defenestrainwreck
Fenrir Cerebellion
Fenrir Cerebellion
Queer fiction ; K'emk'emeláý, Turtle Island
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A NEW SITE APPEARS
Actually, it’s been around for a month and some, but also I have a Patreon, and now it’s got a good little amount of things on it and is all set for weekly (and some mid-weekly) updates. Basically, my site is working towards being a portfolio and portfolio-pieces archive. And the Patreon gets all the WIPs, snippets, behind-the-scenes, and prompt pieces.
On that note, follow me on twitter for chatter about writing, prompt invitations, 15 word fiction (weekly roundup posted on Patreon), and real living human being me.
Thank you all for keeping up with me here. I hope you enjoy the new sites, content, and formatting~
Once more:
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Hesitation and Why
If anyone ever asked, June would rattle off the date of two day's prior with a practised ease. Everyone, especially the older folks and the young folks not old enough to think beyond lessons of older folks -- everyone asked. It was an automatic part of greeting one another; it was 'hello', 'how are you?', 'when did you count last?'. The older folks have words to say on manners and impolite language, but of late the common shorthand is 'last count?'.
June isn't sure if they are supposed to respond to that. Sometimes it is so quick and in passing, that they are left on the street awkward and fumbling the date of the day before yesterday.When meeting someone proper, the question feels authoritative. Perhaps not from the person asking. From everyone as a whole, asking.
Last count?
"The fourteenth," they reply. There is nothing conversational about this question, here in the hubbub of voices surrounding, June is bored of this non-interaction.
Their answer always garners the same response, that they should count again within the next day.
This new stranger instead says, "Ugh, again soon."
June's boredom drops at the sudden change in script. They blink and refocus on the person sitting opposite.
She had introduced herself as Fatima. In this crowded shop that persuades strangers to sit with one another, her meal appears comprised entirely of vegetables; she had said she was 'busy' but said in such an upbeat fashion she was evidently not burdened by such realities. "I did last night," she says, with a laborious voice. "But I won't again for as long as I can."
"It's so tedious," June agrees with her own begrudging view. This was another common line among people her age; Fatima was older, June is testing the waters.
"I just have so much else I have to do, all the time. It's a pain to squeeze it in." Fatima catches onto June's smirk from the comment and adds, "Into my schedule."
"I wish I had a busy schedule," bemoans June. "I feel like I do nothing, waiting around, until I have to--" they don't want to say it, they don't have to; it is implied. "--again." The lunch in front of them was forgotten with all their newfound interesting conversation. "What is it you do?"
Fatima smiles and forgets her meal as well, she talks about how her job is too much paperwork and not enough fieldwork. Fatima smiles because June smiled first, not knowing that June has not smiled earnestly with another person for some time.
June is contributing to the hubbub of conversation in a shop. They respond with their desire for nearly any kind of work, but that they don't have the energy for physical tasks and long hours. The placement centre in their burrough has always misread their attempts to acquire employment, and positioned them in perhaps perfect jobs, but entire burroughs away.
The city's transportation system was built for bicycles. June cannot ride bicycles.
"And the metro is so designed for them too!" Fatima jumps in. "I have to enforce my space just to take an elevator down. Or take an industrial lift."
"What!?" Industrial lifts, tunnels and conveyors, carry import and export throughout the city. They are how grocery stores restock, how construction and building maintenance are supplied, how any large goods are moved out, in, or around the city. June is aghast. "That is disgusting. Like, how can an accessible infrastructure not result in an aware culture."
"Entitlement," Fatima chirps, she absently twirls a spindly fork to address her meal. "Don't spread that around though. I don't want to encourage that as an option."
June agrees it's definitely not an option.
Their conversation trailed into the standard discussion about the burroughs they lived in, whose was more of a food desert, new initiatives on energy consumption, and further considerations on how hard it was to get from their respective burroughs to the places they needed to all about the city. Fatima had a straightforward commute. June could wax poetic for hours about being in the most access considerate burrough and how difficult it was to get out.
"It feels pretty fenced in," they say, tossing their lunch's remains around their utensil. At some point, the two of them had remembered their meals. As June turns gloomy again on the topic of their neighbourhood, Fatima makes polite preparations to leave. "Back to your paperwork?"
"Back to my paperwork," Fatima beams. June smiles back.
June watches Fatima wheel away and instantly regrets not scarfing down the rest of their lunch then and there as some other person eagerly takes the empty seat in the busy shop.
"Last count?"
Their smile drops and June sneers. The intruder on June's short happiness is greatly offended but refuses to march off in a huff. It was a very busy shop.
After another standard week of nothing much, of the honestly unassuming but entirely probing constant interrogation of 'last count?', June looks up Fatima on the public census. They know her name, a guess of an age group, and where she lives: it was easy. Remembering the woman's existence and her differing attitude than the status quo, June is content for several days just knowing that Fatima exists.
An elderly neighbour in their apartment complex hall, harrassing them about needing to count soon, about doing it more regularly maybe, about this new device developed for the elderly in case June was too lazy to count herself -- as though someone so young couldn't possibly have physical issues -- all this and the day-to-day every person always asking 'last count?', June caves.
It is a sunny afternoon, it is often a sunny afternoon, and June sits barefoot on the ledge of rooftop they have access to. Their feet swing in the breeze and the fifty foot drop to street level. Their burrough's demand for more residences in a place incapable of annexing surrounding burroughs had made development move upward. June's view is the building opposite with its obvious difference between the original architecture and newer, ecologically smarter materials that made an additional two storeys. June had sat on this ledge before the developments, and now feels that even the sky is being fenced in.
Sunny afternoons did naught to lighten the oppressive feeling. June sends Fatima a message. They were not expecting to receive an immediate response. Apparently Fatima is at their desk, dealing with the unfortunately high ratio of paper to field work, and so is free to manage her inbox. Her reply is bright and reads as friendly, even in the face of June's standard but awkward greeting. The fact that the words 'last' and 'count' do not appear together in the message is a breath of fresh air.
June immediately breathes, big, large huffs of openly complaining how rude it's considered to exist and yet how entitled people felt to know about your health.
Fatima's jovial reply was about how real that was, as she commiserated.
They make a lunch date, during a time that was actually lunch and not June's strange eating habits. Jokingly, Fatima made note of this; it was the first time she sounds her age. And June doesn't mind.
They make several lunch dates. June doesn't mind walking and Fatima was just as fine, so they slowly explore the burroughs neighbouring. Even just as two people, their presence fed confidence and starved isolation. It was easier to take space and impose right of way on sidewalks, across streets, and in all public venues. They easily run out of and recirulate topics, often enjoying companionable silence. June has to remember to keep track of when they say they last counted, just in case it comes up in conversation.
"No one else I know seems too concerned."
June hums, eyes intent on strings of protein spinning onto their utensil. They are thoroughly invested in the conversation, but have great difficulty eating at this time of day.
"There's no follow up, after formal education. I'm sometimes scared I put it all back in wrong."
"Right?" June doesn't notice exactly how many people's attention they gathered from their exclamation, but it's more than a few. "It's been so long." They are torn about speaking further, but Fatima has learned to read their face well.
She ensured everyone else had returned to their respective attentions, then leans into their table space. "Criticizing the system in public is not seen acceptable."
June waits for the palpable 'but'.
Fatima cocks a brow. She leans back in her chair when June smiles. "Legitimate, constructive criticisms though. We should be able to have a conversation on those. Public opinion regardless."
"Right," June drolls. They are cautious. This is a shop full of people, and any one of them could potentially report them and Fatima. June couldn't be investigated, it would not go well.
"Social taboos just condemn progress," Fatima continues, much less bothered than June by the threat of their neighbours.
June wholeheartedly agrees. Over the past two months, the two had become extensive friends; they agreed or had similar opinions on every topic but for the ones they could still then discuss on length from their differing views. June was ravenous for someone they could bear the company of, and had never considered themself a very talkative person up until their time together. They do not stop Fatima as she treaded into the inappropriate topic.
"Taboos like talking about disability," June chips in.
Fatima dives on June's contribution, she now talks with more energy than June has ever witnessed in her. "Exactly. The whole system needs reform." June is nodding along and it feeds Fatima's fire; she talks about the current inadequacies. Her conversation partner agrees but doesn't have fully formed opinions on the minutiae of the few, lacking measures in place.
"And maybe certification. Regular workshops -- that people can opt out of -- because they only ever teach you once. There needs to be reassurance, and opensource education in public works."
June is crushed. They try not to look it. These were great ideas, and they thoroughly believe Fatima should run for Health Minister, but these were not ideas that applied to them. Which was fine, it was still exciting, they could still have this talk. They just weren't included.
"Ugh, and sanitation practises." Fatima's lunch was long forgotten, and her time constraint is equally in the wind. "People just don't do enough. I have wipes, disinfectant, the whole works. My pharmacist says hardly anyone buys any of it."
"That is," June agrees, then looks down at their plate, "disturbing." They will not finish this meal.
Fatima is too fargone to notice. Where normally she would soothe June's concerns, she instead talks on about how even she is not staunch enough, though she takes so many precautions. And about how unregulated the production of assistive devices is. She keeps away from gathering the attention of everyone in the shop, but is so focused she doesn't see she has lost June's. "Oh! Sorry."
June had shifted into propping their head on a fist, and was completely unaware of wherever their eyes had settled.
"I get really into it, I know."
"It's fine," June murmurs.
Fatima is aware of two things: she needs to return to her office, and June is placating her. "No, it's not. Tell me when we aren't communicating." She presses a hand over the one June had dropped from her chin onto the table. "Unfortunately, this is a quick apology. I have to head back to work." As she withdraws her hand, June looks quite touched and she smiles. "Honestly though." The smile loses force as June nods mechanically, but obligation forces her to depart without another word.
They watch Fatima move away and wheel out onto the narrow street that the two had been admonishing on their way in. After a moment, June remembers their meal and Fatima's forgotten lunch. They remember how everyone was so unsanitary except themself, they no longer consider the plates as food. Their hand sits on the table still, unmoved from where Fatima held it in place. They didn't mind.
It's not even mid-afternoon on the same day when June receives a message from Fatima. Her check-in is courteous and encouraging, and in the mix of emotions June feels about the situation, they feel a bit better. Their feet swing in the open air from their seat on the roof. When they finally return to their apartment, they pass the building's maintenance attendant carrying a sign stating NO ROOF ACCESS.
At the next lunch date, June looks glum. Fatima had initially tried business-as-usual but now felt as though she was trying to make up for her transgression. It's not a feeling she enjoys, she overcomes her souring mood and asks what is the matter.
"My building won't let me sit on the roof anymore."
Fatima doesn't think before she says, "That sounds dangerous." June's shoulders raise defensive and she reconsiders her response. "But you like it there."
Today the two eat at a shop with more manufactured options. Fatima wanted to try the things people were doing to augment the flavours of vegetables, and June hasn't been able to stomach a hand-prepared meal since they last ate together. The shop is not far from June's apartment; June doesn't know where to find these places outside of their burrough and, since the last lunch date, they had become intimately familiar with all the ones in their immediate neighbourhood.
"It's where I feel reprieve." June rereads the back of a foil bag to make sure no human hands have touched their meal.
"That's an interesting word choice."
They shrug.
"You know, that stuff will rot your gut."
"I really don't care about my guts."
Fatima perks up. "How do you mean?"
June stares hard at the label in their hands, eyes wide open. "I mean," they calculate how suspicious their words, they figure since there is suspicion, they might as well try an innocuous hint. June's experience has been that once suspicions were raised, they never truly went away. "I was having lunch when you met me."
Fatima had been, like everyone else in the shop that day, having her dinner at that time. Prior to their schedule of lunch dates, Fatima had refrained from leaving her work -- at home or at the office -- for lunch, given the inaccessibility society afforded her wheelchair. It had been dinner time and June was eating lunch. "I mean, some people do that! I didn't think too much about it." She feels sore, she feels sore not knowing about her friend. She feels sore until she calculates the ramifications of June's words and her own position. "You don't count."
The shop is quiet, not many people are eager for manufactured foods when the city is so based on eco-friendly farming permaculture. They sit in the back, where the only wheelchair-height table is. So June speaks openly.
"I don't count."
Fatima is gaping.
"I don't count. It takes so long, I can't."
"There are things for that," Fatima latches on. Just last week she had critiqued the unregulated production of these tools.
June hisses, "We shouldn't have to count!" They are aware that Fatima, their friend, is balking at them. They are aware that Fatima, their friend, is as wrapped up in this enforced procedure as everyone who follows 'hello' and 'how are you?' with 'last count?'. They are all too aware that this person is no longer seeing them as a person.
"There are reasons why it's standard practice," Fatima urges. She isn't considering June's perspective, but to her merit she hadn't jumped to reporting them. "Outside of the risk."
"That no one ever needed to know before," June returns. In past iterations of this conversation, they had been bored and tired of stating their opinions to people who had no open mind. Fatima is their friend, and Fatima now knows they don't count. Their emotions and entire future are invested in this exchange. "And we shouldn't have to count." This was their argument, their chant, their unwavering belief.
Fatima blew out her cheeks at June's silly notions. She asks derisively if June had been in favour of abdomen ports and scanning facilities, and the strain that would put on municipal and medical resources. The city couldn't be this accessible utopia, she reasons, if all the money that went into transportation and aid devices was spent on testing sites, one on every block just to manage the demands of the population. "But no, you would have been too young," Fatima has never sounded this condescending.
June is giving up. They don't see a way to navigate this conversation, they don't see a way out either. Sitting back in their chair, they wait for the end of Fatima's running commentary and diatribes and platitudes to see what she plans on doing with this information about them. It doesn't take long.
"You have to count."
When June shakes their head, Fatima insists.
Fatima sounds like she's pleading. June does not move an inch.
"June. I work for the Bureau of the Health Ministry." She continues as June's face fails to stay stoic, "I'm a spotting agent. I work on ways to find people who don't count. It used to be a field, search job, I used to interview people. I used to track down people who do what you do." She frowns at the wording and is correcting herself with 'don't' when June snarls.
"You're the reason people can't even have conversations about reform."
It was true, Fatima was an active member of the system. But she believes in the altruism of their society, that no one would report a person without reason, that their investigation process was thorough but just and did no harm to the person being investigated. She didn't say anything; that line of conversation was a shouting match, it was a place where her words didn't belong.
The ramifications of June's outing still run on a constant loop in their head. They move to leave when Fatima stops their other every thought.
"You have to count."
"I won't." The words are immediate, decisive.
Fatima, legally, is required to keep June in her sight. She insists that they have to. She knows June is humouring her when they agree. "I'll come with."
Her voice is supportive, but June is a caged animal and the words hurt. They agreed to count without any intention to do so, and now they guide their friend around the block to their apartment complex.
"It really is the burrough with the best infrastructure," Fatima chirps. The sidewalks are wide and could fit three mobility chairs side by side, the building entrances have antechamber doors instead of a step that would need a ramp, and every curb-cut was graciously sloped. The cross walks had speakers for the blind and sign panels at the signal button for those with low vision. These were considerations across the city, but not fully implemented as they were in this burrough.
There were more considerations, June knew them all. When June was school age, they had been on the youth panel for public works in what had been the neighbouring burrough; which was successfully annexed into this one at a time when they had lived elsewhere. When living elsewhere they had played a role in council, and had advocated for city-wise measures. Their return to this burrough was a quiet retirement, a defeat.
Returning to their apartment with Fatima in tow was a defeat.
The door unlocks to June's hand on the knob, to June's intent to go inside. "You can go now, you don't have to watch me."
Fatima can read June's intent to do nothing once they were inside. "If I leave you, you're not going to count."
June doesn't want to do this, they drag their feet. They don't argue, because they are with an agent of the Health Ministry's Bureau, and there are worse things Fatima could do right now. They open their apartment and step inside, Fatima follows them around furniture stacked with half-read books and half-started hobbies, to where they slump on a settee.
"Here?"
June glares at her, and continues to do so as they pull themself from the couch and trudge to the bathroom, just to show Fatima the options. The bathroom is not a viable option. Knowing this, June leaves Fatima to contemplate ceramic surfaces that don't quite reflect light. When Fatima returns to the room that is the entire apartment after unsuccessfully foraging for supplies, June has at least moved the rug out of the way. Books titled 'Sectioning the Heart: On Divides' and 'Deaf, More' now sit on the couch's armrest.
Fatima waits.
She waits a very long time until June peels their shirt off. They are warm from the sunny afternoon -- afternoons are always sunny -- and it shows on their skin. Their incision is old, Fatima's lips draw a hard line at the sight of the horizontal line that had grown back together.
June would call it healed, but anyone else would call it reason for quarantine. They would call it unacceptable, they would call it profane, disgusting, unbearable to even think of.
"Do you have anything to open that up?" Fatima asks.
"No."
A clock runs in the kitchen, a half hour passes as June stares down Fatima. Her lunch hour is over, but that is okay: she is currently at work.
June does not want to do this, but understands Fatima will either wait until they do, or call someone else if June takes so long that Fatima leaves. They press their fingers on either side of the line just below their ribcage, and push at the scar tissue. It takes effort, and June is slow to inflict pain on herself, but the sides of the hole had scarred over already before they had healed what they could together -- they eventually give way.
It stings. June's hands -- that they didn't even wash -- hold open the window to their intestines. Their expression is a neutral mask to avoid giving into the pain, but they can't help their eyes welling up with tears.
"You start at the end of the duodenum, press your thumb against the suspensory muscle. Do you know how wide your thumbs are?" June doesn't protest the instructions, Fatima would insist on them given the scar's signifier of how long ago last count had been.
"I don't," June hisses through their teeth.
"It's okay, we'll measure after."
June's tears start falling; it is not okay. "I can't do this."
"I'll keep track for you."
"I don't want to do this."
"You have to."
The hole is no longer wide enough for June to fit their hand in, it tears further as they force in. With a former ease, they find the start of the jejunum. They wouldn't forget how to do this, Fatima's instructions are unnecessary. The abandoned hobbies around the apartment display the kind of dexterity June uses to rearrange folds of intestine so that they don't have to reach their whole other hand inside. They are still crying; they look up to Fatima looking back. The thumb of their second hand lines up with the first's, knuckle pressed against knuckle, intestine pressed between thumbs and forefingers.
"Two," Fatima says.
June removes her first hand, the second holds its spot while they replace their thumb and forefinger on the other side.
"Three."
June continues to cry, they repeat the motion with their other hand.
"Four."
End
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Notice / Avis
Website is under construction! Please do not pay attention to it, maybe return later.
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Notice / Avis
Photos completely posted! Formatting pending, but they’re all there, in their downsized not-glory-at-all. All blog posts have their nifty panoramas that are, frankly, disappointingly small.
I could be working on an easily navigateable archive of all the photos as posted. This would be ideal, but unlikely to be executed.
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Montreal (on Day 51)
I'm in Montreal!
I took the train from London at six thirty in the morning, with layover in Toronto to stay with Heap's baggage car. Heap's steering got a little busted up on the train, but still rideable. It needs all sorts of fixing -- that rear derailleur -- but I am in Montreal, on my bike.
The original plan was to judge my remaining time, whether or not to keep going east before heading west and going north. Due to pinching a nerve in both hands during the last week or so of riding, I am not about to get back on my steel contraption or any other for eight hour days any time soon.
This is the end of my cycling trip. I'll return to the west coast by other means, as tempting as it is to continue on out here. On one bike with three worn tires, two bartape rewraps, a wheel, ten flat tires, and five thousand kilometers. We're here.
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Day 49: Rural Ontario by Dark
Bike tuning up happens. Overall, Heap has done so well on this trip. The actual sole issues are from tires, not the bike, up until the spoke breakage on Manitoulin. There's been a little play in the handlebars, the derailleurs a little out of calibration, but I got across country with hardly any issues. Trash Heap is an old, steel roadie I bought for forty bucks and then put time and parts on, without replacing the bent crank. I got across the country on it.
The plan for the day is the last 180km. It's the equivalent of two shorter days of riding, but I want to be in London and with the bent derailleur issue -- and maybe I should have kept the original rear casette -- and my schedule, I just want to be done this bit.
I leave at half past nine or so.
On my way through Paisley, which has a great looking game shop, a man chats with me about the town's history. This area, of course, had been entirely forested, like everything I had biked through getting here from Tobermory. Great, tall pine trees were taken to become shipmasts. This is now all farmland, with no perceivable presence of indigenous inhabitants that were here when colonialists came rafting down the river. There is a lot of farmland for me to cycle through.
Around Foremost, they grow lentils and other cash crops. In Southern Ontario, the cash crops are corn, soybeans, and wheat. Whole stretches of them broken by patches or lines of trees. Dutch Elm Disease wrecked havoc here, and only the stand-alone elms far from anything else still remain.
My route out of Paisley takes me along the last hills of riverbed. My hosts in Paisley have given me quite the set of directions to navigate the grids of county roads that change number as they pass through the next counties. The first road where the straight path is the shortest route, is dirt road. Sometimes zig zagging is required.
I am fighting a headwind, I am pacing myself against it. I am travelling the number 12 county road, passing through Wroxeter and having to jog along perpendicular roads to get back onto the 12. There are many communities along the way here; I've forgotten names, did not stop to take photos, and don't remember when I passed through them.
Given the riverbed, there's clay here. Brickyards ran for years and years, some until quite recently. All the buildings in these towns, excluding wood construction houses, are brick. They feel so permanent.
On a jog, I lose half an hour to a flat tube. Two people stop to ask if I need help during this, thank you folks. I look at my time and, while much of it has been eaten, I still have a lot of hours.
In Brussels, I stop to eat because it is about half past four, and I need to stack up on energy for the rest of my ride. I've only gone 70km and it has been nearly seven hours, of this ride that is nine according to gmaps and I allotted thirteen for hills and rest breaks. I consume no fewer than a thousand calories and blast off into the unfortunately evening.
The evening becomes unfortunate. Outside of Seaforth quite some ways, I start hearing a creak that becomes a sqwauck once every revolution, until I start to feel it. At the top of my left pedal's cycle, something is not smooth. Brief breaks to visually assess the issue bear no answer, so I continue. I just want to get to London, it's the end of the cycling part of this trip. I am staying with a friend, and then taking the train to Montreal.
Before I get to Seaforth, the sqwauck sqwauck sqwauck grows in intensity until it is very obvious what is happening. My crank arm is coming off the shaft. The shaft is a taper, the crank arm sits up on it until fit and then a bolt screws on to stay in place. There is no way that I can hammer the crank arm onto the shaft so that it doesn't wobble a little and eventually wobble-unscrew the bolt until pedal and all is about to fall off.
I stop a lot to fingertighten the screw and take a wrench to it. This lasts maybe a couple minutes at a time.
In Seaforth, the immediately available gas station is no help. I try to get it on to the best of my ability, but as I ride out of town, it is obviously going to stop me every five minutes to screw back on. Since I can't hammer it on tight, I attempt to bridge the gap with electrical tape. I'm playing with this when a woman asks how I'm doing, and subsequently guides me to her house with its shop and her husband who has all the right tools, so she can go back to her walk that I am so thankful she stopped for me.
I don't think this crank arm is coming off anytime soon. It's really on there now. I'm also gifted water access and a muffin! This is about eight or something at night. I have something like a hundred kilometers remaining.
From Seaforth I go south, take a left at Staffa/32, and a right onto 180 for an incredible amount of time. Everything is much flatter here, away from the riverbed. I am making good time, good kilometers, I am steady and the sun sets behind me giving the fields of bright green and now-gold around me something awful pretty a view.
And then the sun has set, and I have taped my flashlight to the front of my bike -- my headlight left behind at Wapiti Lake and never replaced -- and I am riding past dark fields and dark farmhouses in a near distance. The moon is present, and if it weren't for highbeams and the light pollution I am biking towards, I could do this sans flashlight. I am grateful for the wide berth vehicles give me as I ride down a county rural road getting on to eleven at night when I finally meet the junction of the seven, where the light pollution is no longer a tight band on the horizon and is now a haze.
It's very strange heading towards the light pollution. It's somehow not strange riding in the dark, slipping past quiet fields that are quiet in the daytime. Everyone is just asleep -- some places have lights on and are actually quite awake, but all that is about in the dark is silhouettes of landscape. As I ride toward and eventually into London, everything is so nearly done. It is one in the morning and I am riding through city the last half hour to my port of call. To completion.
This was a very strange, very long day. The headwind eventually diminished to a breeze once all things became dark, but I fought it and bike troubles -- including a remainder of chain rub -- for hours of time that seem so surreal that it really took that long. This was a remarkable day.
Next: Well, you could guess
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Day 48: Lake Huron and Rural Ontario
Late late on Day 47 and extremely early on Day 48, I passed Tobermory and wound up crashing a birthday weekend at a cottage to camp. My ever, undying gratitude. And food! I'm going to be honest and say that my morning provisions were a breakfast, none of that made it on the road with me, there is no way to know how many calories I can consume in a day. That morning, I leave some vague place down the Ontario 6 -- where I could see the Milky Way it was so dark -- some vague distance from Tobermory, about half past ten. It is a 130km to my goal and my hosts in Paisley.
The first very long while of my day is the single road that is the number six highway, riding between walls of trees, occasionally broken by a single residence on either side. This highway continues and continues, there's some bit of long, slow elevation, the trees start dispersing. Eventually I am passing towns -- they are all a ways off the highway. They are mostly beyond sight.
This fact kind of messes with my 'stopping in towns to eat' routine. I am, instead, stopping by former general store gas stations, and former roadside restaurants. Everything is for sale and for rent.
Before things start looking less little-communities and more farmland, shortly after two, I finally turn off the six and down some well forested farm road. I see a lot of day lillies. So many day lillies.
I'm in Southern Ontario, I kind of don't know what I'm doing. I'm getting to a place by a time, but while fighting some really intense chain rub that I couldn't immediately glean the cause of and fix. I'm just trying to get there, but my eta is real solid. And there's Lake Huron that, once I get closer to the shore of, is there perpetually.
Lake Superior has a lot more islands and bays, Huron just is. After Sauble Falls is Sauble Beach and it is eleven kilometers long the section I ride along. An entire stretch of it is cars parked between the road and a hill of sand that blocks my view of anything lake. This stretch ends pointedly at a great big sign for the beach, with a hoard of beach-type businesses all crowded in.
It feels like White Rock. Like I could take advantage of fish and chips and ice cream so readily available. This is about four in the afternoon, and there are so many people.
From here it's cottages -- with an interlude at the Ojibway Beach to actually stand by some beach -- and more cottages, surrounded by brush, for so very long. Each of them has their own personalized, often quirky sign to indicate the people who stay there. So many quirky signs. Some are simply made of found wood from the shore of the lake and I fancy those the most.
It's an hour later, at half past five, when I get into Southampton. It looks like somewhere a handful of hours could easily be spent exploring. I continue on.
The road now also becomes bike path, becomes bike path on the actual edge of Lake Huron.
The path ends in Port Elgin at a park, where I meet my host to guide the next 26km. Even in places I know quite well or know the route, having a guide to a place is quite nice.
After looking at a steam train that runs through the park, we cycle out of Port Elgin and into the farmlands of Southern Ontario.
It is super gorgeous; in the sense of fields on hills, farm buildings, and clumps or streaks of trees. It's all very much like every painting of farmland Ontario you can imagine, for hundreds of years.
We get into Paisley shortly a quarter to eight. I am so glad for the hospitality of my hosts, their great adventures, their excellent local knowledge and involvement. Questions could go on until late in the night, but there is a long ride ahead tomorrow.
Next: The final day
#travel#biking#bicycle touring#bicycle travel#cross canada#ontario#rural ontario#tobermory#paisley#sauble#sauble beach
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Day 47: Manitoulin, Spokes, Boats
It's still Day 47 as I write this, Day 47. This is a rare occurence, especially these days. I am sitting on a ferry with a whole two hour ride to charge devices and catch up. Somehow I am on a ferry right now.
The night of rain at Espanola ended sometime around seven in the morning. I get up at eight, with my damp tent. At nine, the Austrian cyclist and I are bugging out and parting ways. He has the last fifty kilometers to Sudbury that he is entire days ahead of schedule to reach; I have all of Espanola to Manitoulin and the entirety of Manitoulin Island to cross.
I eat at Espanola's recreation centre because signs for it were one of the first things I saw getting into town. Breakfast is kind of huge. Yesterday I ate more than I think I have eaten on any day of my trip that started and ended at a camp. My phone gets some charge, my water bags are refilled, and a man who used to own the only bike shop in town chats about the trip, bike shops ahead of me, and there's a farmer's market on my way out of town.
Oh olive oil, maple syrup, leafy greens and beans, and selling of wares to support the Fibre Arts Festival in the Fall. If only I had the space, money, the ability to carry glass things. Ontario is where maple syrup is pretty damn real; my host in Sault Ste. Marie had some he made himself.
I leave town and head for my island adventure, it's about eleven. There are hills. There are real cool rock formations, and my phone is pretty sad despite charging at the recreation centre. I blame very alluring mapgame.
I'm just around the bend from Birch Island sometime after one when my rear wheel refuses to move and there's a little break sound. I felt no initial resistence, but then I was going up a hill with hard pushes. Quite spectacularly, the reflector on a spoke had turned and stuck itself between spokes and the fender stay. In a battle between spoke, reflector, and stay -- stay won. Two pieces of reflector sit on the highway, I have broken a spoke.
With not a lot around to do about it, I ride a little further and thankfully am just a minute from the community centre at Birch Island. I plug in my phone and take a rest -- I was planning on one anyway. Having some more food in me, I take a good look and discover it's actually four broken spokes. With no small gratitude, the two men at the centre just then ask what's up and then recall there's a bike shop just a block away.
Twenty seven inch tires are kind of really standard. I swear. They are. In this weird way. And so, since a lot of people go for specialty bikes, or very much not roadies, wherever I have been there is always something for me -- it's not sold out -- but it's maybe the last one because they only had a couple sets and no one really buys them. The bike mechanic chuckles at the weirdness of how sparse supplies for my twenty sevens are, for being so standard. I get a whole new wheel.
I am stoked about this. I can't thank him enough.
Departing Birch Island happens at three -- I should have done some more testing and calibrated things because most of the gears are having problems operating smoothly with the chain. I meet a lot of resistence and chunky sounds with every revolution.
Everything is still beautiful. I'm sorry my phone is always so dead, I'm working on a solution.
Swing Bridge is real neat, I ride over it and get into Little Current at four. There's an information centre, I spend an hour in my log book, phone in the wall, and eating a meal. The first ferry in the morning is at nine-abouts; my plan is to get to South Baymouth and the terminal sometime in the evening, camp, and take the first ferry in the morning.
It rains while I'm in Little Current. It rained in Birch Island as I sat at the community centre. I'm having real good luck with avoiding the weather.
Back on the road I attempt a couple neat photos of Manitoulin before I lose all my battery again. I am chugging along; a word chosen given all the sound I'm getting from my chain. Before we get into how bad it is I'm just continuing to ride on it: I did try a good look at it. I don't know what it is, I'm not going to mess around. I have, however, discovered that my saw is pressing my rear brake onto the wheel and I'm going much slower than I ought to.
At Ten Mile Point, I plan on taking a real good photo. But then I highly recommend going to Manitoulin Island yourself, if you have the opportunity. And take me with you, because I just got to see not do, and pretty fast. There's a hiker at Ten Mile Point's rest and lookout area, and he's acquired a bike after a weight-related stress injury. He's headed to Vancouver and all that chat comes up again, but with more about the load and packing techniques and things from very different perspectives. It's neat. And, apparently, there's a late evening ferry.
It's quarter after seven as I leave Ten Mile Point -- my phone dies -- and the ferry leaves at ten. I swing 'round a closed information centre to ask a person the time -- just after eight. There's a break in there where I swap the side my saw sits on the bike. I leg it real hard to South Baymouth.
A couple of gears are smooth(ish), and one is the inner chain ring's hardest gear. I ride most of the way to South Baymouth on it, hills included. I leg it real hard to South Baymouth, and I don't even know the time. The figuring is, even if I miss, or it was misinformation, I'd want to get there by ten to camp before dark anyways. I leg it so hard, consistently, no stops, no slowing down, not even for hills. I leg it real hard.
A motorcycle passes me, I swing into the gas station in South Baymouth as he leaves to ask the time and confirm about the ferry, I just make it -- I pay for my ticket right behind the motorcyclist.
We know the ending, I make the ferry. There is a Quebecois folk band playing in the upper lounge, Trash Heap sits on its side on the car deck below. I guess I'm camping somewhere on the other side. It'll be Day 48 by then.
Next: CRASH A BIRTHDAY PARTY AT 1AM
#travel#biking#ontario#manitoulin island#bicycle touring#cross canada#tdr#birch island#espanola#chi-cheemaun
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Day 46: Spain but Spanish but Espana but Espanola
The park has an outlet, I try to amend my phone charging issues while breakfast happens. We depart Iron Bridge around nine, after returning to the Shell for water and the like. There's a headwind.
My Austrian friend is equipped with a cycle computer, we ride each other's draft half and half to Blind River. Barring the parts where photos happen.
In Blind River, the Tim Hortons is priority number own, for the Austrian. We meet a cyclist coming from Niagara and headed to Vancouver with maybe an ambitious timeframe, and a biker who had gone out to Coquitlam just the other week and was on his return. There's a large discussion about roads before we get to our respective carbohydrates.
My goal is Espanola, it is a hundred kilometers. The Austrian is a little skeptical -- especially as it pours and attempts thunder immediately following a grocery run -- and says we'd at least reach Spanish.
We head out when the break in the clouds comes across.
I am struggling on the road. My rest day was not enough, I need a few. My energy reserves are still depleted from running myself ragged from Thunder Bay to Sault.
We're at the rest stop in Serpent River at half past two, a half hour food break happens. I defend my dozen pack of low-quality donuts from a seagull.
Another fifty kilos later, we are going along Woodland Drive that starts at the edge of Cutler and takes us into Spanish. It's gravel but the dark, semi-paved, packed in kind. I do better keeping up, as we are near-leisurely paced. Spanish is constantly 'close', but the ride is actually ten kilos.
The marina in Spanish has a community centre and a boat of a friend of my Austrian friend. It's only four as we arrive, shortly before a good, actual thunderstorm comes across. In here is a meal, and taking advantage of the services the centre provides -- wifi greatly appreciated though strange in its connection to my phone. Radar shows an end to the storm long before we can see any, but it's still early and at six fifteen with the sun beaming, after the day's overcast humidity -- I don't do well with humidity, and neither does the cameraman from Calgary met at the centre -- this was an actual breath of fresh air. Not just warm foggy.
We pass Walford. I am struggling hard but going on. Massey is another 'we could stop here' town, but it's still early in the consideration that the sun sets just after ten.
There's a foal, it's grey and beautiful and so awkwardly legged. Its run from us passing by, setting off the adult horses and it's like cows in Saskatchewan all over again.
I struggle hard.
At half past nine, the junction of the 17 and the 6 is in sight. From there it is just a couple of kilometers -- a few minutes -- to Espanola. More importantly, for the Austrian, there's a Tim's here. We rest. We let it get dark, much to my chagrin. Camp is made just outside of Espanola, before the onset of night-long rain.
Next: An island or two, actually more
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Day 45: Familiar Faces and Driving Twice
Wednesday is spent resting in Sault Ste. Marie, where I am fed so much by multiple people, see some pretty good music, and talk to some pretty good persons. I wake Thursday at nine and pile up on even more food. This is the most I've eaten since Winnipeg and the longest stretch of eating so much for every meal and in between in probably years. I'm out of my host's and the company of his lovely dog about half past one. There's a grocery run to be made, my host making a run down to me with the first thing I've left behind anywhere -- barring my headlight at Wapiti Lake and almost forgetting things at places.
It's three when I'm back on the road.
The section of the Trans Canada, the number 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury is notoriously dangerous for cyclists. They've picked out a set of roads and trail so as to avoid it, but they're getting around to paving them. Through Ojibway Land, I ride the 17B that has an actual road name out to Barr River, where I cross the highway shortly after four, and turn onto Government Street shortly before five. It's farmland.
It's a pleasant, familiar feeling, to be in. Even as trees shroud in and the road bends, even where it -- to my undying groans -- goes uphill. It's like Agassiz. It's like everything south of my parent's out in Surrey.
Except for the part where it's unpaved in sections. I forever curse the skies. I am lugging myself up an unpaved hill -- after many -- when I look behind.
It is the Austrian from Nipigon.
We had rode together the day after seeing one another in Nipigon. We met again as I rested in White River. From there, I continued to Wawa, his next day's end. I was a day ahead, and then I took a rest day. We're both headed to Iron Bridge for the night.
It's nice riding with another person. As great as being on one's own is; setting your own pacing, stopping at will for whatever will, solitude, everything around for miles just you -- 'twice driving' has all its own merits as well. Keeping up on schedule is easier with another's energy at work, breaks are conversation opportunities -- so is riding depending on how hard you're going -- company, experiencing all that with another knowing they're appreciating the view just as well. We see a bear.
He's seen more than a couple. For the whole trip, it's my first -- it's a black bear cub, down a side road. We share animal encounter stories.
In this farmland there's people in traditional dress, in carriages. We see plenty. And we accidentally wind up on the 17, because maps and farmland roads.
Bruce Mines is a food and water break, we head back onto the supposed bike route. In Thessalon is a quick stop, we decide to keep on the highway. The unpaved country roads are tiresome, and doubly for my road tires and road bike and road please-don't-on-the-gravel. After a sideroad meal, where food tactics are discussed, we make it into Iron Bridge as it gets real dark out. A gas station points us to a park, where we make camp with mosquitoes in the hundreds and the thousands, swarms of black black, buzzing so loud you'd think they're in your tent.
Next: The only full day riding with another
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Day 43 : Moms, the Motorcycle Club, and the end of the Stretch
I don't camp in very sketchy places. This one was used once upon a time, for who knows, and is long since grown over at least a touch. There's a lot of bush noise down the way, right alongside, and it's larger than a deer would make. There's a lot of plantlife in the clearing, that means the itty-bitty version of the little black bugs that bite. It's a night.
I leave and know Agawa Crafts -- with an Esso and food and all the things -- is about forty or so kilometers away. Pancake Bay is a little closer, only by a little, but I stop there for a water refill, after what I will soon find out is the last of the great hills.
At half past eleven and at Agawa Crafts, I am buying food. I have so little remaining on me and it is for the rest of the way into the Sault. There's a deal for a sandwich with chocolate milk -- chocolate milk is very important and it's been a while since I've had any -- and there's a can of soup with a pull tab. I sit at the table tucked in the cove of entries to shops and the bathrooms Heap leans against. I eat a rest stop sandwich and a cold can of soup. I look hollow as I do this.
There's a lot of people passing through. It's the only gas station for a while, it's full of tourist type things and local stuff, and ice cream, and a pet rest area. A group with a mom talks a bunch with me; they're all related but living in elsewise places. The mom is very concerned about my well being.
The Sikh Motorcycle Club from Surrey, BC pulls in. They are doing a Ride for Cancer and are on day four, with a circulation of riders on six bikes. I'm from Surrey. I don't think I've ever been happier to be from Surrey, than sitting in a rest stop in Ontario and talking the bike journey Surrey thing.
There's another mom, she's also very concerned. I get a hug.
I leave an hour after departing, having confirmed my stay and eta in Sault Ste Marie, and now in posession of directions from Mom -- the first one. At two I'm in Chippewa Falls for, well, the falls.
The highway now is smooth sailing. There are some bits of up but nothing near harrowing, and my morale has been extremely boosted. Sections of the highway drop entirely, to curve along the coastline, with communities lining the roadway and the lake. I wish I had a kayak. I wish I maybe should stop for one of the little sandy or rocky bays.
Quarter to four marks me at the turn off in the directions put in the phone holder on my bike, sitting on top of business cards from the motorcycle club. The road has since veered away from the coast, and I take off the highway for road-like road. More of a bare aggregate, with trees the provide shade, and driveways to houses. I get past construction -- and conversation at the single lane stop -- and have to eat. The last of my food goes in me.
I hadn't noticed, but the rail line has returned. The train runs past me, up and to the right, above my head and through trees. I trek on.
My last rest day was Winnipeg, two weeks ago. My last stay in a house, with a real meal, was a week ago. I am physically a wreck on sight. I slide into Sault Ste Marie, to another host on the outskirts and therein surrounded by green and forest. There's an extremely large meal to be had -- so large -- and the comfort of a bed, shower, and laundry. And, of course, a dog.
Next: A rest, a show, and onwards once more
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Day 42 : The Two Day Long-Stretch
Camping in essentially just forest is... something I missed. It's mostly been lakes and the sort. Technically, I'm near a river, but that just means the land around me is lush. It's a section of soft earth, with small greens sprouting out, and large trees just close enough to each other I hummed about which space I could actually fit my tent into. I have already been making so many plans for future ventures, this feeling is added to them.
Out of Wawa and Michipicoten land, Michipicoten provincial parks, Michipicoten all-this-actually-is; there is construction just between here and Lake Superior Provincial Park. The sign for which informs me the park is 83km -- Provincial Parks are very expensive, I'm planning on making it past. I'm planning on being in Sault Ste Marie the next night.
Out of Wawa was smooth and downhill in a lot of portions, from my camp it was uphill. The first notable thing in the park, is the huge drop into Old Woman Bay. It is long and gives this amazing view of the bay, of this lake that looks like ocean, of just wow. I am so glad I am on a bike and have the time to appreciate it. My cell's about dead, so there are no photos.
There's about an equal climb out of the bay. And shortly after this, is Rabbit Blanket Camp. A place where I refill my water, and talk to a park employee and local about cycling and the locale. He wants to bike from Rabbit Blanket to Agawa, 53km. He can do it.
I leave, about one in the afternoon, and the next batch of hills is not nearly as much as anyone referred them to be, I easily skirt past the main information and park lodge. I have, unfortunately, left my pannier open -- this is the first time I have done this, I'm utterly groaning at myself. Back at the park lodge, I have a lunch, charge my phone just enough, and wait for the shift change to find my shorts and bring them up to the lodge. It's nearer three when I'm back on the road; demoralized by happenings, and while feeling good from conversations with park employees, it's all a little dampered.
Lake Superior Provincial Park is 83km long. It winds away from the coast of the lake, there are access points to interior trails and canoe routes -- it's extremely expensive to do these things -- and it has a lot of ascents. I know where Agawa Camp ought to be, nearer the end, so every time I see a sign I eagerly pedal forward until I can make out the words telling me it's some other camp, some trailhead. Lake Superior Provincial Park is 83km long, and I'm starting to imagine it unending, some psychological horror movie.
There's a Mom Lake and a Dad Lake. I take a food break at Agawa Lookout, after Agawa Rock, by Agawa Bay. I'm still trying to get to Agawa Camp.
Going slow and light in the food department, I continue to slough over hills. In the distance, a windfarm starts to show. Huge turbines stand on the other side of large, very square hills, where the trees grow in such a way there's a whole plateau of canopy. The windfarm is my sign that the park is ending, eventually it does. I am no longer in a psychological horror movie, I am in a sci-fi green future dystopic movie as the windfarm centres on my left and large powerlines feed overhead.
Between Wawa and Sault Ste Marie, there's not a whole lot -- in the people and business and resources of the human monster kind. A sign tells me a place called Twilight has food, I push on because I finally admit I need food so much more than I ought to have let myself. It sits at the bottom of Montreal River Harbour. I don't stop to put my glasses on at the top of the Harbour, plummetting into it feels like standing on a speedboat.
Wind buffed, hard of human realities, and famished, I ride into Twilight. The man there has a great tattoo and a great demeanour. I eat a meal I feel I could eat three of, and take note to send a thank you card when I finish this part of or the whole of this trip.
The plan this day was to half the ride to Sault Ste Marie, so I could surely get there before any impolite time tomorrow. My goal is the 1,146 marker on the highway, I reach 1,136 and camp for the night.
Next: I didn’t collapse????
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Day 41 : I Get Something Done
Morning at the lake is spent airing out sleeping gear. I depart at quarter past ten. After last night's ride, it's 24km to White River.
The ride to White River is all along lands hit by the Crocker Lake Forest Fire in 1999. Some bits are a little spooky. Some bits are completely replanted and new trees veil most of the remaining uprights of the old, black.
I'm at White River at half past eleven -- hailed as the origin of Winnie the Pooh. My knowledge of this is primarily rooted in a History Minute. At the visitor's centre, I charge my phone, I sit for second half of my breakfast, I mend my shoe. I actually finish the toe -- for the most part -- of my unmended shoe. It took forty days to do this. Somewhere along the way I safety pinned a solution for it wearing all the way through to toes poking out. So, take a moment. I mended my shoe.
As I finish this, the Austrian cyclist catches up. This is where he's stopping for the night, but I'm continuing on. We talk winds; there had been some west in the morning. He says the forecast called for a south-eastern, a headwind, but there's been none.
After I depart White River, I meet this headwind. Headwinds make me miserable, I guess. They are unrelenting nature that is unforgiving. A hill you can reach the top of, a headwind will just keep blowing in your damn face and make you have to pedal down that hill. Pedalling down hills makes me miserable. It's mostly because the more I have to fight a headwind, the more I have to focus on my action and on the road, the less of everything around me do I get to see.
There are great things in between, and I wish I had tipped my focus just enough to really remember them. There are a lot of lakes. At one named Desolation, I swerve to avoid a rusty screwdriver that could have done some damage.
It's quarter after eight as I trudge up the hill -- on bike, not on foot, but trudge indeed -- to Wawa. At the junction of the 101 and the Trans Canada's 17, Wawa is no stranger to hitchhikers and all sorts of travel. The visitor's center has signs all over emphatically stating NO CAMPING, so does the grass behind the Tim Hortons. So does most places. I treat myself to Tims because carbs and it's been chilly along Lake Superior at night. There's a set of hitchhikers travelling from Kelowna back to Montreal and I wish I had shared contact information.
Since Wawa is so unfriendly towards the tenter, I continue on. This is all Michipicoten territory, there are some historical points along the waterways to the south. I make camp near dark, near no place in particular.
Next: This was poorly planned
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Day 40 : Oh the Ride and Another
This whole last while I've been charging my phone at places. I get a few percent and I get on. I take a couple of photos, sink into a single digit battery, and turn off to conserve. When the visitor's centre in Terrace Bay opens, I repeat this. Though I do so while purchasing a loaf of bread and some bananas -- I eat bananas now.
It's ten as I depart Terrace Bay. The hills are real, they're tall enough. There are so many big lakes.
I'm walking up a hill sometime past noon when the Austrian cyclist from Nipigon, who also spent the night in Terrace Bay -- catches up to me. I am aware I am slow. I'm on Trash Heap, the old steel roadie, with overweighted bags, ten speeds, and a ridiculous gear ratio. I make up for slow by more hours. I'm not riding as slow as I'm going, I take a lot of breaks. I stretch. I have nerve issues in an arm, and a stiff shoulder.
The Austrian cyclist has a very different method to his travels. We are doing two very different trips: he's travelling across Canada, I am commuting to Montreal. But in talking the way and our tricks, there are a lot of tidbits and good infos, and that thing that happens with any cyclist. That is, no matter who you are, what sort of load you are taking, what you are riding, where you are going, something about it is bewildering to the other person.
We ride a while together, it's a great morale boost and confidence on the highway sort of situation. There's this one fantastic hill that I wish I could've stopped halfway down for the view. We stop at the lookout and take some shots. At the provincial park just down the way, he stops for dinner and I continue on to reach Marathon -- or the gas station outside of -- for four. He catches up and heads into Marathon as I finish my dinner and prepare to continue.
This has been a lot of hill type situations. Outside of Marathon, things get real easy and real flat. I planned maybe twenty more kilometers. I stop at a trailer with a blown out tire and trade bug spray usage for a couple bottles of water, I continue. I do seventy kilometers easily.
As it gets dark, every place I stop at I am ushered to the next, until I am at the Mobert lands on Nursery Lake.
It's hard knowing you can only do so much in a day, with the ride and the burden you have. But I know I keep going, and maybe more than I ought to sometimes. It's a gorgeous ride no matter the time, and you get there.
Next: I don’t know, I’m doing this in post
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Day 39 : Water So Wide it’s like The Maritimes
Despite intentional and unintentional rests, I sleep in. I bug out close to noon.
There's a bridge, and then there's this real neat rockface.
And then there are lookouts.
There are so many lookouts.
It's beautiful.
It's near two when I eat at a picnic table outside a motel. It's half past three when I pass through Pays Plat. I'm at Rossport for four.
There's a lot of this in between.
This is why we climb hills.
They blast the route through the mountain, often the shoulder is nonexistent due to rock pile up. It's all pink and ruddy red, and beautiful. I push my bike through these hunks of mountain.
Rossport is a little town of houses in the fashion I describe as quaint, with considerable painted hues, stacked up against the rocky shore, and with access to a little island with about the same. It reminds me of the maritimes. The road curves between lots with several docks and boat drops -- they're little personal use launches. It reminds me of the maritimes.
I eat here alongside the Services Canada building, it's a water facility.
After Rossport things turn into lakes between high hills of pine, and I really need to stop comparing one section of a place to nearabout every part of Canada I have been in. It's like the Okanagan for a minute. In Schrieber at half past seven, I ask at a house to refill water -- everything is closed, it's 'Canada Day'. I'm informed that Terrace Bay does the whole celebration thing, while Schrieber has a big Historical Days todo. I'm given a stone from the lake, and I decide to push on for Terrace Bay.
It takes about half an hour. And it really is a Terrace situation, the highway continues along, and between it and the lake is a steep enough hillside that's the building-front of the town. On the north side is the visitor's centre, recreational facilities, a plaza, a lighthouse that has wifi. I camp at the picnic tables behind the visitor's centre. Nowhere in Ontario recycles.
Next: Riding alongside
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Day 38 : Like North
Everyone has preconceived notions about what a name-place of area-type kind of looks like, either dictated by personal experience or media or such. I use the term 'lowland' a lot for what I realize is a variety of different things that I should really describe better and I apologize. Sometimes, like lowland, the term is real general and a person's personal connotations dictate it into a singular thing. How do I explain 'like North'?
I drove to Prince George once. Williams Lake is on the way, so is Fifty Mile and Hundred Mile House. Stoner. There's variation, it's not one same-type topography or ecology. But 'like North'?
I bug out of Shuniah early, along Lakeshore Drive a cyclist is doing her morning ride. There's a Shell that I stop at to eat. There are some real nice views of Lake Superior.
From here, it's 'like North'. It's that kind of feeling of maybe mountains, of yes trees, of crevices of creeks forming the territory and creating a varied landscape. I keep seeing construction vehicles being hauled east.
Many days back I saw a skytrain car being taken west, to Vancouver, where the skytrain is. It struck me a little funny. From there, I primarily saw military vehicles -- so many military vehicles -- being hauled east. So. many. military. vehicles. And now, it's construction. Trucks and backhoes and all sort. There's a huge section of highway under construction, there are many huge sections of highway along Northern Ontario (which is strange to me, looking at a map and seeing it be south) under construction.
This is about half past two, going through Huckett. Here the wind picks up, and I have a 20km/hr headwind, going through all the highway works -- sans workers, it's closed for the day -- along Red Rock at four, four thirty. There is no real good viewing stop for the huge formation with the long, horizontal streak of red in it.
It's half past five when I reach Nipigon. I hate headwinds. Dinner happens at the visitor's centre where this chipmunk really, really wants my food. So much. So much that I could probably pick it up and it wouldn't care all too much. While I'm exceedingly distracted by defending my small meal, a cyclist from Austria appears. He's riding west to east, had taken a northern route and plenty of trails. And having left at the beginning of May, had the snow adventures I specifically left late to avoid. He reminds me that tomorrow is 'Canada Day', and things will be closed anywhere down the line.
We shouldn't celebrate the colonial past and legacy of genocide and resource stripping. We should acknowledge its existence, keep in mind the history of how routes were developed, of inventions, of painters and social change. But celebrating Canada Day in the way we do, as a nationalistic work with little play on the aboriginal history of the land, and that this is occupied land we continue to prosper on without right to. Let's not.
I ride an hour and some out of Nipigon and make camp off the highway on some old, abandoned road. Sounds about right.
Next: HILLS WHY
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