Getting the flavor of...‘Wiking’ in Oregon

‘Wiking’ in Oregon

In Oregon, nature-loving oenophiles can “combine serious hiking with some equally serious wine tasting,” said Jennifer Margulis in The New York Times. There’s even a name for this activity: “wiking.” Some multiday wiking trips follow pack-mule trails “forged by miners over 100 years ago” and feature nightly wine tastings. Looking for a shorter trek? With Grand Cru Wine Tours (grandcruwinetours.com), you can join a nine-mile wike through the southern Willamette Valley, “home to elk, bald eagles, and what is said to be the world’s largest population of Fender’s blue butterflies.” Hikers sample the local wine at four vineyards along the way. Wanderlust Tours (wanderlusttours.com) takes a different approach: Its guides carry local wines in chilled backpacks for hikes along the Metolius River. Guests don’t have to limit themselves to the pinot gris; the water in the Metolius is pure enough to drink.

Crossing the border to Thunder Bay

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Thunder Bay, Ontario, is a wondrous combination of natural beauty and the past brought to life, said Lisa Meyers McClintick in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. On a road trip to the Lake Superior city with my family, we first traveled to “imposing” Fort William, built in 1803 by fur traders. The place was filled with volunteers and “fort nerds” who dressed in 19th-century garb, danced to fiddles, and performed antique rituals to the delight of my children. We began the next day by “gorging on Finnish pancakes” at a restaurant where the waitress spoke Finnish: Thunder Bay has the largest Finnish population outside Finland. Next we visited an open amethyst mine “where deep purple, lavender, and white streaks ripple through brown rock.” Our last stop, the Kakabeka Falls, “left us gasping.” The falls drop 131 feet, and their sheer power is mesmerizing. “Like turning amethyst around in our hands, we savored views from every angle.”