Lots of energy in southwestern Ontario

ST. CATHARINES -- The ride down from Owen Sound to Sarnia was full of energy -- literally and figuratively!

I headed west and south across the bottom of the Bruce Peninsula and was soon following the shore of Lake Huron through the rich farmland, small towns and resort communities that characterize the area.

Almost immediately upon entering Huron County, I was wowed by the size and number of windmills that take advantage of the gusts that howl of the lake and make for wicked summer storms that often spawn tornadoes and wild winter streamers that can blow snow into blinding whiteouts and mountainous drifts in a matter of minutes.

There aren’t anywhere near as many or as densely packed wind farms as Cowley Ridge in southern Alberta, but they didn’t exist the last time I rode this route 30 years ago!

Most if not all the farms have large arrays of solar panels that, like the windmils, rotate to take advantage of their natural power source. In addition, there were the huge, high-tension power lines that connect the nearby Bruce nuclear generating station to the power-hungry Ontario grid.

It’s a reminder that Ontario can’t satisfy its insatiable demand for electricity almost exclusively with costly natural gas the way energy-rich Alberta can. Alternatives like solar, wind and nuclear are much more necessary here and ways will have to be found to overcome objections to their existence.

The other kind of energy was self-generated. I worked at the Sarnia Observer for three years in the early ‘80s and hadn’t been back more than once or twice since leaving.

I stayed with Terry, a former sportswriter, and Jonna, his Danish-born wife. Their son Brian had stayed with us in Edmonton for a few days last winter and they were very grateful for the assistance we could offer Brian.

Several former colleagues and friends have come out to “the promised land” of our province and we’ve been glad to help. Mindy likes to say our employment agency has a 100 per cent success rate! It’s true.

The ride down ON Hwy. 21 along through brilliant sunshine and temps in the mid-20s was a joy. I still haven’t seen many bikers, although as I got close to the beach resort town of Grand Bend, that started to change. Groups of three, four and five roaring along along with carloads of beach boys and wave babies.

No offence to owners of Harley’s and anyone else with straight-through pipes, but there’s no way I could stand riding alone with that kind of noise, let alone in a pack of three or more!

I believe that loud pipes can indeed save lives, given the number of times I’ve been told “Oops! I didn’t see you!” -- especially in urban areas. But 6-8 hours a day of 120+ decibels would be no fun for me.

There wasn’t much in the way of twisty roads on the way to Sarnia, but I suspect that’s going to be par for the course as I enter the built-up sprawl of the Golden Horseshoe over the next week to 10 days. I know there are some good rides and I will seek them out, but I’ve got a lot of family and friends to see and doubt I will be riding wild Ontario most of my time in and around Toronto.

Terry organized a reunion and it was great catching up with Brian, Glenn and JR. Working for notoriously cheap Thomson Newspapers meant we spent a lot of time entertaining ourselves, house parties, camping and the like.

I made some good friends in Sarnia and it was a pleasure to see them again after all these years. Most have had to make careers elsewhere in the community -- communications jobs, for the most part -- but at least they got out with their sense of humour intact. We laughed a lot remembering past exploits and adventures.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of Canadian newspapers that so many of them are now just dreadful ghosts of their former selves, with little or no staff providing little or no news and still wondering where their subscribers went. I think perhaps if more reporters had been made publishers instead of penny-pinching bean counters and subservient ad managers, perhaps the papers of my earlier career would have survived in a more robust form.

I spent a couple of days with Terry and Jonna before heading to London. I took the back roads through little towns like Wyoming and Petrolia, Canada's first oil boom town, where I had once run the Observer‘s rural bureau. It’s vastly changed, lots of chain stores and such and even the little house I rented has been added on to and modified almost beyond recognition.

You can never go home again, but you can visit, even if it might take a while before you see something you recognize.

One place that hasn’t changed much is the little Rock Glen conservation area near Arkona, northeast of Sarnia. It’s still a fossil collector’s Mecca and the picturesque waterfall in the gorge is probably the same as it was millions of years ago. Thank God for that.

I met an 85-year-old pastor who had lived all over the world. He was visiting from California to attend -- and officiate -- at the weddings of two of his children. We had a nice little chat and he took my picture before wishing me Godspeed and good luck on the rest of my journey. Very nice man.

Wish he had said a wee prayer for better weather. I’d forgotten just how nasty those southwestern Ontario thunderstorms can be. The temperature had jumped to the low 30s and the 100 per cent humidity had me sweating like crazy despite my supposedly breathable Scott riding suit.

I wandered most of the way, cutting through half-remembered backroads, but as the sky darkened -- really darkened -- I got on ON Hwy. 22 and bolted for the Forest City. I wanted to get across London to Dorchester on the city’s eastern edge where Beth, a former neighbour of ours in Edmonton, and Taffy, her Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, had a cold beer waiting!

We had no sooner opened our cans of Bombardier Real Ale when the skies opened and a torrential rain started falling. I was going to wait for her husband Bob to get home, but once the rain eased up I decided to head back to London on four-lane Hwy. 401 as quickly as I could.

I was just turning off the 401 when the downpour resumed in earnest with high winds blowing gusts of rain right in my face. That was enough for me. I sloshed into the lobby of the first motel I saw and called it a day.

Once I’d dried off and got a stiff whiskey into me, I got in touch with Susanna and Rob, a friend and colleague from my Ottawa Sun days -- another journalist-turned-communications guy. He’s director of comms for the city and he was keeping busy after a series of fraud convictions forced the mayor to resign.

Susanna and I had a fun time recalling friends and colleagues back in Ottawa over a thoroughly lousy meal at Smoke-n-Bones, a barbecue joint that had come well recommended. The loud and drunken hillbillies being over-served at the bar didn’t help the ambience or improve the shabby service and third-rate BBQ.

Next morning, I headed out under leaden skies that promised scattered showers along my route to Port Colborne, Welland and ultimately St. Catharines and a much-anticipated couple of days with Gloria, my mother-in-law.

Maybe it was the weather or maybe the generally rundown condition of economically depressed Welland -- where I’d worked as a reporter and editor in the Port Colborne office -- I didn’t even stop to see if there was anyone I still knew at The Tribune.

I headed up Hwy. 406 feeling pretty much the same as I had 30 years earlier, just glad to put it behind me.

I’m spending a delightful time with my mother-in-law, a retired doctor in St. Catharines. I haven’t even looked at the Bike-a-Lounger. Mindy gave me strict orders not even to suggest she climb aboard -- not even for just for a picture! No danger of that.

We made a visit to the grave of my father-in-law, Robert, a wonderful man from Bangor, Co. Down in Northern Ireland who welcomed me to the family 20 yearsby saying “He’s an Irishman, he’s OK by me!”

Bob twice sailed the Atlantic in boats under 100 feet and he’s been on my mind since I first began planning my 16,000-kilometer journey. When Mindy only half-jokingly asked “What will I do while you’re away?“ I said, “The same as your mother did when your father sailed the ocean and you’re not raising three children!“

I’m really enjoying Bob’s logs from those two voyages. Imagine navigating a small boat in 300 million square miles of ocean and my trip is really not that big a deal!!

Next stop is Toronto and several days visiting with family and friends. It’s going to make it tough to find time for anything but in-city driving, not the hulking Beemer’s forte (or mine)! But I’m hoping to get up into the Caledon Hills for at least a short ride on some roads that I used to know when I worked in Brampton after leaving the Trib.

That’s if they haven’t been straightened out by the folks living in the sprawling suburbs north and west of Toronto. They like to move to the country and bring the city with them!

I think I’ll leave it at that before I offend any more people!

Heading down to Owen Sound

OWEN SOUND -- Take a map of Ontario. locate this town on beautiful Georgian Bay, on the easterly shore of Lake Huron. Now rotate the map 90 degrees clockwise so that west is at the top and, with very little imagination, you’ll see why it’s known as The Elephant’s Bum! (Or words to that effect!)

That little piece of geographical trivia was one of the few things I learned in Sheridan College that has remained stuck in my memory for nearly 40 years. It was imparted to me by Steve, a Sheridan College classmate and former Sarnia Observer colleague.

Steve lives in his hometown with his wife Paula and their two daughters. After a gypsy career in journalism much like my own, he returned to Owen Sound where indulges his love of golfing and skiing in this year-round recreation area.

It’s said that if you can find a way to do the things you love and get paid for it, you’ll never have to work a day in your life! Well, after a roving existence as a reporter and editor, including a brief stint at The Cobourg Star, my now-defunct hometown paper,

Steve has fashioned a comfortable career doing what he loves and is now settled down in the Sound with his wife and children and most of his large extended family. He’s publisher and editor and ad salesman and marketer and just about everything else of Grey-Bruce Golf, which is, as it‘s name suggests, all about golf in the Bruce Peninsula and Grey County. It's celebrating its 10th anniversary this year!

“I love to write and publish, take pictures and golf,” he told me as we strolled around the city’s busy marina. “Not everybody gets to make a living at that.”

The 30 years or so since we last met melted away as we caught up on lives, wives, careers, the folks we know and the folks we’ve become. That continues to be the very essence of this 16,000-kilometer motorcycle ride down memory lane.

I spent my time in Sault Ste. Marie, my last stop on Lake Superior, taking it easy. I had been in touch with my Edmonton friend Kerry, a native son of the The Soo. He gave me a few sightseeing suggestions including a visit to Crystal Falls in the Hiawatha Highlands that rise up from the edge of the city.

It’s a great motorcycle ride in the hill country that leads to Kinsmen Park and the rugged little falls. I really enjoyed climbing the rustic walking trail to the top, but I’m reminded that this trip has left little time for exercise and I’m getting awfully soft!! Must watch that! (He says as he adds that he stopped for a great ice cream cone, which I’m told is a required part of the Hiawatha Highlands experience!

I bid adieu to The Soo early on Thursday, leaving it and the vastness of Lake Superior behind. As I rode along the North Channel, which is separated from the rest of Lake Huron by Manitoulin Island, it was one of my earliest childhood memories that held my attention.

I was headed through some very picturesque landscapes of yet more rocks and trees and lakes that have still not become boring or repetitive, even though it was my fifth day of riding around Lake Superior. I stopped for gas in Thessalon and coffee in Blind River as ON Hwy. 17 followed the meandering shoreline.

I made a short stop to watch the Colombia-Cote d’Ivoire World Cup match in Marshalls, a friendly little dive of a bar in Espanola. I also stopped in to visit with Jon, a retired former publisher with Thomson Newspapers. Over a beer, we chatted under a maple tree at his lakeside home in the picturesque village of Willisville. I also took time to get a bandage for my right hand.

As I was turning off ON Hwy. 6, I dropped my right arm to shake off a cramp. A bird chose that exact moment to hit my hand and even though there wasn't a mark on my leather glove, I had a puncture wound that bled enough to make me worry about my throttle hand. However, no swelling, no bruising and the cut's healing nicely!

After reluctantly leaving the comfort of Jon's yard, I was back on 6 and bound for Little Current, the largest town on Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater lake island in the world. My dad took me there when he had a landscaping contract in September 1964, a rare thing for him to do.

Neither he nor my mother are still alive, so there’s no one left to ask what his motivation was. One memory that stands out from that trip was a huge black bear pelt attached to the wall of a log-built building that might have been a bakery. Despite driving around the town for a half-hour I was unable to locate anything I remembered and no one that I asked had been in town for 50 years or could remember such a place.

I had arrived in the mostly aboriginal community more correctly known as Eastern Manitoulin and The Islands just in time to catch England v Uruguay, featuring five players from Liverpool Football Club and two more on the Uruguayan side, including their brilliant striker Luis Suarez! Sadly, Suarez and Co. prevailed, preventing his English teammates from advancing to the final rounds of the competition.

At the Anchor Inn Hotel, I had a great supper of tacos made with freshly caught local whitefish, forgetting that cilantro, a key ingredient, and I do not get along. Afterward, I spent time with a bunch of local bikers including a local aboriginal club including a dreadlocked native guy named Steve, who had invited me to a bike show-and-shine. I showed, sadly without a camera, but did not shine.

Early next morning, I hit the road for the 36-kilometre run to South Baymouth and the ferry MS Chi-Cheemaun to Tobermorey. Arriving on the Bruce Peninsula after six days in the wildness and wilderness of The Lakehead, even the air seemed different as I rode off the ferry after a two-hour crossing.

Any wilderness on this side of the hasn’t really been wild for two, sometimes three hundred years! It’s been logged, farmed, grazed and ploughed into submission. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t wildlife. The road was littered with the carcasses of racoons, porcupines, deer, birds, and oh lord, so many skunks it took a while to lose that stench!

Dreadlocked Steve had advised me to get off the straight-as-an-arrow ON Hwy. 6 and take Road 9. Unfortunately, I got off 6 too soon and ended up in Dyers’ Bay and was told any connector would be washboard gravel road. Not for me or the Beemer!

The 15-kilometer round-trip wild goose chase turned out to be anything but! What I thought was an emu walking through a farmer’s field eating worms in the fresh-turned earth turned out of be one of a flock of about a dozen sandhill cranes! Huge birds with brownish bodies and a crake like a Hollywood pterodactyl!! They took flight as soon as they heard the quiet BMW K1200 LT and flew off before I could take a picture.

I continued on into the busy little town of Wiarton where I did a load of laundry between bites of a turkey-cranberry-brie panino at the funky Cocoa Vanilla bistro. Yummy. I asked my server about Wiarton Willie, the region’s other tourist draw. “Willie’s in hiding after the winter we had,” I was told, so no pix of the albino rodent-turned-weatherman.

Then on to the Elephant’s, er, Bum where I was welcomed by Steve and Paula, a native Cape Bretoner whom I’d never met. We had a great visit and I’m grateful for their hospitality.

We talked well into the night and the next day, Paula headed off with a girlfriend to poke around model show homes in nearby Collingwood looking for design ideas for their upcoming kitchen renovations. Steve and I got off to a more leisurely visit to Collingwood‘s Blue Mountain ski area. One vista offered look out over Georgian Bay as far as Midland, a 60-kilometer drive away. And I’m not talking about a tee-shot!

The day was hot and dry and the views magnificent. After meeting up with the girls and a visit to even more show homes, we separated. Paula and Julie went back to Owen Sound and Steve and I had lunch/supper in Whistler-like Collingwood Village.

Perhaps in keeping with the World Cup in Brazil, it was “salsa day” in the village and the sounds of the marimba band followed us onto the pond-side patio of kaytoo, a trendy spot with a killer view of Blue Mountain’s now-grassy ski runs. I can heartily recommend the pulled-pork sarnie, but a word of caution about the heavily salted fries. I think I drank my own weight in water afterwards.

Next morning, I was up just after dawn and riding in brilliant sunshine down the eastern shore of lake Huron to Sarnia. More on that in a later post.

Please gie some thought to making a donation to the Ride for Sight. I’m going to visit their office in Toronto when I get there and I’d like to show them as big a donation number as possible! Thanks!

A great ride along the greatest of the Great Lakes

SAULT STE. MARIE -- On a plaque overlooking spectacularly beautiful Agawa Bay, it says Lake Superior is so large and deep and dangerous, it makes its own weather!

After a couple of days and nearly 800 kilometers of riding through some very odd conditions, I can attest it does! From Thunder Bay, I covered a fair amount of the Pre-Cambrian Shield, all of it coloured by some weird weather that could only be generated by the greatest of the Great Lakes.

This inland sea is so large, it could hold all the water of the other four Great Lakes and still not be full! It’s so deep, only the upper saucer-shaped deck of Toronto’s CN Tower would be visible above the deepest point of its steely grey waters.

It’s said the lake has claimed at least 350 ships since European habitation and the lives of countless sailors, including the 29-member crew of the tragic Edmund Fitzgerald.

The strangest phenomenon I encountered was a kind of frigid mist that rolls in and soaks the road and the riders on it as it runs along Superior’s northern and eastern coasts. Imagine riding along in relatively warm temperatures in the low-20s and clear blue skies only to have the mist roll in and the bottom drop out of the Bike-a-Lounger's onboard thermometer, mercury dropping to low teens -- and once to single digits -- in a matter of only a kilometer or two.

As soon as the twisting, bending road rose above the shoreline, the temperatures rose almost as quickly, leaving me wondering just what the hell was going on! Freaky!
 
At the Agawa Bay overlook, I was speaking with a couple of 20-something kids who were slowly making their way to British Columbia from Guelph, ON. We both pointed go the bank of low clouds or mist that slowly but surely engulfed the islands that dot the bay.

I said it was like something out of an British horror film. I'm not sure they've ever seen a British horror film. Like The Fog, I suggested. This they got!

The run from Thunder Bay began at the Terry Fox memorial, marking the end of his Marathon of Hope. Quite rightly, that stretch of ON Hwy. 17 is known as the Courage Highway.

I don’t know anyone who could stand at that high point overlooking the city and the Sleeping Giant beyond and not be moved by what a 22-year-old kid who had lost a leg to cancer had accomplished before the disease cut short his cross-Canada run.

He is quoted on the statue's granite pedestal: "Dreams are made if people only try. I believe I miracles. I have to because somewhere the hurting must stop." That's true courage in action.

I don’t want to compare myself and my ride to Terry and his brave run, but just a reminder my trans-Canada ride is a fundraiser for the Ride for Sight. To date, you and I have raised have raised $1,355 toward my goal of $5,000.

Thank you to those who have contributed so generously. Here’s the link to the secure online donation page.

The rain of the past few days had let up, at least temporarily, and I made good time on well-maintained regional highways 11/17 that put Alberta‘s to shame! Why can’t the richest province in Confederation have nice things, I wondered.

I was thrilled to be riding in sunshine once again and without the wind and rain of the past couple of days, I made good time to Red Rock, named for the iron-rich stone the Hwy. 11/17 is carved through. It reminded me of a drive Mindy and I took from Scottsdale, AZ up to the New Age wonderland of Sedona!

I only rolled through town to see the birthplace of my friend Jim from Victoria. It must have been a great place to grow up in during the ‘50s and ‘60s in the days before television and the Internet. A kid could really let his imagination run wild here as evidenced by some of Jim’s tales and pictures from his boyhood.

I stopped for a quick bite in Nipigon. A couple in the diner told me to try the Chinese café in Marathon, where I planned to spend the night. I should have filled up with high-octane gas at the Husky, but didn’t.

Unconcerned -- yet -- I pulled in to see the rushing roar of the Aguasabon Falls. My pix can't do it justice so here's a quick video!

There was no premium available in Terrace Bay, where a lighthouse beckoned me off 17. D’oh! (Remove helmet, apply hand forcefully to forehead!)

I was on my last few litres by the time I hit Marathon and filled up with some of he most expensive fuel yet -- $1.66.9 a litre! More expensive than the same litre of gas on Vancouver Island. (At least I wasn't hoping for diesel, apparently there's yet another shortage!)

The tip about the Chinese café was spot on. Wok with Chow’s food was every bit as fresh and tasty as the couple in Nipigon had promised.

A family was celebrating a birthday and as he was leaving, the oldest member of the group who looked to be in his 70s or 80s, pulled a weather-beaten ball cap out of his back pocket. It said Superior Riders. 

“Keep your knees to the breeze!” he said and gave my shoulder a hard squeeze. First time I've heard that!

Other than the food, the town didn’t offer much to interest me and I headed out early next morning after a much-needed good night’s sleep.

I was barely out of town when I came upon the Yellow Brick Road sign, running to the Barrick mines, a reminder that in addition to pulp-and-paper mills, the area is a rich gold-mining region. It was worth doubling back a few kilometers to get the pic!

I stopped for breakfast in White River and solved a riddle that has confounded me for ages. In the restaurant of the Continental Motel, the ham, peppers and onion omelette on toast is called a toasted Western. Only a few miles back up the road in  Marathon, it’s known as a Denver sandwich. Talk about the Continental divide!

After a breakfast -- that did not include a toasted Western -- I dropped a line in White Lake, more to kill time and digest my bacon and eggs than anything else. I didn’t get a nibble, but as any fisherman will tell you, that’s secondary to the exercise.

The mosquitoes I’d mercifully escaped in Winnipeg finally drove me back to the bike.

I was soon uncomfortably hot in my lined riding suit -- even though I’d shed my sweatshirt in White River. When I got to Wawa, I was greeted by the big Canada goose statue that commemorates the area's Ojibway roots and the steel and iron ore industry of the Algoma region.

After talking to a group of American riders heading into The Soo, I took a chance on pulling the liners, hopefully for a few weeks. I know the windswept coastal regions of the Maritimes will require me to re-install them, but for now, I’m pretending it’s summer!

The ride North of Superior is beautiful, no matter what my Edmonton radio friend John says about the monotony of the rocks and trees and lakes of his native region. But even more breath-taking is the scenery on Superior’s eastern shore.

From Wawa, Hwy. 17 ascends and descends and twists and turns as it skirts Pukaskwa National Park and winds its way through Ontario’s Lake Superior Provincial Park. It has earned its place as one of Canada's msot scenic routes.

The sweet smell of pine and tamarack filled my nostrils. So nice. And the misty vistas of the vast lake should be well-known to Canadians as the subject of many of the Group of Seven’s iconic artwork. Lawren Harris's Lake Superior is a good example.

Maybe I was looking too closely at the scenery and keeping a watch out for wildlife, especially moose. The bugs are getting bad and it won’t be long before the massive beasts are driven out of their boggy habitat to stand on the highway, challenging anything but the biggest rigs to move them from the middle of the road.

I didn’t see anything but a few hoof prints at a roadside stop to stretch my legs, but I did see a skinny mama black bear and two teddy-bear cubs scoot across the road ahead of me! I also didn’t see the turn-off for Montreal River Harbour where I had hoped to refuel the Beemer.

The onboard computer told me I had enough fuel for 120 clicks, but this was no place to test the accuracy of the gas guage. I finally had to put a half-tank of regular gas in it at a busy Aboriginal crafts and camper supply store just outside Batchawana Bay. I hope the Bike-a-Lounger will forgive me.

By the time I got to The Soo, I was feeling the effects of the past couple of days of hard charging. I’m spending two nights here, before heading on to Little Current on Manitoulin Island.

For reasons that escape me to this day, my dad took me up there for a week in September when I was 9. A landscape contractor, he was sodding the roadsides of a new highway from the causeway and he and his men were living in a motley collection of trailers in the bush outside Little Current.

I’ll never forget the huge bearskin nailed to the wall of the local log-cabin bakery and the trip we made to Copper Cliff, Espanola and on to the Big Nickel in Sudbury. I’m not sure if any of my five brothers were ever treated to such an adventure and it’s a rare memory of just me and my dad I treasure to this day and always will.

Gotta go do some laundry. My duffel bag is starting to offend even me. 

Homeward bounder can't handle the truth!

THUNDER BAY -- I’m all for truth in advertising but enough is enough! And for once, I wish the ads were even a little bit misleading.

It was cool and it rained, as forecast, pretty much all the way from Winnipeg through to the Manitoba line where I stopped for a hot coffee and a hearty breakfast and mosquito bites at Falcon Lake Golf Course. No stopping those golfers!!

It rained all the way to the lone gas station in town where I got more mosquito bites, but no fuel as the premium truck hadn’t arrived. It rained all the way into Ontario, all the way to Kenora on the Trans-Canada.

It rained all the way south on ON Hwy. 71 through some challenging twisty bits bordered by stunning Canadian Shield lakes, granite rock cuts and boreal forests to Fort Frances. (Not even the rain could take the smell of the local pulp mill out of the heavy air!)

I've only just learned that the town and neighbouring Couchiching First Nation have declared a state of emergency because of all the rain. It's serious for them and really just a minor inconvenience for me.

Good luck, folks.

In all, it was 460-odd kilometers and about 7.5 hours of non-stop rain! What did I expect entering the Rainy River District? Sunshine? (See below!) At times like these, I’m reminded of my dear old mom’s saying “Good thing you’re not made of icing sugar!”

But I made it to Fort Frances on schedule, just in time to have a quick soak in a hot tub before catching the Italy-England World Cup match at a local Boston Pizza! England -- with five Liverpool members in its starting 11 -- and Italy -- with a backline almost totally called up from Juventus -- made a beautiful game of it, but The Azzuri triumphed 2-1 over the Lions in the end.

I have to give some consideration to the fact I have a lot of friends in either camp, some of whom I may have to call on for a bed or a couch while I’m out on the road!

I keep meeting some great folks on the road. like the two guys staying at my hotel in Fort Frances who were taking part in the inaugural Run to the Border rally. One was riding a big Harley Something Glide, the other a Kawasaki Voyager. Neither seemed to mind the rain as we sheltered under the awning outside the hotel. A ride's a ride, we agreed! Lots of fun pix here!

 

An early night and a deep sleep found me ready to go early this morning. The sky was dark with rain clouds and the mercury hadn’t hit double digits by the time I headed across the narrow Noden Causeway over -- you guessed it -- Rainy Lake. according to this 1965 news report, it even rained on the day the link opened. The more things change...

And what’s at the other end of the causeway, other than George Armstrong Drive, named for the former captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs and two-time Memorial Cup-winning coach with the Toronto Marlies? Yup, Windy Point and the Town of Rainy River! Score another one for the topographers or whatever you call place-namers.

My old nemesis blew back into town with a vengeance, with gusts over 80 kmh! That lasted all the way to Atikokan, the canoeing capital of Canada. Sorry, Shawinigan!

It lasted all the way along Hwy. 11 for the entire 350-kilometer run to Thunder Bay; the last 30 from Kakabeka Falls -- wait for it! -- a spectacular but scary lightning storm. Lightning! Thunder! Thunder Bay! I get it! Come on! Give a guy a break!

How come when I went through the hamlet of Sunshine there wasn’t even a hint of a let-up in the downpour that has locals worried about a fresh round of flooding. Where's truth in advertising when I need it?!

But I’m tubbed and fed and ready for bed! How’s that for a biker credo?

And looking back on the first half of my four-day ride through the Lakehead north of Superior, I've seen some awesome scenery and some not-too-bad roads that could arguably be called motorcycle friendly.

My friend John, a CBC Radio reporter in Edmonton who’s a native of this city, urged me to take my run south into Minnesota at International Falls for an easier run eastward. “Otherwise,” he said, “it’s just rocks and trees and lakes and rocks and trees and lakes!”

It’s an all-Canadian ride, I reminded him. And his analysis fails to factor in one key element. This homesick Ontarian is back in the province I love! I’m home!

I’ve never been to this end of the province before, but no matter. I can’t buy beer on a Sunday. I’m paying sales tax! The speed limit tops out at an anemic 100 kmh. Who cares?

The lakes are full of bass and walleye, I’ve got an Ontario fishing licence in my pocket and my collapsible pole has a jig loaded and ready!

When I called my brother in Toronto, we were on the same time! Tomorrow, I’ll go to The Beer Store and get a six-pack of Molson Ex. I’m home!

John’s take also fails to consider the raw beauty of this largely unspoiled wilderness especially where the undulating two-lane blacktop skirts the Lake of the Woods and Quetico Provincial Park.

There’s the moose pastures with their favourite food -- water lillies -- just about to blossom. I haven’t encountered a swamp donkey -- yet -- and I don’t really expect to since they’re usually holed up in the muck during the day. But at some point, the black flies and mosquitoes breeding in the same water will drive them out of the woods and onto the roadway.

And there’s beaver meadows -- even where their damn dams have washed out, taking the roadway with it, leaving Hwy. 11 a patchwork quilt of repairs in various stage of disrepair. With all this damn rain, the water is already topping the damn dams and despite their legendary industry, there’s damn all the beavers can do about it.

I stopped at the Atlantic Watershed sign just west of Quetico. From this point on the continent, all water flows south and east to the Atlantic Ocean. On the flip side facing northwest, all water flows to the Arctic Ocean.

Before I leave here, I want to visit the Terry Fox Memorial, marking the end of this brave young man's Marathon of Hope. I interviewed Terry as he made his way through throngs of cheering supporters toward Brampton and Toronto in the summer of 1980.

I remember I struggled to keep up with him. I'll never forget his dogged determination to complete his journey nor how I cried when his cancer finally forced him to end his run.

I may also try to go back to Kakabeka Falls tomorrow, but it’s going to be a lot longer drive than 26 miles before I get to Marathon, my next overnight stop, so maybe it will have to wait until I’m back up here.

And I will be back up here, John. I think I might have missed a few rocks or trees or lakes in the downpour!

On to Ontario

WINNIPEG -- It’s been a wonderful, restful couple of days in the Manitoba capital. Lots of sunshine, warm temperatures and only a slight breeze.

It's been a welcome respite from the howling winds of the bald prairie. I’ve slept off the fatigue of eight days of struggling in the wind and the stiffness in my wonky left hip has eased.

I probably shouldn’t complain too much after meeting Theodore in the first motorcycle-only parking area I've ever seen outside a Tim Horton’s coffee shop in Portage la Prairie.

When he told me he was riding back to his home in Dryden, ON, from CFB Shilo in southern Manitoba, I assumed he was injured in Afghanistan. No, he said, a degenerating ankle bone caused by a workplace accident cost him his leg below his left knee.

I asked how he shifted his Harley Road King without control of his toes to change gears. Footboards allow him to use a heel-and-toe shifter.

I told him he was an inspiration, not letting his disability get in the way of his love of riding! Ride on and ride safe, brother!

One of the best parts of this trip is meeting new people like Theodore and renewing acquaintances with old friends and former workmates I haven’t seen in years. Folks like Kim, who worked with me in CP’s Edmonton bureau before returning to her Winnipeg hometown.

I really had a good time, catching up with her and her husband Jordan and her teenaged daughters who were pre-schoolers when I last saw them!

I had been looking forward to catching up with Boris, a guy I first met at the Tribune in Welland in the early ‘80s. Bo has been responsible for introducing me to some great music and musicians over the years. I might never have heard of The Meters, Tom Wilson and the Florida Razors or soul master Dan Penn and a host of others had it not been for Bo‘s input.

However, fate intervened and we weren’t able to hook up this time. Instead, I’ve been staying with Laurie, a former colleague at CP-BN, now working for the venerable Winnipeg Free Press, and her husband Pratik. Unfortunately, Laurie works the night shift and we’ve only had brief conversations before she heads off to the Freeps.

But Pratik and I have had better luck. On Thursday, we took in the opening night of the Winnipeg Jazz Festival (Bo‘s suggestion, of course.) Four great acts at The Cube in the city’s historical Exchange District kept the enthusiastic crowd of music-lovers hopping, Half Pints craft ales in the beer garden and an eclectic mix of food trucks made for a memorable night. The fresh-made tacos from Habanero Sombrero were perfect for the occasion. Any occasion!

Earlier in the day, I got my photo taken with the BMW in front of the Manitoba Legislature. That’s three out of the four legislatures that have figured in my photo collection. Only the one I worked in and for for the past 18 years denied me the opportunity to take a pic!

If I sound peeved, it's because I am. I still don’t know what Alberta legislators are so afraid of that would warrant an armed squad to keep citizens away.

I also walked around the site of the soon-to-open Canadian Museum for Human Rights, took a couple of pix of the ultra-modern architecture (not sure I like it, but I‘m sure my opinion counts for very little) and caught the opening match of the World Cup in the Tavern United sports bar. Brazil looked a little shaky with an own goal, but came back to beat Croatia 3-1.

Today, Scott -- another Winnipeg CP hand -- and I had a good catch-up while I wolfed down some amazing bangers and mash at The Grove. “Locally sourced sausages,“ said our server. Later, he ‘fessed up that our bangers were, in fact, from Alberta. I knew they were good and that must have been why.

Most of the folks in The Grove were there to watch the powerful Netherlands steamroll Spain! It’s going to be tough to see many of the games, but wherever I am on Saturday, I’ll be watching England v Italy! I’ll keep my options open on who I’m supporting in that one! I have no skin in the game, but I have friends supporting either side.

It’s starting to rain here in the North Kildonan neighbourhood of Winnipeg and it has cooled considerably since the mid-20s of this afternoon.

Tomorrow, I’m bound for Ontario and the The Lakehead north of Superior. Forecast is calling for rain, rain, and more rain with temps in the low-teens. Still, I think I prefer the prospect of a cold rain to the unrelenting prairie winds.

I am a little concerned about another hazard on the road -- moose! These huge beasts are known to wander the highways of Northern Ontario -- especially in the early morning and after dark. Luckily, those times are unlikely to find me riding, so here’s hoping in won’t encounter what my brother Michael refers to as “swamp donkeys!”

Depending on the weather and the road conditions, I’m going to take the scenic route south from the Trans-Canada to Fort Frances and .

Áfter crossing the Coquihalla summit at 2C in a late-spring snowstorm, I’m pretty confident my Scott Turn TP riding suit will be waterproof, windproof and warm as advertised.

That’s about it for now.

As regular readers will know, this 16,000-kilometer ride is a fundraiser for The Ride for Sight, Canada’s leading motorcycle charity. So far, we’ve raised more than $1,000 for research into the causes and prevention of blindness. Here’s a link to my secure, online donation page.

Like all the fundraising events for the Ride for Sight, 100 per cent of the funds I raise go directly to the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Please consider a donation to this worthwhile cause. And my deepest thanks to those of you have already given.

Winded and weary in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG -- I’m so-o-o tired, my mind is on the blink!

John Lennon could have been singing about me. Pretty much since I left Calgary eight days ago, I’ve been battling unceasing, unrelenting winds -- bashing me, beating me and, I’ll admit -- at least tonight -- getting the best of me. I can’t remember being this fatigued, drained, drowsy.

That’s what makes the wind the most dangerous hazard I’ve encountered since I left home a month and 6,000 kilometers ago.

Just keeping the Bike-a-Lounger -- my ‘01 BMW K1200 -- upright and aimed in the right direction requires heeling it into the cross-wind! Until the wind unexpectedly drops for just a moment and I’m forced to physically horse it back on line. My arms are killing me from the constant exertion.

And it’s not just the wind -- gusting upwards of 70 kmh, according to Environment Canada. The buffeting gusts generated by the seemingly endless truck traffic, all the way from Fort MacLeod in eastern Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass, through Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, on to Maple Creek, Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Regina and Estevan in southern Saskatchewan, east to Brandon, Manitoba and all the way to Winnipeg, where I find myself curled up under the covers and sipping a hot whiskey to ward off the chill. That’s a lot of wind and a lot of trucks.

Those big-rig drivers must think I revere them as royalty, as I bow down into my windscreen every time I meet yet another King of the Road. 

Much as I respect these guys who deliver virtually everything to everywhere, Im actually cursing them for every jarring, bike-shuddering, teeth-chattering, neck-snapping pass!

The wind also figures in another worrisome road hazard -- birds! Every time I pass a little slough, pond, dugout -- even Old Wives Lake, the largest body of water (and bloody bird sanctuary) I’ve seen since leaving the West Coast -- the quieter-than-most-bikes Beemer scares the ducks, Canada geese, gulls, redwing blackbirds, Baltimore Orioles and every other avian being into the air.

“Duck! It’s a goose!” is no longer funny!

My friend and sometime riding companion Darcy and I know well what can happen to a biker involved in a bird strike. We sometimes ride in a United Way charity ride organized by PCL unit Melloy in Nisku, AB. Each time, they have along someone who benefits from the United Way’s fundraising efforts.

This is one of the scariest tales I’ve ever heard from a fellow motorcyclist! (Odd, but I couldn't find it in the Edmonton Journal archive!)

The natural and man-made blasts of wind that smash into the bike like an invisible punch in the gut are, for the most part unavoidable. But surely they can do something about the tire treads that litter the roadsides -- and in one scary case just outside Regina, the roadway itself.

I was behind a B-train, a semi-truck pulling two 16-meter-long trailers. that's nearly 120 feet of road hog!

I was well back, a good three car lengths, bearing in mind that if you can’t see the truck’s mirrors, the trucker can’t see you! Good thing, too, since just as the trailer cleared it, I spotted a retread lying directly in my path!

Evasive doesn’t begin to describe my actions. Relying on a manoeuver I was taught in a safe cycling course years ago -- on a bike a quarter the size of the BMW -- I leaned hard left and forced the bike hard right and just barely missed the damn thing!

Scared and shaking, I pulled over on the shoulder and taking a chance even on the largely deserted road, I walked back and ran into the road and lifted the death trap out of harm’s way.

Those things weigh about 20 kilos and solid rubber!! Don’t want to think what might have happened if I’d hit it.

In this case, I cursed the soul of the rat bastard who left it in his or her wake. I suppose there’s no way they could have known they just shed a tire, but that didn’t matter to me at the time! Still doesn’t!

Which brings me to another hazard, this one largely of my own making -- anger mixed with arrogance.

After leaving Regina on Monday, I headed southwest through Weyburn.

It’s the hometown of the man voted the Greatest Canadian, prairie preacher and populist politician T.C. Douglas. Tommy, as he was known by all, believed that no one should have to die because they couldn’t afford basic health care. His efforts led to universal medicare system in Canada, a factor that until only receently, helped distinguish us fro m out neighbours to the south. (That and -our endings!)

I only stopped to snap a few pix and headed out without spending a nickel in what’s known as Canada's largest inland grain terminal.

I’m not sure Tommy would be proud of this or this. I’m sorry, Weyburn, but sometimes you have to vote with your wallet and I chose not to support any business in your town.

Coincidentally, Weyburn was also home to W.O. Mitchell, the author of the Canadian classic Who Has Seen the Wind?. Sorry, Bill, it’s a great read, but you can keep your effing wind!!

But that’s not what got my dander up. My visit to Estevan had no other purpose than what I had long hoped would be a day of bass fishing in the Boundary Lake Reservoir that straddles the U.S. border. The warm water from SaskPower’s  electricity generating plants makes it possible for largemouth bass to survive the area’s bitter cold winters.

The oil and gas boom in southern Saskatchewan has not only shredded the province's rural roads. It has also lured a sizeable portion of the working population from other less well paid employment.

I don’t have a federal boater’s licence and was prepared to hire a guide and boat to take me out for a day of bass-harassing. But I couldn’t find a guide or even a tackle shop.

As it happened, I was probably saved a very wet and possibly dangerous experience. The warm and bright weather met up with an advancing cold front and I was treated to as ferocious a rainstorm as I’ve seen in a good long while.

I watched it with a young fellow who was thrashing 1,000 or more clicks a day from his home in Cochrane, AB, to visit family and friends in the Parry Sound, ON, area. We sat for a while, even as the first fat raindrops pelted us, comparing his stripped-down 800cc Triumph Tiger adventure-touring bike and my much more luxuriously appointed BMW.

Luckily, we had already checked into the “budget” motel that cost us $150 a night, since the demand for rooms from the oilfield workers -- not always affectionately referred to as “rig pigs”-- means hotel chains can charge a premium rate.

My disappointment sharpened into frustration then anger as I tried first one, then a second, then a third gas station, where technical glitches -- on their end -- defied my attempts to pay-at-the-pump. “Same all over,” said one fellow at a commercial-accounts-only pump. “There’s just nobody left who knows anything about anything. They’ve all gone to the oil patch."

Fuming, I tore out of the last gravel-strewn station forecourt, nearly dumping the Beemer in the process. Things didn’t improve at the station in Bienfait (pronounced BeenFate in this part of the world) that only sold regular gas. The K1200 hates any fuel but high-octane premium.

 Heading east, bound for the Saskatchewan-Manitoba line, my fourth province and fourth time zone, I came upon a historic Jewish cemetery. What was a Jewish cemetery doing in the middle of nowhere? Well, this is what.

As I walked through the lovingly restored stones and markers in the well-tended -- and sheltered -- plot, I calmed down and resolved not to let the petty disappointments of the moment cloud my judgement. Serenity, peace and patience! Too soon to join the Hirsch Colonists just yet.I was nearly on fumes by the time I got to Carlyle, SK, more than 100 kilometers to the north and east. If I’d run out of gas in this isolated part of the gret Canadian plains, it would have been my own damn fault.

And that will have to do for now. The warm Irish whiskey has worked its magic and I’m too pooped to pontificate further. Good nght all.

Sadness in the air in Regina

REGINA -- There’s a stillness hanging over the RCMP’s national training centre here that has nothing to do with it being Sunday or the impending prairie thunderstorm.

Known as The Depot since its first days as an important post of the North West Mounted Police, the centre is where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police trains its mostly young recruits. It would only be human to have second thoughts about one’s career choice after the senseless massacre of three young officers and the wounding of two others in Moncton last week.

I went to the force’s Heritage Centre to pay my respects. For some reason, the slayings have affected me deeply.

No one signs on to become a target for a 24-year-old nutjob with more high-powered firepower than the officers he casually murdered right in their cruisers.

I had intended to write about some of the hazards I’m facing on this cross-Canada ride, but they pale in comparison to the deaths of these three Mounties. My heart goes out to their young families and loved ones.

I’d spent Saturday in Moose Jaw after a bone-jarring ride across south-central Saskatchewan on SK Hwy. 363, a continuous pothole every inch of the way from Cadillac. I only stopped there for a photo of the town sign to send to Frank, my friend of 35 years, who once had a 1958 Caddy lovingly restored by Ken Hindley, a classic-car restorer in Union, ON, south of London.

Cutting east on SK 13, the Red Coat Trail, so named for the scarlet tunics the first young Mounties wore as they marched into Canada’s wild, western frontier bringing law, a semblance of order and Canadian sovereignty to the vast and largely ungoverned region. It wasn’t long before I regretted my choice of route.

I probably could have, should have turned back. Ever the optimist, I doggedly kept on hoping the road would improve by the time I got to the hamlet of Shamrock. It didn’t! And as it turned out, if there ever had been a sign heralding the place’s Irish heritage, it had long ago faded into obscurity.

 

I probably could have, should have taken any number of gravel roads back to the Trans-Canada, but gravel scares me. I have no desire or ability to try to lift the half-tonne Bike-a-Lounger onto its wheels by myself and in 150 clicks on that rotten road, I saw exactly three trucks! Isolated doesn't begin to describe it!

I was saddle sore by the time I got into Moose Jaw, so-named for a bend in the Moose Jaw River, shaped, well, like a moose’s jaw!

No better excuse to take in the healing waters of the Temple Garden Spa!! I alternated between the 40C outdoor pool and the much hotter steam room until I was in danger of becoming a puddle on the tiled floor! Heavenly humid heat!

I followed that up with a re-hydration regime at Bobby’s Place, near the ever-busy casino next to the spa. A couple drinks and a pretty damn good, made-to-order shepherd’s pie had me feeling a whole lot more limber than I had been on my arrival.

They say Al Capone grabbed a train to Moose Jaw whenever the heat was on in Chicago, although there‘s little proof of that. and al wasn't exactly camera shy!
 

Speaking of the casino, the original Scarface would be impressed with the amount of legal gambling going on in his little prairie haven. Maybe not so much with the tours of the supposed bootlegger tunnels that connect many of the city’s historic downtown buildings and the various tourist traps which bear his name and mugshot.

Other than my visit to The Depot, the only other thing I did was get my picture taken in front of the Saskatchewan Legislature. It was Dog Jog Day and the woman who took my picture handed me the leash attached to her Dobermann named Odie. I don't think either of us was entirely comfortable with the arrangement.

That makes two out of three provinces that regard their legislature precinct as a place of the people. So far, only Alberta considers its Legislature Building and grounds -- where I worked for nearly 20 years -- a private enclave where such photos are disallowed by armed guards. Sad.

Tomorrow, I’m heading out to Weyburn, home of firebrand prairie preacher and populist politician Tommy Douglas, who led the fight to give Canadians universal health care, based on need not greed.

Then it’s on to Estevan on the U.S. border for a couple days fishing for bass!

Right now, I’m going to grab a bite and pin the ribbon for the fallen Mounties on my jacket.

I’m planning to be in Moncton on this ride. It won’t be the happy visit I’d planned on for obvious reasons.