Saturday, May 15th
Canadian Fauna
Looks like we made it
Look how far we’ve come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we’d get there someday— Shania Twain, You’re Still The One
This will be the day we switch from the red pages of the ‘Canada Back Road Atlas’ to the pink ones, i. e., from the French world of Quebec into anglophone Ontario. Since yesterday’s weather was bad, obviously, today is a lovely day; blue skies and sun.
When driving to the supermarket last night, I had thought I had hit central Rouyn-Noranda. But instead, I had only scratched the eastern outskirts. The actual town centre sits between two lakes and seems to be bigger and a lot larger than the one of Val d’Or. Prettier, too, but that may just be the difference between heavy rain and sunshine. At the west end of town sits a big steaming factory.
I leave the Transcanadien and turn north for a bit, before turning west again. This should get me into Ontario along a more quiet road. We go through settled area at first. But it is somewhat obvious that all this land has been painstakingly stolen from the forest and it is intent to get it all back. Soon, the road leaves civilization behind again. Spring hasn’t come here yet and the birches and other trees are still grey.
The crossing into Ontario is easily identifiable by an armada of signs. First ‘Welcome to Ontario. More to discover.’ This refers to the Ontario slogan on their license plates which, in keeping with a North American competition to coin the most pompously ridiculous phrase, is ‘Yours to discover.’ Quebec uses the poetic ‘Je me souviens,’ English ‘I remember’ or maybe better translated with ‘Lest we forget,’ which once again proves that Quebec stands out and is different. Up until 1978, they used ‘La Belle Province’ which isn’t bad either but more conformist.
The Welcome sign is followed by a long row of rules. Seatbelts must be worn. The use of radar warners is prohibited. You have to stop for a school bus when its lights are flashing. Trucks have to use speed limiters. The use of handsfree mobile communication devices while driving is prohibited. All of these appear both in English and French. So you are entertained for a good mile.
It is still seventy kilometres to Matheson, the next village. The road seems to climb up a lot, as the landscape becomes more and more alpine. The trees are getting smaller and there is more barren land. But it climbs down again, coming into a more touristy area with lakes and lodges. A very large woman comes out of the woods followed by a very small dog. A fox is walking by the road, without any women.
Shortly before town there is the Black Fox Mine of Apollo Gold. So there is gold mining going on here still. There are lot more mines on the road ahead. Whether they mine for gold or something else, I can’t quite find out. Wikipedia says it is gold and base-metal mining.
Matheson is a small village where the Black River forms a little lake. It has a school, a railway station, and a police station, as well as three motels. Listen up, Quebec: a township of two and a half thousand people and three motels, at least one of which looked decent.
A sign points to a plaque remembering the Great Fire of 1916. Its story goes something like this: The easiest way to clear forest is by fire. This was practised back in those days when the area was settled. The summer of 1916 was rather dry. A number of fires joined forces and turned into a fatal fire storm, at times sixty kilometres wide. It destroyed five settlements, damaged two more and cost 273 lives.
In Canada, like all things highway, the design of road signs lies with the provinces. As a consequence, the moose on the warning sign looks a bit different in every province. In the Ontario version, the moose has the posture of a charging bull, which makes it far more dramatic then the lazily meandering moose in the Quebec version.
A sign indicates the city limits of Timmins. The next sign says, that Timmins’ city centre is 42 km away. Yet another huge city by area only. The region seems to be called the Northland, which even by Ontario standards is ridiculous. Another sign announces that Timmins is the home town of Shania Twain (Which should explain the quote above). In 2001, the Shania Twain Centre opened in the city, now possibly its largest attraction. It was originally intended to be named the Shania Twain Interpretative Centre, a name better fitting Canadian tradition, but someone decided that Ms. Twain didn’t need interpreting.
Downtown Timmins has the feel of a big concrete sheet with some houses put on top. The only relief is in the form of a river with a park at its shores. For what it’s worth, motels of all major chains and a bunch of independents are available (Yes, I am still bitter about Val d’Or. The name has so much potential).
There even is a mall at the west end of town, which supposedly has a book store. It does, but it is a huge disappointment. They don’t have Kay’s new book, ‘Under Heaven’ (which only is a national best seller) nor do they have a travel section. The grocery store boldly claims to have the cheapest prices, so I skip that one, too.
The road to Chapleau is a long, lonely road again. As this is tourist country, there are occasional cottages, outposts, and even resorts. Signs point to some provincial parks thirty kilometres off the road. On many a creek or river or lake, you find a pick-up truck parked with an empty boat trailer. It is Saturday, after all.
We are still in the same big forest. Here, it is mostly coniferous trees. The main difference from the forests further north is that the clearings are a lot greener here. Where there was blare ground there, here it is covered in grass. The area has something very special, though: The white moose. It is so special, that there isn’t even a Wikipedia page on it.
Halfway to Chapleau lies Foleyet. It seems to be a railway town at the crossing of the CN line with the highway. CN being the Canadian National railway and one of the two big ones, the other one being CP or Canadian Pacific, whose line runs a few dozen kilometres south.
As I carry on, an oncoming car flashes its lights in warning. And a bit further, there it is. A black bear is grazing by the side of the road. It does look rather small and cute. Which presumably is just tactics. People get fooled into not taking it seriously and then they get eaten. Happens all the time.
The road goes south-west now and we slowly are getting back into spring. Outside of Chapleau are two First Nation villages: Brunswick House and Chapleau Ojibwa. Chapleau itself is yet another railway town, this one on the aforementioned CP line. It lies a bit north of the crossings of three highways and thus is at the end of the road. To cross over the railway station and into town, it does a 270° turn up on a bridge which looks rather pompous and unnecessarily expensive. Down on the other side is a couple of churches, four by my count, various residential buildings, a school and a community centre outside of which the local fire department is about to set up a demonstration on how a car is burning, much to the delight of the local youth.
At the railway station, a passenger train has arrived. Turns out there is a scheduled passenger service from Sudbury to White River along the CP line. Trains go three times a week and takes almost nine hours for the 480 kilometres. As it isn’t connected to any other train services anywhere, it seems a bit pointless. But it is most likely a lovely trip, especially now in spring.
Such, too, is the trip south by road. Unlike the east-west route, which was rather busy for a hinterland route, this road is virtually empty. There might have been ten cars on the two hundred kilometre trip. A couple of miles in, a sign indicates the Atlantic watershed, claiming that from now on, all stream will go into the Atlantic. Which bears the question: Where did they go before? I need a better map to figure this one out.
Spring is progressing with every mile travelled south. It seems that also the conifers are more green here, maybe they are of a different kind. Evil looking clouds are looming south, but here the weather is still splendid. I come across another bear, this one slightly startled by my car.
An interesting observation about a long road trip split by a destination in the middle, be it Chibougamau or Chapleau: The first half is always harder than the second. On the first, every mile seems to be a pain and you are eagerly counting down to the destination. No such thing on the second part, where you, for whatever reason, have given in and are just happily driving along. Well, the you may just be me, though.
About 120 kilometres in, the road suddenly becomes interesting, very curvy and fun to drive. The reason being a rather tight river valley it has to get through. If I decipher the rather small scale map correctly, this is the Mississagi River. This is the sort of road you wish you had taken the Mustang, which otherwise is a bit of a waste in North America. But the Silver Avenger battles on bravely. Unfortunately, the fun part is over after only twenty kilometres and we are back to cruise controlled boredom.
Around here, the conifers are almost gone and spring has progressed quite a bit. Even though I experienced the same thing only a couple of days ago, it feels completely new and unprecedented. I am stunned and awed. A small black and white animal is wobbling along the roadside. May have been a racoon or a skunk, for all I know (which isn’t much).
Eventually, we reach the Trans-Canada (southern route) at the village of Thessalon. Another eighty kilometres west along it and we arrive in Sault Ste. Marie (which I constantly name as Sainte Ste. Marie, thereby confusing the hell out of Google). It starts raining. A while later, it stops raining.
Sault Ste. Marie feels rather empty, despite its 175,000 inhabitants. Town centre is mostly parking lots and parks with the, obviously mandatory, single street with “Old Stone Buildings” (as the road sign puts it) thrown in for good measure. I find a motel at the waterfront.
Since there is no pubs nearby, I go for a bit of beer shopping at the local alcohol monopoly. In Ontario, there is two. The Beer Store is run by the big three breweries (Molson, Labatt, and Sleeman; all three now owned by foreign companies which is cause for a bit of controversy) and has a monopoly on domestic beers. The LCBO or Liquor Control Board of Ontario sells wines and spirits and foreign beer. My first stop is the big mall at the waterfront, but it already is thoroughly shut at half past six. This may be a Saturday, but really? Are we back in Switzerland now?
A bit of Internet research reveals another mall. The Beer Store there may very well be the saddest shopping experience I have ever had in North America. It is essentially a big cold store full of cartons. The annoying habit of selling stuff only on sizes suitable for feeding entire villages I have grown used to. But the liquor stores in the Maritimes at least have a limited selection of single bottles of craft beers. Here, all you get in singles is cans, which can’t be good. The beer selection at LCBO is very limited, mostly and unexpectedly to import beers. But at least they have single bottles.
Beer of the day: Steam Whistle (first lager I had since the long haul flight. Brewed in an old railway roundhouse, which accounts for something. Reasonably interesting lager, very strong on the hops. Definitely none of the lite non-sense.)