Alaska and Canada with the Cycling Group Sep and Oct 2019: 22 Sep Smiths Falls

Leisurely morning this morning as we were hanging around in Smiths Falls for the day. First thing we all did is loads of washing.

We then needed to head off to the shops to purchase food and drinks Bumped into Rob our host out the front who took this photo for us and gave us directions to the shops

This picture shows the size of the house Heaps of room for all of us

We walked over the Rideau River on the way to the shops and noticed a Le Boat boat just leaving so we went over to check it out

Chatted to Stirling the person from Le Boat that had supervised the boat leaving

We discovered a vendor on the roadside on our way to the shops so bought some of our produce from him

We decided to support local and shop at the independent store especially as Rob our host and Stirling had encouraged us to shop there as opposed to Walmart

Beautiful display out the front of the shop in preparation for Halloween.

Brought all the shopping home then Jim and Bill went back out to the LCBO for the liquor. LCBO stands for Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Ontario have strict liquor controls,

Interesting their Cannabis laws aren’t as stringent.

Rob came in to chat to us before dinner and gave us a bit of interesting local history about Smiths Falls. Apparently there used to be a huge Hershey Chocolate factory in Smiths Falls, but the workers went on strike over wages. It all backfired on them and the business in Smiths Falls collapsed.

A company called Canopy Growth seized the opportunity to take over the large premises to set up a cannabis business, especially as canabis was legalised in Canada.

Apparently this has brought new life into Smiths Falls as it was declining.

The story of this business is at canopygrowth,com

Rob stayed a while chatting so we had a late dinner