Homecoming win

When Melissa Ostrowski told people she won a trip to Thunder Bay, one reaction was common – laughter.  

Hailing from Saskatoon, Ostrowski and her husband Ryan came to the city with this summer’s Seven Days with the Giant winner Tara Pert and her husband Lyle. The foursome arrived in Thunder Bay Sunday and has been on a week-long action-packed adventure.

“I think if they had this kind of exposure, they wouldn’t be laughing,” Ostrowski said Friday afternoon before boarding a charter fishing boat in Marina Park.

Pert and her husband are both from Thunder Bay and have been living in Saskatoon for the past few years. She entered the contest at the behest of her mother.

“My mom said, ‘put your name in for this draw; you can win to come home to see me,’” she said. “It was all my mom.”

And when her husband told her there was a phone message telling her she won the contest, she didn’t believe it was true.

“I thought it was fake,” she said. “I was really surprised.”

The Seven Days with the Giant contest receives more than 6,000 entries per year and the city’s former tourism manager Paul Pepe has said it  helps raise the profile of Thunder Bay as a destination for outdoor enthusiasts.

The fourth annual contest offers a prize package worth about $12,500. It includes airfare, accommodation, camping gear, a digital camera package and vouchers for various activities and restaurants throughout the city.

Pert and her crew spent three nights at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and have done quite a bit of hiking. Their favourite part of the trip as of Friday was the hiking at Epic Adventures in Nipigon.

“It was very epic,” said Pert.

“It was the adventure of adventures,” Ostrowski added.

They hiked up Kama Mountain, through deep forest to the top of the waterfalls. On the way back down the mountain, they went through a cedar forest.

“It was very nice; it was almost kind of like pixie-magical,” Ostrowski said.
After the hike, they went on a bike tour.

“I can’t say that was for me,” said Pert. “But it was still really good.”

For Pert, the trip allowed her to see her hometown in a new way. Before the fishing excursion Friday, she had never been on Lake Superior.

“This is awesome,” she said. “I think we’ve done even more than we even expected because I lived here and I didn’t do any of this stuff. You totally take it for granted … you don’t even realize how beautiful it is.”

She added after the adventures they’ve been having, she believes she’s got her Saskatoon friends hooked on the area.

The Ostrowskis have been to Thunder Bay once before, in January when snow covered the ground. They came to the city in 2009 when Pert married her husband.

“We were like ‘oh, the background looks nice. I’d like to check this out another time,’” she said. “You don’t realize how much there is to do in Thunder Bay. We wanted to come back originally, but wow. You’ve got nice places here.”

Ostrowski didn’t expect so much from Northern Ontario and thinks Seven Days with the Giant is great way to expose people to what the region has to offer.

“Thunder Bay is on my list of more to-dos,” she said. “There is so much to do and a week is not enough. There is still so much more to hike.”

“There’s all these secret places, I know there is,” added Pert with a laugh.

While Pert said she wants to eventually move back home to Thunder Bay, Ostrowski is more than willing to move to Nipigon.

“I would; it’s gorgeous,” she said. “They’re really letting you see everything it offers. Any great outdoors person should come to Thunder Bay. I really believe it.”