Take it Easy – Take the Train
Winnipeg to Sudbury (Pt. 2), and Sudbury to Espinola. DAY: 108.13km. ODO: 3,347km. AVS: 23.4km/h. MXS: 57.5km/h. ATM: 4:36:31.
This train is clearly a union shop. I haven’t seen such a slothful lot of company representatives since the post office in the 70’s. The only exception is a young woman who is clearly new to the job, but I have no doubt that she will soon submit to the ways of her peers, lest she be ostracised.
They seem quite unhappy with their careers. At night, they sit around a table in the lounge car, gossiping about fellow workers (generally, whoever is not present at the time) or slagging their bosses. The guy that runs the concession stand is especially interesting. A stout fellow with baggy clothes, he bears a striking resemblance to Oliver Hardy, right down to the hairstyle. He sits on his stool staring into space until he gets bored enough to wander the aisles of the train with a tray of canned beer, shuffling his feet and reciting with monotone apathy “taking orders for alcoholic beverages”. Should anyone request a beverage of this variety, he sighs, puts his tray down, and pours the liquid into the cup with all the enthusiasm that one would pick lint off of one’s knee socks.
I dropped by his little canteen last evening looking for a snack. “I’d like a cup of tea, please, if you have any”, I asked with emphasised enthusiasm.
He didn’t move from his stool. “No one ever looks at the menu”, he said in no particular direction.
“Oh, there’s a menu. Great!” I glanced about in search of the document and found it taped to the side of the refrigerator at the height of my lower thigh. I glanced over it, and then looked at him and said “I’d like a cup of tea please”.
He looked at me as if I’d asked him to insert an un-lubricated can of Mountain Dew into his rectum and dance a jig, but he did not move. Finally, he exhaled laboriously and eased himself off of his stool. He gathered all the required ingredients as though he were auditioning for one of those white-painted street buskers pretending to be a robot, and then set the Styrofoam cup on the counter. “A dollar seventy-five”.
I gave him exact change and thanked him. He did not reply, just turned, eased himself back onto the stool, and looked away.
The train arrived at Sudbury Junction (on the north-east edge of town) at about 1:30. I had to unpack everything from the shipping boxes, re-attach my pedals and straighten the handlebars, and re-assemble my luggage, which was all badly packed in Winnipeg as I kept things in a backpack for the train that would normally have been stowed. Anyway, the point of all this babbling is that I wasn’t actually on my bike and riding until 3:00.
I needed an Ontario accommodation guide, and the only tourism office was apparently about six km south-east town, while my intended route was to the south-west. I rode downtown to seek out the Chamber of Commerce, often a good alternative. I picked up a couple of local guides, but decided to ride out to the real office anyway, despite the direction.
It was quite cloudy, threatening rain, and I did indeed get showered on, but it was light and brief. As it turned out, the tourist office only had guides published by industry associations, so only member campgrounds were listed, and the list is considerably less than exhaustive, with no national, provincial or municipal sites listed. Thanks again, Mike Harris. The private sector is doing a fine job.
As my plan was to cross Manitoulin Island, I rode west. By the time I left Subbury, after all the dicking around, it was about 5:00. My destination, the little town of Espinola, was about 80km. On the way I was hit with a couple more brief showers, but they were very short and light, and it was a warm night, so I didn’t bother with the rain gear. I arrived in town just after sundown and, since there were no campgrounds, stayed in a small motel.
Espinola, while not inherently unattractive, is a mill town (paper), and it smells like it. (Add a few bored adolescents, and you’ve got somewhere I don’t want to live).
The Great Leap Forward
Winnipeg to Sudbury (Pt. 1). DAY: 0.00km. ODO: 3,239km. AVS: 0.00km/h. MXS: 0.00km/h. ATM: 0:00:00.
Although the weather seems to be improving, I have decided to cheat and take the train the 1,500km or so to Sudbury, as I have heard nothing but negativity about the Trans-Canada highway above Lake Superior, and I’m not feeling all that enthusiastic about the US route. Given the choice between the possibility of a miserable two weeks fighting semi-trailers for space on a debris lined highway, or spending more time in Quebec and the Maritimes, the latter won out.
For the first hundred kilometres on the train, I was seated directly behind a woman with a baby. There were two babies in the car, nowhere near each other, naturally, but this one was asleep, and the other one was screaming – along with its’ two older siblings – so this one seemed like the lesser of two evils.
The baby was quite cute, for a baby, but his mother was irritating beyond measure. She talked to it constantly, cooing, gurgling, singing, and reading it books about steamrollers and garbage trucks (talk about gender role reinforcement!). Whatever happened to Curious George and Dr. Suess?
The worst part was that she was constantly asking him if his diaper was soiled. “Does Jayden have a stinky bum?” she would ask in sing-song fashion, followed by sniffing sounds. He never answered with anything resembling a coherent phrase (his age was apparently some days short of five months), but as she was feeding him breast milk very half hour, with snacks of oatmeal in between, the answer was inevitably affirmative. This would trigger regular rounds of diaper changing which, despite the presence of a Canadian taxpayer subsidised baby changing table in the lavatory, she insisted on performing at her seat – of which I and several other taxpayers were unfortunately downwind. A polite comment pointing out the presence of the lavatory changing table was met with “it’s much easier here” and continued colour commentary for the rest of us (“Ooh, little Jayden really has a poopy bum! Does baby want his stinky bum clean?”).
Happily, I was able to secure a seat well away from Jayden’s stinky bum and his moronic mother once we were passing above Kenora.
Winnipeg
Gladstone to Winnipeg. DAY: 159.12km. ODO: 3,239km. AVS: 23.1km/h. MXS: 38.5km/h. ATM: 6:51:35.
[Text pending]
West Nile Tour, 2005
Wasagaming to Gladstone. DAY: 128.58km. ODO: 3,080km. AVS: 21.4km/h. MXS: 47.0km/h. ATM: 6:00:04.
Tired after a night of audible woodcutting, I set out once again. I travelled south to Minnedosa, passing through the valley of the Little Saskatchewan River (labelled on the CAA map as the “Minnedosa River”, for some reason). It was a tough climb out again, one of the steepest grades I’ve climbed, I think:
Along the way, I saw a Coot with hatchlings, as well as a couple of Turkey Vultures.
After facing a cross/headwind all the way, I lunched in Minnedosa, and carried on. From here on, I was heading southeast, with the wind at least somewhat behind me. I decided to stop at Gladstone (50km east of Portage La Prairie), where I arrived in the municipal campground to find one motorhome, four other cyclists, and 368 billion mosquitoes.
Two of the cyclists, a couple from Vernon, BC, I had previously passed just west of Regina. They had taken a very similar route to my own, except that they went from Roblin to Russell, instead of through Riding Mountain park. They are riding shorter daily distances than I, but they did not spend a week in Regina, as did I, so our paths crossed again. The other two were a couple from Winnipeg, en route to Dauphin for a few days.
Mosquitoes are not usually a huge problem in southern Manitoba until a little later in the year, but this is one of their wettest springs on record, so breeding conditions are ideal. I don’t usually like to endorse commercial products, but I must say, “Ben’s” bug repellent, which I bought at MEC, works very well. I hate using those chemicals on my skin, and they really eat up the Spandex, but it’s either that or I go crazy and leap off a cliff like those wildebeests on ‘Wild Kingdom’ that are driven to suicide by black flies.
The campground is right next to the train tracks, as usual, with only a mosquito swamp in between. Each time a train goes by, it honks for about a full minute, as there are a number of intersections in town. Also, I didn’t notice it when the sun was up, but there is a big light above my tent which makes a flashlight redundant in the tent at night. And, the local children entertain themselves by racing motorised dirt bikes in the field next door. What kind of idiot parent buys a kid a dirt bike and then sends them out to play? Probably the same ones who go camping with a full sound system and a dishwasher, I suspect.
The good news is that when I woke up (tired again, thanks to the local party crowd), it was sunny and WARM! Finally. After all that preparing myself for the heat of the prairies, I usually wake up freezing.
Bears!
Roblin to Wasagaming (Riding Mountain National Park). DAY: 173.17km. ODO: 2,951km. AVS: 22.7km/h. MXS: 51.5km/h. ATM: 7:37:42.
When I woke up, I looked out the window, turned on the television weather station, and then packed and left (after a hearty breakfast!). It was overcast (mostly cloudy), and the wind was out of the south-west. This was fine until I reached Dauphin to the west, but then I turned south, destined for Riding Mountain National Park. The park is only about 30km or so from Dauphin, and once in the park, the trees blocked the wind, which made things much more pleasant.
Should you ever find the opportunity to visit, I think Riding Mountain is the nicest Canadian national park that I have visited (so far). Quiet, little traffic, scenic, ecologically diverse, and lots of wildlife. I had originally planned to camp at the Moon Lake campsite (halfway through the park), but when I got there I found that not only was it utterly deserted, but there was a sign up advising that there was no potable water. I usually enjoy an empty campground, but I tend not to sleep as deeply in bear country when I am completely alone with nowhere but a tree in which to stash my food. Call me a wimp, but if a mouse burps in the middle of the night, my eyelids snap open. However, I have no problems if there is another victim around as well.
Riding Mountain is at the southernmost point of boreal forest in Canada, most of it being further north. Here is an example of a modern boreal forest:
In the few hours I spent riding through the park, I saw three bears, three moose, many deer, a coyote, and some recently hatched Common Goldeneyes. The first large wildlife I saw was on the Boreal Trail, a 1km trail through a wetland. On the way in, I met a couple from Los Angeles who were all excited because they had seen a moose cow with two calves, and told me to watch for them. So I set out on the trail, peering into the brush looking for the moose, not making a lot of noise, as I didn’t want to scare them off. Not far along, I rounded a corner and found a large black bear, only ten metres from me, sitting in the grass foraging, or shitting in the woods, or whatever bears do. The first thing that popped into my head was “take a picture”, but this was quickly replaced with the more sensible “keep moving”. As I continued along, glancing back occasionally to see if the bear was pursuing me hungrily, I saw that he had stood up on his (or her?) hind legs to watch me, but did not move. It was a circular trail, so I had to pass quite near to the same spot again, so I made lots of noise as I walked. The bear was gone when I returned. I never did see the moose calves.
While riding again, I saw two moose cows, one at a distance, and the other on the roadside as I rounded a curve. Big things, they are. I found a very scenic bit of waterway, with a little ridge over which ran the water into another waterway. I stopped to take a picture of it, but as I stood there on the side of the road, I heard a rustling behind me. I turned to see a large bull moose, eating tree leaves on the other side of the road, close enough that I could see the whites of his sizable eyes as he watched me while he ate. This I took a picture of:
After that, I departed before he decided that I was usurping his territory.
The next sighting was about 20km from the end of the park, when I was riding down a small hill. At the botton of the hill, the road just dipped and then went uphill again. Right at the dip, 10 metres from the roadside, were two black bear cubs, with a sizable mother behind them. I stopped as soon as I saw them, when I was halfway down the hill. The cubs continued eating, but the mother heard me and looked up. Should she choose to chase me, I was a bit stuck, as I’d never escape back up the hill. However, she didn’t move, just watched me warily.
I was on a section of road where the boulevard between the northbound and southbound lanes is so large that you can’t even hear any cars on the other side. I decided that the best course of action would be to wait for a southbound car to come , and then start riding past the bears as the car passed them. However, after ten minutes, there were no cars, and I got tired of watching the baby bears eat, so I just decided to give it a run. I pedalled quickly down what remained of the hill to get a good start on the incline. I was not pursued, though, as the bears all fled when they heard me coming.
Here’s a photo that shows the typical view in the park:
I arrived at the Wasagaming campsite later in the evening. It’s one of those typically “national park” style campgrounds that inspire me to rant on the irresponsibility of what I refer to as “the proletariat”. Why people want to get away to the “great outdoors” just to litter, destroy trees, and make as much noise as possible I just don’t understand. Why don’t they stay in the municipal campgrounds, and leave the parks to the civilised?
The place was almost empty, but as usual, beer bottle tops littered all the sites and nearby foliage had all been hacked up with Canadian Tire hatchets to make kindling, or just to leave marks on the trees. It was pretty quiet, until 3:00am, when someone decided they needed to light a fire. In order to supply the fire, they apparently needed to chop a cord or two of wood, as I was listening to chopping until 4:30. I sleep better when all I have is flatulent rodents to deal with.
However, I will refrain from ranting on this occasion.
A day off to dry out
Roblin (Sightseeing). DAY: 00.0km. ODO: 2,778km. AVS: 0.0km/h. MXS: 0.0km/h. ATM: 0:00:00.
I decided to take a rest, and stay in Roblin another day, as it doesn’t really seem like that bad a place. I slept in a bit, stocked up on groceries, bought some nice environmentally-friendly Scotch Guard for my panniers, and read a few more chapters of Don Quixote. Not much excitement, really. I stayed at the Roblin Motor Inn, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds (though it is certainly no Four Seasons).
At least it’s not snowing
Yorkton to Roblin, MB. DAY: 95.26km. ODO: 2,778km. AVS: 14.8km/h. MXS: 42.0km/h. ATM: 6:24:01.
If every day was like today, I’d have packed it in and flown to Costa Rica by now. When I got up this morning, it was quite cool, and fully overcast (it had been clear and mild when I went to bed). I had breakfast and was packed and ready to go by 9:00. I had put on my rain jacket and water-resistant pants, just to keep warm. As I got on my bike to leave, I felt a drip.
I waited to see what would happen. I don’t like to over-react, otherwise I end up going to all the effort of digging out the rain gear and suiting up, only to find it’s just a brief shower. A few more drips. After a few minutes, the drips had become a light drizzle. Since the sky was solid grey, I unpacked the real rain gear and put it on. I left at 9:30. Before I was three blocks away, it was pouring.
I resigned myself to a day of rain, not too upset, as I have been very lucky so far. Everyone I meet tells me that it has been raining in Saskatchewan for two solid weeks, but this is the first I have seen. It might, of course, be like Vancouver, where it will be dry for ten straight days, and when it finally rains everyone whines “all it ever does here is rain”. (And they say I’m negative).
I rode eastbound on highway 10. The first thing I noticed is that yesterday’s north-easterly wind had become an easterly wind, with increased velocity. I remember before I left home – so many people telling me how I’ll sail across the prairies, barely needing to pedal, pushed by the winds at my back. What rubbish! I had a tailwind from Banff until Calgary, a cross-wind from Stettler to Biggar, and it’s been cross- or headwinds ever since.
Seven kilometres out of town, I got a rear flat. As you will recall from yesterday, this is a brand new tube. In wind and driving rain, I put another brand new tube in, reassembled the load, and carried on, now with numbed fingers. Three kilometres later, it’s flat again. I decide to walk the 10k back to town, and sort it out, figuring that I’d probably need to stay another night and start again Wednesday. After 5km, a nice guy with a truck stopped and offered me a lift to a bike shop.
As we rode into town, he asked me where I was from, and when I said Vancouver, he told me a story about the time he went to visit a friend in Fort Nelson. This often happens when I meet people in small towns. One woman said “Oh, you’re from Vancouver, what a coincidence! I lived in Kamloops for two years back in the 80’s”. Anyway, the guy in the truck reported that he hadn’t enjoyed the trip, as the scenery was nothing but rocks. Uh, you mean the Rocky Mountains?
Anyway, I went to the bike shop, and I decided that the problem may very well be he tire itself, as I can see a couple of well-worn spots on it. So, I bought a new tire. After that, I grabbed a little lunch in town. Recognising that the sensible course of action would be to find a hotel and relax, I decided, since it was only 1:30 and I had eight hours of daylight left, to get back on the road.
What a gruelling ride! The wind seemed to get stronger, and both pairs of my Gore-Tex gloves, as it turns out, are about as waterproof as a sea sponge. My canvas shoe covers don’t seem to be dong much to keep my feet dry, or warm, either. I knew I should have bought the neoprene covers. I have neoprene gloves, but they are buried in the bottom of one of my panniers, and you can bet that if I start searching for them on the side of the road that they will all be open and emptied before I find the gloves.
Thus, within two hours my hands and feet were all soaked, and numb from the cold. But, I think about other things, and carry on, and there isn’t a hell of a lot of choice, besides turning back, which I wasn’t prepared to do.
At about 4:30, the rain stopped, but the trucks that passed were blowing all the residual water up off the road. It was another hour before the roads dried up. I tried to wring out my gloves, but the liners, being fleece, don’t ring out well. I was forced to suck the water out of each finger. After that, they warmed up considerably.
I arrived in Roblin, Manitoba at 7:45, but then I remembered that I am now in the Central time zone, so it was actually 8:45. I checked into the local motor hotel and grabbed dinner at the only place open: “Chicken Delight”. Ugh! The resemblance to actual chicken is purely promotional.
Doubt the power of the wind? Check out my average speed for the day: 14.8 km/hour. That’s six hours and 24 minutes of almost continuous riding (only stopping to drink, eat chocolate, and urinate). Incidentally, I recently weighed my bike at one of the truck weigh scales. 110 kilograms (including rider). That would be a total of 240 pounds or so that my poor Achilles tendon is pushing into to the wind.
The primary thing to note about Manitoba, from a technical-cycling perspective, is that the highways suck! In most places, if there is any shoulder at all, it’s about two inches wide, with a three inch drop to the gravel, which is generally quite soft and quite unsuitable for riding upon with road tires. However, in most cases the width is moot, as there is no shoulder at all, just a white line painted against the gravel edge. Fortunately, I have encountered little traffic, and of that, most motorists have been quite cooperative. I’m not sure if will be as good after Winnipeg (toward the lakes and Ontario), though.
I don’t think the Roblin area riding is held by the Liberals:
