Greetings!
How is it already June?! Firstly, Happy Pride and Happy Indigenous Peoples Month! I’m asked a lot in interviews what this month means to me on both of those fronts and it always gives me pause to remember all those that came before me and fought for the rights I get to enjoy and admittedly, sometimes take for granted. There was a time when 2SLGBTQ people couldn’t own a business, and a time when Indigenous people couldn’t even vote! I’m so stoked to get to “grow up” in this time, where I look around me and see my friends and fellow art entrepreneurs KILLING IT! Collectively we realize that helping, supporting one another and sharing each others excellence is going to be our new normal and I think it’ll create a new standard for business operations, instead of the ole crabs-in-the-bucket system where we were made to believe that there wasn’t enough work for everyone.
With that said! Here are some of my favourite people to follow on instagram :) I invite you to explore their work and share it with your friends!
@emilykewageshig
@lukeswinsonart
@tsista.Kennedy
@chiefladybird
@blakeangeconeb
@indigo_arrows
@morning.star.designs
@tallestcree
So currently, Coal and I are back home in Red Lake and couldn’t be happier! She’s the best little travel companion and it’s cute to see her recognizing the places and the people that we have been visiting ever since I got the car and a drivers licence. It’s the best feeling ever to actually be in the drivers seat of my own life literally and figuratively. When I would travel around with my friends (bless them) I would have to be a little bit more conservative with what I would pack… buuuuut now, I can bring as many shoes as I want! Haha! Coal even has her own little bag of things she likes to travel with.
you’re travelling out west through Ontario, here are a few of my fave places to stop along the way!
1. Soup Witch in Sault Ste. Marie! (phenomenal soup and sandwich shop not too far off the highway on the way out of town towards Thunder Bay! Tell them I sent you :) )
2. Voyageur Gas station for apple fritters! They're so good, and there's a beautiful photo op across the road at the beach which looks over Batchawana Bay.
3. Agawa Bay Visitors Centre! The building itself is so gorgeous architecturally, and the exhibits are awesomely done :)
4. Old Woman Bay, towards Wawa! Gorgeous photo op stop!
5. Kiniwabi Pines - it's a restaurant between Old Woman Bay and Wawa. It doesn't look like much from the highway, but if you can time to be there for lunch or dinner, it's INSANE Carribean and Canadian food.
6.You gotta stop at the big goose in Wawa, ON! Find all three in town! One’s super nice, and then the other two are just insane looking LOL.
7. Eagle Canyon suspension bridge is so worth it! It's just outside Thunder Bay and totally worth the hike! (It’s high up… so a healthy respect for heights is needed lol)
8. Thunder Bay has these donuts called “Persians”, which are kind of the best!
9. The Travellers Centre on the western side of Ignace, ON….(basically just for the bathrooms LOL)
10. In Vermillion Bay at the rest stops they sell “Busters BBQ” products, and YOU NEED ALL OF THEM!
11. The downtown of Kenora is so quaint! Stop at one of the local coffee shops and just stroll around! You won’t hate it!
That’s my little list of travel tips traveling west out of Ontario! I’m gonna cap it off there for my part of the news letter! I’m typing this from my moms deck overlooking the lake, and my computer is about to over heat / so am I! Have the best rest of the month! Fatimah has some other great highlights and things for you below!
XO
Patrick and Coal
