOU

I am definitely feeling much better now.

As Chako mentioned, due to a much higher snow load here this year there is rampant flooding everywhere.  I didn't get any photos yesterday (sorry, I was too busy driving) but all of the small rivers and streams that we passed on the way here were raging torrents.  My father's dock (he lives on the river in case you haven't read all of the previous BR threads) is currently underwater as well.  I don't think that has happened since maybe 1996?

I am going to get out today and try to get some photos of the water levels and stuff, but no promises. 

Def

[pfrsantos]

Enjoy your stay.

 

One little thing: whatever you do, don't pick up any cobblestones from the street! Remember what happened last time?!

 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Yeah, sorry about that....  If only I'd known what would happen! 

I wouldn't have done it.... If indeed I did such a thing... Which I cannot confirm nor deny at this time....

But getting back on track here, I fired up my drone this morning.  The battery was half dead so I didn't get a lot of pics, but this is Dad's dock.  Usually those steps lead down to a walkway, and that walkway is usually a two to three feet above the water, sometimes even with a small amount of beach underneath.

In short, the water is probably about five feet higher than usual, which as you can see, is not good for the properties next to Dad's. As you can see, they are lower than Dad's property, and are therefore under water.

You can also see where the water line normally is.

The last photo is my father and his dog at the water line.  Below where they are at you can see the ledge or erosion, which is the usual high water mark, and there's usually some beach below that.

So yeah, the flooding is pretty bad, and the lake a few hundred meters upstream is still frozen, so there's a lot of water yet to come!   

Hopefully it will melt slowly, even though the temperatures are supposed to be well over 10C in the next couple of days.

Def

[Chako]

That does look bad.