Farewell to Nova Scotia -- for now

DIGBY – Time to say farewell to Nova Scotia, but not before I heave sigh or a wish to return to some great motorcycle roads along its rocky South Shore!

Halifax is a great city, full of friendly folk and some great pubs like the Old Triangle and The Split Crow and some fine restaurants including McKelvie’s and a wicked thin-crust pizza joint called Salvatore’s!

I got my picture taken by two friendly – and unarmed -- security guards at Province House, Nova Scotia’s legislature building. One of the guards even expressed interest in buying my BMW K1200LT once I get to Boston!

That made nine of Canada’s 10 provincial legislatures that allowed me and the Bike-a-Lounger to snap a souvenir photo. Only the pistol-packin’ paramilitary at the Alberta Leg denied me such an opportunity, citing “security,” and motioning me to leave when I asked for details.

A friend said I’m like a dog with a bone about this snub, but, hell, I worked in and around the legislature for nearly 15 years, so it hardly seems fair or logical. After all, it’s supposed to be a place of the people, not just their paranoid self-obsessed representatives.

No wonder our poor, broke province is in such a state of disarray. But enough about that!

Standing on the battlements of the 250-year-old Citadel overlooking Halifax, it was easy to imagine how devastating the 1917 explosion of a munitions ship must have been. The bustling port with Halifax on one shore of Bedford Basin and Dartmouth on the other was even busier during the First World War, when all ships headed for ports on the Atlantic seaboard had to first call at Halifax.

On December 6, 1917, the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship fully loaded with wartime explosives, was involved in a collision with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin.

Approximately twenty minutes later, a fire on board the French ship ignited her explosive cargo, causing a cataclysmic explosion that devastated the Richmond District of Halifax. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires and collapsed buildings. It’s estimated that nearly 9,000 more were injured.

The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons, with an equivalent force of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT!

I headed out of the city on NS Hwy. 333, which winds along the wild and wonderful Atlantic coast. First stop was Peggy’s Cove and its iconic white and red lighthouse. What a beautiful spot! No wonder it’s one of the most visited tourist destinations in Canada!

After snapping a few pics, I hurried to get out of the small village ahead of a convoy of tour buses. I passed the memorial to doomed Swissair Flight 111, but didn’t stop for fear of ending up behind the slow-moving and view-blocking wagon train.

What a sweet ride down the shore through Chester to Lunenburg, home of another Canadian icon, the Bluenose II, a replica of perhaps the greatest racing schooner ever. For 17 years, nothing could touch the Bluenose. A portrait of the ship has graced the reverse of the Canadian dime since 1937.

I stopped for a bowl of fish chowder and a pint of Propeller Bitter at the popular Knot Pub. Oh, so very good!

When I first left home on May 11, I missed my Alberta beef, the best in the world! In a couple more weeks, I know I’m going to miss the fresh seafood – cod, halibut, scallops, mussels and especially lobster -- of Canada’s Atlantic provinces, again the best the world has to offer!

Back on the road, I continued to wander south on NS Hwy. 332, past little coves and bays on my left with fishing boats, sailboats large and small and the occasional motor cruiser – stinkpots, as Bob, my sailing-mad father-in-law would have called them – riding at anchor! On my right, villages such as Mahone Bay, Rose Bay and Pleasantville with tidy, colourful houses contrasting with the blue of the ocean and the greens of the forests that run almost to the shore!

As I’ve said before, every region of Canada has its own special beauty, but this part of the Maritimes can hold its own with any and all of the rest!

I spent the night in Bridgewater, falling asleep as soon as I kicked my boots off! Salt air has always had that effect on me, especially in Carnlough, my mother’s village in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. Maybe that’s why I love to visit there as often as I can.

It rained overnight and for some reason, I woke up grumpy. Maybe it was the gun-metal grey skies. Maybe it was the overly cheerful server at breakfast who stood near my table yelling “Good morning, sweetie!” to every motel guest as they entered the dining room. God, I hate being called dearie, sweetie, hon and all the other terms of endearment complete strangers think is appropriate.

I fled before finishing the mediocre meal. My mood brightened considerably at the local Tim Horton coffee shop. Not only do a lot of Tim’s provide reserved parking for motorcycles, I like their coffee and the convenience of my fully loaded Tim card!

As I was sipping and plotting my course for the day, a guy came over and started up a conversation, noting my Alberta licence plate. When I told him I was headed to Digby via Liverpool, he showed me the best way to go to get in some good twists and turns and some more spectacular marine scenery. And he was right!

And just as I was heading out of town, I crossed paths with folk artist Norman Vienott. When – not if -- I return to this part of Nova Scotia, I’ll stop here again and pick up one of his eclectic and eccentric scrap-metal creations. I just didn’t have room on the bike or maybe this fellow rider would be gracing my backyard a few weeks from now!

I made a little detour to snap a pic of the Italy Cross road sign for mio amico Franco back in Edmonton. I’ve done this on a number of occasions and, as oft-times before, it has led me through some amazingly beautiful countryside I might not have otherwise visited. Grazie, paisan!

I rolled on through two neighbouring villages East Berlin and West Berlin, wondering if the inhabitants are aware the Cold War is over! It’s a reflection of the area’s early German settlers, as is Lunenburg, New Germany and several more communities.

Next came Brooklyn, birthplace of country music legend Hank Snow! One of Hank’s greatest hits was his North American version of I’ve Been Everywhere (which was written by Australian Geoff Mack.) While this version features Johnny Cash, it might be one of the coolest motorcycle video I’ve ever seen!

Then I stopped for another coffee at another Tim’s in Liverpool, where two bikers in their 70s chatted with me, swapping tales of the road as we sipped our double-doubles. They pointed out the route to Digby and advised me to make sure I stopped in beautiful Kejimkujik National Park. (Dead battery in my camera meant I  had to scalp this pic from the Parks Canada website.)

I first got this advice while staying with my friend Pete in Jasper what seems like an eternity ago. Pete’s Nova Scotia friend also told how the locals pronounce the Mi’kmac name – kedgy-muh-KOO-ji. The word means “swollen waters” or “tired muscles” in the language of the local Aboriginal people

By the time I arrived in this picturesque seaside village on the shore of the Bay of Fundy, I was starving, another effect of sea air. I was more than ready to sample the “world famous Digby scallops!” Trust me, that’s no exaggeration! Washed down half-a-dozen of ‘em, wrapped in bacon, with an Oland’s Export as I took in the scene from the seaside deck of the Fundy Restaurant. Another feast!

I was dismayed to find I’d arrived a week early for the annual Wharf Rat Rally. Oh, well, next time.

And there definitely will be a next time! I can’t wait to share the sights, smells and tastes of this beautiful region with Mindy.

Tomorrow I catch the ferry for the three-hour crossing of the Bay of Fundy to Saint John, New Brunswick, my final stop on this 18,000-kilometer ride across Canada. Then, I’ll head into Maine for a ride down the Atlantic Coast through New England to Boston and a reunion with my wonderful and patient wife!

In the meantime, there’s still time to make a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

(One final beef before I sign off. The administrators of the Cobourg Yesteryears Facebook page about my hometown banned me and my blog from the site “because it was about asking for donations!” That’s hardly what this blog or this ride is about.

To them I say not all blindness is related to eyesight and I would no longer want to be on such a site. Thanks for dropping me!)  

From salt to salt at last!

HALIFAX -- One rider, two wheels, four cylinders, six time zones, 10 provinces (but only nine pictures of the Beemer in front of legislature buildings), 96 days on the road and 16,096 kilometers equals one helluva ride!

I spent almost a week in St. John’s, NL, with my friends Vaughn and Elaine, soaking up the sights and sounds of this busy Atlantic seaport. After three days jigging for cod off Garden Cove on Placentia Bay, I was ready for a little urban downtime.

My friends are renting a house in the funky Fogtown section of the city while they work on completely renovating their 122-year-old house in The Battery right on the harbour. It’s a complete gut-job, taking the house back to the studs. It’s not a big house, but it faces the harbour and the town sprawling over the hills behind it.

I can imagine them waking up, looking out their windows and watching naval frigates, cruise ships, supply vessels ferrying materials to the offshore oil platforms and every other type of seagoing boat coming and going while they sip their coffee!

I told Vaughn it was probably the closest he could get to having his childhood home in the cove and still be in town. No matter where you are in Newfoundland, St. John’s is known as “town.” Folks are known as either townies or baymen. Vaughn’s a bayman to his core!

I had arrived in a downpour from Goobies on NL Hwy. 1, the Trans-Canada Highway. Not sure how I made it, considering the state of my rear tire. It had been bald as a cue ball since running the Cabot Trail a couple of thousand kilometers back.

But as Vaughn and I prepared to head out to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in Canada, he noticed the cords of the Metzeler Marathon showing through the tread. It was done, finished, kaput.

I located The Toy Box, Avalon BMW Motorrad’s service shop in nearby Mount Pearl, and made arrangements to have the Bike-a-Lounger flatbedded to them for a new tire and an oil change. Easy-peasy, no drama. They had me back on the road the next day! Anything for a CFA – Come From Away – as folks who are neither townies or baymen are called.

Once again, I was reminded just how unfriendly and unhelpful Pacific Motorsports in Richmond, B.C., had been when an out-of-kilter rear brake rotor had eaten the final drive out of my K1200LT in May. Pinheads!

Vaughn and I headed out of St. John's for the short trip to Cape Spear to complete te "salt-to-salt" -- Pacific to Atlantic -- portion of this ride of a lifetime! It's the easternmost point in North America and as close as I could get to  could get to my relatives in Ireland and England without getting the bike wet!

Stompin’ Tom Connor’s Gumboot Cloggeroo provided the background music (That's a very young kd lang introducing the song in the video!) as I snapped a couple of pictures of the bike in front of the historic Cape Spear lighthouse, toasted my accomplishments with a tot of Redbreast I had been saving for the occasion and shed a couple of tears.

Tears of joy, that is. Riding coast-to-coast has been a dream of mine for more than 40 years. But a dream’s a dream and reality is another thing entirely. I feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity to ride this great country and see much – certainly not all – of the beauty, hospitality and marvels it has to offer.

When I set out on this lark on May 11, I really didn’t know if I could do it. Would I get sick of the endless days of riding? Would the bike hold up? Would my body hold up? Would my bank account hold up?

I told my wife Mindy that I really wouldn’t know if I could complete the ride until I got to Winnipeg, which I reached in mid-June, seemingly an eternity ago! If I got there and wanted to continue, I would. If not, I was still close enough to Edmonton to turn around.

Well, I got there and continue I did!! And I feel such a sense of accomplishment, something that has proved elusive over the past few years.

Vaughn and I had a celebratory lunch in Petty Harbour -- home of Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle -- at Chafe’s Landing, a great restaurant where the chef keeps the secret of his amazing fish batter – even from his family. Our server, the owner’s daughter, told us her dad didn’t mix the ingredients in the restaurant or at home.

“He has a shed on the beach where he makes it up,” she said.

Neither Vaughn nor I could identify the key ingredient of the lightest batter/breading I've ever tasted! It’s a little like Panko, but lighter. Possibly cake flour? It will have to remain a mystery, a tasty one for sure.

With the Bike-a-Lounger back in business, I headed up Signal Hill, which guards the entry to St. John’s harbour. At night in the fog, cars coming up and down the hill look like those Imperial starfighters from Star Wars chasing each other round and back!

No fog on the day I was up there. I’d forgotten that this is where the first trans-Atlantic radio signal was received by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901, as well as the site of harbour defences for St. John's from the 18th century to the Second World War.

I also managed to squeeze in a visit to Portugal Cove and Chris, a friend introduced to me by my brother in Edmonton. Chris and his parents Winston and Karen, welcomed me with a tasty lunch and one of Winston's books, this one on the Ruby Church, built near Goulds by one of Chris's ancestors.

Later, Chris showed me round his childhood home, including the spot near his parents' house where he dove in to save a child from a submerged car that had rolled over the cliff's edge into the sea!! He and his dad both have certificates from St. John's Ambulance testifying to their selfless act of courage and daring.

Portugal Cove is a rocky port with a busy ferry carrying people and goods to Bell Island. It was fascinating watching the ferry make a 180-degree turn on a dime as it backed out of the terminal and headed to the rocky cliffs across to the island, the largest in Conception Bay.

I spent my last Friday night in St. John’s, at least for this trip, on George Street, the city’s bar and restaurant strip. It’s the local version of Edmonton’s Whyte Ave. or Toronto’s Queen St. West. I must be getting old, because as the party bars were just starting to hop, I fled for the comfort and relative quiet of Fogtown! Besides, I had a two-hour ride to Argentia in the morning and still had some packing to do.

At the ferry terminal, I was subjected to a random search to make sure I wasn’t carrying drugs, guns or bombs back to Nova Scotia. Good thing I ditched the dynamite before I made the ferry terminal!!

Cars and trailers -- but not bikes -- were required to undergo a wash to remove any vestiges of potato wart that might threaten what I now know is Canada’s No. 1 vegetable crop.

A school (pod?) of porpoises escorted us out of the harbour, something I was told was very rare! They may have chased a bait-ball of capelin into the bay or maybe they were just glad to see us go!

The 16-hour overnight ferry crossing was just as boring as the nine-hour voyage to Port-aux-Basques two weeks earlier, but there was a lively bar and lots of bikers from the Maritimes, Quebec and British Columbia to share a rum with before turning in.

I got back to North Sydney and debated on whether to see the old French fort at Louisbourg or to run the Cabot Trail a second time in as many weeks.

Louisbourg will always be there and I can visit it again sometime. But I’m pretty sure I won’t be riding the trip of a lifetime again, so I opted for the Cabot Trail. (So excited, I forgot to stop in Sydney to collect a prescription Mindy had mailed to family friends there. Guess I’ll be visiting a clinic here in Halifax to get a prescription refill. Dammit!)

There’s some debate about whether to run the loop of the Cabot Trail clockwise or anti-clockwise. Having done both, I can say each has its share of twisty roads and spectacular views, but riding with the ocean on your right is more fun. Chacun son gout, as the French say. (Ever notice they have a different word for everything!)

After a long night on the ferry, nearly 400 kilometres of the trail and a waning adrenaline rush, I got turned around in Port Hawkesbury coming off Cape Breton Island and ended up lost on some pretty gnarly backcountry roads in rural Nova Scotia.

So little travelled were these roads, there were weeds growing in the cracks and potholes. I unintentionally added a couple hundred clicks riding the Acadian Eastern Shore to an already-long day.

But I did snap a pic of the road sign for tiny Larry’s River which I sent to my buddy back in Edmonton. I got to Guysborough, but everything was closed on Sunday evening and I kept pushing on through little villages like Goshen and Lochaber until I stumbled wearily into Sherbrooke.

It’s a quaint little village on the St. Mary’s River, once a gold rush town and then a salmon-fishing Mecca for fly-casters. It’s also the Sherbrooke referred to in Stan Rogers’ immortal ballad The Last of Barrett’s Privateers!!

Exhausted after a nearly 600-kilometer ride, I stayed the night at a cool B&B called The River Lodge. After a good night’s sleep and a tasty breakfast, I hauled butt for Halifax, 200 kilometers south down NS Hwy. 7.

It’s a great bit of motorcycle road that hugs the shore, winding and curving through places like Eecum Secum, Mushaboom and Musquadoboit into Halifax. The last 50 clicks of it was in a torrential rain. Nearly a day later as I write this, my gloves are still wet!

Doesn’t matter! Having ridden the Beemer from salt to salt, I can honestly say I’ve done what I wanted to do, I can cross the biggest item off my bucket list. I’m going to have to start thinking about what comes next, but that can wait at least another two weeks or so. 

I still have a ways to go before I’m back in baby’s arms. I’m going to spend a few days soaking up some more Maritime history, culture, cuisine and beer! Then head down the south shore of Nova Scotia, through Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove to Digby and to St. John, NB, and south through New England to Boston before Sept. 1.

The end of my two-wheeled odyssey is at hand, but there’s still time to make a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation to help support their work.
Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

Jigging for cod in Garden Cove

GARDEN COVE – If a bad day fishing beats a good day in the office, then three great days jigging for cod on Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay with my buddy Vaughn has got to be one of most fun things I’ve ever done! It will certainly be a highlight of a trip that features new adventures around every curve!

We were taking part in the final three days of the two-week northern cod food fishery, a sign that there may yet be hope for recovery from the near-destruction of the species due to overfishing by factory ships at the end of the last century. It made me think this tradition is proving every bit as resilient as the people of the Newfoundland outports themselves.

When I met Vaughn nearly 20 years ago, this happy-go-lucky big fella with the full-on Newfie accent was hauling logs out of the bush north of Edmonton. He and Elaine, his journalist-turned-health bureaucrat wife, have since lived in Ottawa, but are now based in St. John’s, where Elaine is now working with the provincial government. But Garden Cove is where Vaughn’s heart lies.

I roared down the Viking Trail – NL Hwy. 430 – and overnighted in Deer Lake. After hearing so many of Vaughn’s tales about life growing up in Garden Cove, that’s where I wanted to be.

Once back on the Trans-Canada, I briefly considered staying the night in Gander, but a national softball tournament had taken up every available hotel, motel and B&B room for miles in every direction.

I pressed on through Clarenville and on into Goobies, where I turned off the Trans-Canada onto NL Hwy. 210 – the Heritage Run – where it turns off for the little hamlets that dot the shore of the bay around the Burin Peninsula. I arrived just as the skies opened and rain that had been threatening for nearly two days let loose with a vengeance.

I waited it out in a small wooden bus shelter next to the post office which has been closed for years. Vaughn was about 20 minutes behind me and we were soon settled into the apartment attached to his mother Elsie’s home with a million-dollar view of the cove and Sound Island across the bay.

We were barely there long enough to drop the bags when Vaughn announced we sailed for the cabin as soon as the tide was high enough to float his fishing boat. Already loaded with rods, reels and lures, gas and beer, we had our lines down into the deep cold water before 9 p.m.

Jigging refers to letting your line drop to the bottom, reeling in a few feet of line, then jerking the line up and down. It simulates the action of a squid, a favourite meal for cod.

I had no idea how quickly and how hard they would be striking! It seemed the line had barely touched bottom before we had the first of our five-per-person-per-boat limit in the boat.

My first catch was an ugly rock cod. “We don’t eat those,” said Vaughn. I let the slimy bugger go!

But we did eat lots of pan-fried cod and cod tongues once were back in the comfy little cabin on Sound Island, watching a dozen or more boats patrolling up and down the bay in search of their own limit.

There is nothing like fresh fish caught from cold water and cleaned and cooked within the hour! There is nothing like a shore lunch!

As we sat back and sipped our beers, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be, as Vaughn told tales of other fishing trips and his friends up and down the shore. I even met a few of the locals who, like Vaughn, had left Garden Cove to work elsewhere, but who had come home, either for good, for a visit or to be part of the 10-day fishery!

The next day, Vaughn took me around the seven-mile long island dotted with a few rustic cabins like his own. He pointed out the home on Woody Island where he and his parents lived until Newfoundland’s first premier Joey Smallwood depopulated the province’s tiny isolated outports, the better to concentrate government services in this sparsely populated area.

He also showed me the giant oil tankers making their way to and from the Come-by-Chance oil refinery. But the real stars of the day were all natural.

The bay runs up past Garden Cove and the town of Swift Current – yes, Virginia, Canada has two Swift Currents and I've now been to both! -- to another deep-walled canyon or fjord.

Despite the torrential rain that had greeted me, Vaughn and I managed to skirt around the storm that blasted Swift Current Day’s homecoming festivities into a soggy mess.

Lots of other fishermen on the Garden Cove wharf were either caught in the downpour or were waiting it out on shore. We considered ourselves very lucky indeed not to have had any of our three-day fishing excursion spoiled by bad weather!

At different times over the weekend, there was one and sometimes two whales – maybe minkes or finbacks -- rising, spouting and rolling back down into the black calm water. There was the young bull moose who strayed close to the cabin and may well end up in Vaughn and Elsie’s freezers this winter.

There were bald eagles competing with the gulls and terns for the fish that didn’t survive our catch-and-release efforts.

One huge adult eagle came swoop, swoop, swooping almost between us as it chased a low-flying gull across the bay. The gull was wise enough to regurgitate the tommy cod he had swallowed, knowing full well the eagle would be just as happy eating the gull AND the cod! Smart gull! Well-fed eagle!

And lots of cod there was!! We fished them hard on Saturday, catching our limit again. And a lone mackerel and a pollock for good measure.

We had a Jigg’s dinner with Elsie on Sunday night before heading back to the island the cozy cabin on the shore.

By Monday, I was fished out and bid Elsie goodbye and headed on to St. John’s for a few days in my ninth provincial capital city, with only Halifax yet to visit. 

Luckily, there’s a BMW dealer here in town, Avalon BMW Motorrad. Ever since the Cabot Trail a while back, I’ve been worried about the rear tire on the Bike-a-Lounger, my 2001 BMW K1200LT.

Ten days ago, if I rode over a dime, I might have been able to tell you whether it was heads or tails. Today, I could tell you what brand of tobacco the pipe-smokers on the Bluenose were using!

I’d hoped to delay the tire change and an oil change for as long as I could, hoping to get to Boston without either. I’ve already got a service appointment with Avalon for a new Metzeler 880 and an oil change.

I’m too close to the conclusion of a life’s dream to risk failure trying to save a buck or two.

Speaking of bucks, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. 

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.

Completing the circle in Newfoundland

ST. ANTHONY – I’ve made it to Newfoundland and Labrador! I’ve now reached my 10^th and last Canadian province and were the trip to end today, I could honestly say I’ve seen a good bit of Canada from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic!

And it’s the first province I’ve visited that cared enough to make me an honourary citizen! Lynn of Lynn’s B&B told her assembled guests my first morning at breakfast that the best supper to be had in this busy port town would be the Jigg’s dinner served up at the local Royal Canadian Legion branch that night.

After a drizzly day of riding through tiny wee outports on the Great Northern Peninsula and exploring the ruins of L'Anse aux Meadows, a 9^th century Norse exploration post, I was ready for a good meal.

I dined with a couple who had been more or less following the same route as me since arriving on The Rock. Laurinda and Rob were from Summerland, B.C., and had family in the Maritimes.

They were visiting the area like me for the first time and were looking forward to experiencing this traditional boiled supper. We tucked in to salt beef, potato, carrot, turnip, cabbage and peas pudding washed down with Newfoundland’s own Black Horse and Iceberg beers. A feast!

It was only then that I learned that newcomers were being Screeched In – a ceremony named after the legendary spiced Jamaican rum making us honourary Newfies.

After learning a few new words, wha, we was given a list of the Newfoundlander’s 10 Commandments. My favourites were Mind yer mudder and yer fadder!; No tellin’ yarns!; and Never mind your buddy’s wife!

Then, we sampled some local delicacies including Newfie steak aka bologna; molasses bread; dried caplin (vile stuff) and washed it down with a tot of Screech. Then came time to kiss the cod! After nearly four months on the road, the homely fish looked mighty good!

We danced a wee jig to the tune of We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar Like True Newfoundlanders and each of us – nearly a dozen, mostly from Ontario and Alberta – got a certificate suitable for framing from Branch 17 of the Legion attesting to our new status! I feel truly honoured by this simple and fun welcome!

I haven’t gone as far east as possible. That will come in another few days when I get to Cape Spear, just south of St. John’s.

For all the fun and adventure I’m having, I’m a little homesick and missing my wife after 80-odd days on the road. Only three weeks to go, which might not sound like a lot, but I've been on this lonesome road since May 11!!

It doesn’t take too much imagination to think that the first Europeans to this wild and rugged coastline, across the Strait of Belle Isle from Labrador, must have felt a similar tug from kith and kin far away.

There are no records of what the place was called by the Vikings – or more correctly, the Norsemen and women, as only raiding pirates were called Vikings – who first landed in this isolated spot. Much later. French mariners called it L’Anse aux Medeas (Cove of Medusas) after the mysterious transparent jellyfish that ply these cold North Atlantic waters. That, in turn, became L'Anse aux Meadows.

Navigating coastal waters, mostly by sailing from landmark to landmark, the first Europeans were looking for timber, furs and other natural resources absent or scarce in Greenland, Iceland or their native Scandinavia.

There’s no evidence these courageous travellers met the local natives – Innu, Beothuk and possibly Mi’qmaq – but they certainly knew from stone-lined fire pits and other clues they were not alone. There’s also nothing to say they realized they were completing the last link in the chain of human development that had circled the world for more than100,000 years but had never been completed across the Atlantic.

Now, for the first time since modern man first left Africa and started settling and interacting around the globe, Europeans had come west and connected with early Americans, completing the circle.

Nearly 600 years later, Christopher Columbus got all the credit, proving good PR can make even the smartest people believe things that are just not true.

The National Historic Site has reconstructions of several buildings built by these intrepid explorers. Pretty impressive structures built out of sod, peat bricks and the little bit of wood from the surrounding stunted forests. They used it as a base because they could recognize the local landmarks from miles off at sea – an important attribute for people unused to maps.

They moved well into the areas now known as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, calling it Vinland either due to the wild grapes growing there or the fine fertile ground for crops.

The settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows only lasted a decade or so, possibly because explorers and raiding pirates – the real Vikings – found better sources of resources closer to home. But the evidence of their spirit of discovery and their presence here lives on in the remains of their settlement and the hardy and resourceful people who cling to the place and still take their living from the land and sea – hunters, sealers and fishermen – and the rocky outports that dot the shoreline.

I got to St. Anthony after a 360-kilometer ride up Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula on the well-paved and well-travelled NL Hwy. 430. Not for the first time, I wondered why Albertans and folks from Saskatchewan put up with such poor infrastructure in the name of low taxes.

Nowhere else in the country – and believe me, after nearly 16,000 kilometers, I know whereof I speak – are the roads as poorly maintained as in those two richest of provinces. It’s like choosing to go hungry just to say you have the price of a meal in your pocket!!

I had arrived in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland from North Sydney, Nova Scotia – where I stayed at the Heritage Home, a lovely old Victorian house on the Gulf of St. Lawrence separating mainland Canada from its youngest province.

With the thrills of the Cabot Trail still fresh in my memory, the six-hour crossing aboard Marine Atlantic’s MV Blue Puttees was mind-numbingly boring. I’ll know enough to bring a novel with me for the 16-hour return voyage from Argentia a week or so from now.

I had a great feed of pan-fried cod and scallops on my arrival in Port aux Basques, the perfect dinner for the location. I’ve eaten some delicious seafood in the Maritimes – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. ­-- and Newfoundland looks like it won’t be outdone in that department.

I overnighted in the seaside village and was back on the road in warm sunshine as the MV Blue Puttees headed out of the busy port for her return to the mainland.

My next stop was Rocky Harbour and two days sightseeing in Gros Morne National Park.

I turned away from the ferry terminal and headed along the Trans Canada Highway, NL Hwy. 1, and headed to Deer Lake. There, I took NL Hwy. 430 -- the Viking Trail -- for Rocky Harbour, gateway to the fjords of Gros Morne.

I’ve seen some mighty pretty scenery on this ride, each area has its own special beauty. But it’s no exaggeration to say this glacier-scarred coastline is among Canada’s most picturesque and almost unspoiled splendours!

I would have liked to climb the backcountry to the head of the Western Brook Pond in the national park. But at this point in this great odyssey of mine, I’m not up to a two- or three-day hike into the wilderness.

So, I drove to the visitor centre and hiked for an hour into the lake at the foot of the landlocked fjord at Western Brook. Even from sea level, the mountains are awe-inspiring!

Anyone who can’t appreciate the beauty of the Tablelands of the Long Range Mountains is just being elevationist!

Just as I was leaving St. Anthony for the long ride back down the lone highway, I caught a peek at something that I thought couldn't be an iceberg this late in the season.

It was! A last lonely bergy bit, which I later found out was in the next bay over. Try as I might, I could find no way to get close enough for anything but a long-range pic.

Now I’m headed to my friend Vaughn’s cabin in his home village of Garden Cove on Placentia Bay. I’m going to be jigging for cod, a fishery that has sustained this island for at least 500 years!

In the meantime and in between time, please consider a donation to my Ride for Sight. The money goes to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund Canadian researchers looking into the causes and prevention of blindness. Please consider making a donation here to their work.

Ride for Sight is Canada’s largest and longest-running motorcycle charity endeavour. Bikers cover their own expenses so that every penny raised goes to the foundation.