Sunday, May 16th
Halfway there
Smile, though your heart is aching,
Smile, even though it’s breaking.
When there clouds in the sky,
You’ll get by.— Holly Cole Trio, Smile
Strangely enough, this morning is beautiful again. Seems the pattern has been broken and towards the good side, too. So here I am. Lovely morning, motel by the waterfront. There really is no excuse any more and so I go for a run by the river. Google says it was about a mile each way, but the map and the satellite imagery disagree on the location of the waterfront. I guess it is time to go and by some fancy gadget now.
Because of the running and the postponed note writing, it is past ten when I finally get going. Next to my car one with Alaska plates is parked. A bit further on parks an old Cadillac, light blue with a white roof. What a beautiful car. I want one of those, too.
Right around the corner from the motel is the Bush Plane Museum which may be worth a visit, but it is very late already. A great lake boat called Ironmaster is docked (or possibly dry-docked). As I drive out of town through the commercial strips, someone is announcing a car wash. My car may be a bit dirty, but every single dead fly on the bumper is hard won.
The biggest problem with northern Ontario is that there is basically only one way through and that is the Trans-Canada. It is quite busy this Sunday morning with people having a lot of time, enjoying this mighty fine day, and thus driving slow. An electronic board announces ‘Buckly Up! Seat-belts save lives!’ This certainly beats the American rhyme of ‘Click it or ticket.’
The road runs along the shores of Lake Superior, the superior of the Great Lakes (badum-tish). The map around here is cluttered with red text announcing tourist attractions. There are countless camping sites, cottages, parks, etc. No wonder there is so many leasure-ers.
About twenty kilometres outside Sault Ste. Marie a sign points to a truck inspection station. These stations can be found all over North America at the side of all major highways. Usually they are closed and are opened randomly. In which case the sign has some flashing lights and all trucks have to turn off. The reason is that trucks tend to be overloaded.
An advertisement board by the road announces ‘frozenbeneath.ca – Get ready!’ I checked and Frozen Beneath seems to be a thriller by Brian Horeck about two guys going on a secret (!) hunt for a meteor in northern Ontario. And I suppose what they find isn’t quite what they expected.
Further on follows a long straight stretch with dozens of illuminated moose warning signs. On the roadside there is a device every fifty metres that consists of a pole with a solar panel on top and a grey box mounted to it. I would guess these are for keeping moose away from the road. Seems there is a moose highway crossing.
Treetop Adventure Park announces paint ball. No there is some fun you don’t want to miss.
Next up: Pancake Bay. Hmmm, pancakes. The bay is announced miles ahead with what feels like hundreds of billboards. Usually, this is a sign of a rather small operation and indeed it is. Basically, a rest stop with some shops and a motel or two. Thereafter follows Pancake Bay Provincial Park which may or may not be open.
The landscape starts to become very rocky. At the entrance to Lake Superior Provincial Park the road turns away from the lake shore and goes up into the mountains. Although the visitor centre is open, most of its attractions are still closed. Turns out that most provincial and national parks only get into full operation after the Victoria Day weekend sometime in the second half of May. They are mostly staffed by students and they don’t have time before that weekend. So here is some advice if you plan to travel in Canada. If you like to see all the parks, come after May. If you, like me, feel guilty about skipping all these wonderful parks but are actually too cheap to pay all the entrance fees, come in early May.
The park follows the T.C.H. for 83 kilometres all the way to the town of Wawa. The park office is thirty kilometres outside of Wawa which is a bit of a commute. Wawa itself is three kilometres off the highway and probably not worth a visit. At the highway itself, it features as a big rest stop with about ten motels and plenty of other commercial activity.
After Wawa, the road goes even further away from the lake shores and up into the mountains. Promptly, the forests turn pine again, so we are back in the big northern forest.
In the opposite direction, a driver is pulled over by a civilian police car, presumably for speeding. Or so believes the driver in front of me, who promptly lowers his speed to 90 km/h sharp. This is another drawback of using the big roads: too many police patrols. (Well, I have been painstakingly following the speed limits, of course. And I will stick to that story.)
One big advantage of driving alone in the wilderness is that nobody objects if you crank up the music way too far. There are songs that require being played really loud. One example would be Mark Knopfler’s ‘Speedway to Nazareth.’ Though, with the speeds allowed around here, it doesn’t really work. Need to try this on an empty stretch of a German autobahn doing 180 one day.
A sign announces the White River Motel with the phrase ‘Very, very clean!!!’ Yes, three exclamation points. I am very tempted to go buy a pair of white gloves and test that.
At White River, population 1000, we return to the Canadian Pacific Railway coming through the bushes from Sudbury. Which explains why the passenger service ends here. Or, since this is a tiny town out nowhere, it doesn’t really. White River’s motto is ‘Where it all began. Winnie-the-Pooh.’ Here is how: One Harry Colebourn, while on the way from his home town of Winnipeg to England, bought a black bear cub from a hunter in White River. He named the cub Winnie after Winnipeg. The bear served as a mascot for Mr. Colebourn’s regiment and was later given to the London Zoo. The son of A. A. Milne, author of the book, saw this bear a lot at the zoo and named his own teddy bear Winnie.
After White River, the road enters a plateau where all the bigger trees have died. The reason eludes me and there is a new generation already growing, so this can’t be permanently. It doesn’t quite look like a fire either. But the area has a rather strange feel and it goes on for quite a bit.
The White Lake Lodge consists of a couple of cottages by, presumably, the White Lake, and a central service building which, importantly, features an LCBO store. Somewhere there is a big open-pit mining operation. It is being set up around a beautiful little lake. So you have the blue lake with some green around it and a ring of grey dirt around that.
The next town is Marathon, population 3900. While there is a Marathon Curling Club, there doesn’t seem to be a Marathon marathon. One should probably go about setting that up. The town itself is about four kilometres off the highway and, like most towns here, a station of the CP line. Because of that, it is still about two hundred meters or so above the lake. But there is a Marathon beach somewhere down.
Further on, a dead moose has been left lying by the road.
Next are the two towns are Terrace Bay, population 1800, and Schreiber, population 1000, both small railway towns with a couple motels on the highway. After Schreiber, road and railway finally climb down to the lake. I stop at a roadside rest stop on the lake shore outside of Rossport. There is a little beach here but also large flat rocks reaching out into the lake. I sit on one of these, writing postcards which I have forgotten to do for far too long.
Further on, the road runs below high cliffs for a while. They are made of some red stone and look quite impressive in the afternoon sun. At Nipigon the northern branch of the Transcanadien joins. Both branches run jointly on to Thunder Bay.
The highway now is the Terry Fox Courage Highway, after what can only be described a Canadian hero. Following a diagnosis with cancer, Terry’s right leg had to be amputated. A runner since university, he kept on running with an artificial leg. In 1980, he embarked on the Marathon of Hope, a run across Canada in order to raise money for cancer research. He started in St. John’s. But cancer caught up with him and he was forced to abandon the run outside of Thunder Bay on this very road. Nine months later, he died. But his effort had stirred the heart of a nation. To this day, he is remembered, not least by numerous schools, roads, and trails named in his honour. Each year, there is Terry Fox Runs all over the world, raising money for cancer research.
Back to the banalities of tourism, Fort William Historical Park announces itself as the ‘best outdoor attraction in Canada.’ How do they know? In any case, it consists of the reconstructed Fort William Fur Trading post of the North West Company.
Thunder Bay, today’s destination, is a city made up of the formerly independent cities of Port Arthur and Fort William. As such, it is actually two places connected by a big mall. Now, I may just have seen the wrong parts, but it feels rather run down. Huge potholes in the streets. Buildings in desperate need of a paint job or plain replacing. Most cars full of dents and rust. One must be careful. If you kick the town in the wrong place, everything will fall over and there will be nothing left but a big cloud of dust.
I venture out in search of a pub as it is Sunday and everything is closed at this hour. The Irish pub right at the motel has been shut down and the restaurant is closed on Sundays. Down the road is a hugely popular ice cream parlour. The girl at the reception said that I was very lucky with the weather. Usually they have snow around this time. Which probably explains the long queue for ice cream.
Further down, the area gets even shabbier and I decide I don’t want to walk along here after dark. Back to the motel and some TV. Or rather to bed early. There is nothing on TV as usual (no small wonder). I think I want to go back to Newfoundland. It may be full of slot machine zombies, but at least you always get a beer.
Beer of the day: Pickle’s English Ale (Little inside joke there. I had to get back to my emergency supply but I refuse to have the same beer of the day more than once.)