RIGHT: Blue line at visitors' entrance to RCMP Headquarters
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| LEFT: International Peace Garden RIGHT: Blue line at visitors' entrance to RCMP Headquarters |
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School got out yesterday-the first time since I've been teaching that the school year dragged on into June. I felt it was time for a bit of an escape, so after chatting on the phone with Paul I headed out in my new Dodge Colt for points northward.
I first stopped at our local Casey's convenience store where I checked the air in my tires and bought a delicious cherry turnover for "fuel". Then I drove northward on U.S. highway #169 through Bancroft and Lakota. I entered Minnesota at Elmore, the birthplace of former Vice President Walter Mondale. The town is like any other small Midwestern town, except for two facts. Being a border town it is full of liquor stores and the like. It also has endless streets, parks, and businesses named after that "great" American-Walter Mondale. North of Elmore #169 winds through woods and farmland to Mankato and northward to Saint Peter, a beautiful old college town. I had a very late lunch in Saint Peter and continued northward to the Twin Cities area.
At the town of Shakopee, the southwest corner of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area, I turned off onto state highway #101. On the map this highway seemed to be a direct shortcut hat would skirt the far west edge of suburban Minneapolis and connect back up with highway #169 at the north end of the metro area. Since #169 turns eastward and runs much closer to the city proper, this route seemed to be one that should be more direct and less heavily traveled.
I have certainly made mistakes in choosing roads before, but this one has to rank among the worst such mistakes. The highway kept turning from one narrow, curbed, two-lane road onto another as it wound through endless housing developments and housing strips. I passed through eight different towns, most of which look miniscule on a map, but they ranged in population from 10,000 (Chaska) to 75,000 (Minnetonka). The homes are beautiful and pricey, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to live here. They are packed so close that there is very little privacy, and the traffic is simply unimaginable. From Shakopee to where I re-joined the main road is about 30 miles, but it took nearly two hours to drive. I've always felt people in Minneapolis drive like lunatics, and this trip only confirmed that point of view. It was one of the tensest, least enjoyable drives I've ever made. This was a weekend, and I can only imagine what it must be like at business day rush hours. I can't dream of why people would choose to live here and commute to work every day under such awful traffic conditions.
The mess finally ended when the highway intersected with Interstate 94, which marks the northwest corner of "the Cities". Just north of there I re-joined highway #169 and drove northward on a lovely new four-lane highway. (In Minnesota, four-lane highways are generally excellent, while two-laners range from acceptable to abominable.) Here, as in much of Minnesota, I-94 marks the division between farm and forest regions. South of the interstate most of the state is farmland (or, in the case of the place I was, former farmland that turned into urban sprawl). North of here is the Great North Woods, which extend with virtually no interruption all the way to the Arctic. It's interesting how suddenly the land changes.
After an hour or so I stopped for gas at a Conoco convenience store in the town of Micala. The four-lane ended here, and traffic was very heavy on the two lane road going north. Northern Minnesota is considered a sportsman's paradise, and every weekend thousands of people from those wealthy Minneapolis suburbs take their motorhomes and boats northward to camp, hunt, and fish. I am sure this road is rather deserted in winter, but it is a major thoroughfare on a summer weekend.
I was getting tired, so at about 6:30 I stopped for the night at the town of Grand Rapids, a main service center for north-central Minnesota. It's a sprawling, dumpy town on the upper Mississippi. Judy Garland (remember Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz) was born here, back when the place was a company town near an iron mine. Today they seem to mine nothing but tourists-a large sign as you enter the place advertises "the most motel rooms per capita of any city in Minnesota". The civic information section in the phone book adds that more money is spent here "per capita" than anywhere else in the state. In fact, almost four times the annual income of the residents is spent here. There's a paper mill and some government offices here, but you know it's not them that are spending all that money.
I too contributed somewhat to the grand wealth of Grand Rapids, though I doubt I'll be back very soon. I paid $30 for the worst motel room I have ever stayed in in my life. The cheap chain motels were booked for the night, so I went to a nice-looking local place called the Holiday Village. If ever there were an example of the expression "don't judge a book by its cover," this is it. The staff was unpleasant, and the room was worse. It was a tiny second-floor room that overlooked a neon sigh. Rollaway beds nearly blocked the room door, which was not locked when I got there. The room itself was ugly. It had a worn dark green carpet, scratched birch paneling going halfway up the walls, and peeling blue wallpaper to the ceiling. The ceiling was painted pink and had leaked in the past. The bed had an orange bedspread with two prominent cigarette burns (even though in theory this was a non-smoking room). The room also had one simple wood table (with peeling veneer), a black plastic chair, a television, and two lamps (each of which had a very dim 40-watt bulb). The bathroom floor was missing two black tiles. Unfortunately all the urine-colored wall tiles were in place. The toilet leaked, and the sink had a severe rust stain. The shower was smaller than the standard size, and it had a cement floor like a shower at a cheap campground. Also like some camp showers, the drain did not work as quickly as it should have, and water backed up to the point of running out on the floor. My electric razor needed to be recharged, and the only way to get the recharger to work was to leave the bathroom light on. All of this would have been tolerable (if not worth the money), but the worst was yet to come.
Like all American motels, this one had air conditioning. The air conditioner even worked, but it didn't cool the room. An enormous '60s era window unit was located near the ceiling. The controls were missing, but I managed to use a pair of scissors like pliers to turn it to "high". Even on that setting it was useless, though. It did put out some cold air, but the trickle was directed at the ceiling, and there was no way of forcing the air downward at the inhabited part of the room. Matters were only made worse after I took a shower and steamed up the whole room. I experimented with opening the windows instead, but it was still a humid 85 degrees outside, and the air conditioning did seem to relive things a tiny bit.
Eventually I decided to go to bed. When I pulled up the bedspread a live cockroach danced across the sheets. I can tolerate almost anything, but at this point I was ready to complain. Unfortunately the desk was closed for the night. I killed the roach and checked everywhere I could for other bugs. Then I tossed and turned for over an hour without coming anywhere close to sleep.
Finally an idea struck. I took the telephone book and some band-aids. I used the band-aids to tape the phone book to the top of the air conditioner. This forced some of the air downward toward the floor. I folded a blanket and placed it on the floor directly under the air conditioner and used this as my bed for the night. It was hardly classy accommodation, but I did at least get some sleep.
I won't even mention the time I woke up; suffice to say it was well before the front desk would open, and I was very much awake. I was fed up with the Holiday Village, so I attempted to get as much of my money's worth as I could. I had already showered the night before, but I took an extremely long, steamy shower this morning. Usually I am very neat in a motel, but I made no effort to pick up any mess. I didn't pick up my towels, and I left the blanket I had used right on the floor. I also left both lamps burning when I left-not that they brightened the room much.
Even after showering I was still on my way well before six. I drove eastward through the region Minnesotans call the Iron Range. That makes it sound like a range of mountains, which it isn't. It's really just an extension of the Canadian Shield. It's rocky and forested, and somewhat more rugged than most of northern Minnesota, but it's really no more "mountainous" than northeast Iowa. It is, however, very beautiful. They used to mine iron in this area. The last mine closed in 1982, and I can't for the life of me say what they do in the winter these days. Hibbing (the center of the region) is a city of 30,000, but there doesn't seem to be that much industry there.
Highway #169 is four lanes from Grand Rapids through the Iron Range to the town of Virginia. It then becomes two lanes to the town of Ely, where it ends. It was Sunday morning, and there was some, but not much traffic on #169. It was pleasantly cool this morning, and this section of road was a most enjoyable drive.
At Ely I turned onto Minnesota highway #1, the road that connects the northernmost communities in the state. I think I would have loved this road had I not personally been driving. The section I drove runs about 65 miles from Ely down to Lake Superior. It winds through beautiful wilderness country; the scenery is truly breathtaking. Unfortunately the road is a royal pain to drive. It is old, narrow, and frequently curbed. Its surface changes repeatedly and ranges from bad to unacceptable. You are never out of view of a curve (literally), each with a warning speed. Sometimes the warning speeds mean what they say, while other times they are either too low or (worse) too high. I have no idea how the speeds were decided. There is wildlife everywhere; I saw more than a dozen deer on the road this morning. While it is nice to see wildlife, I don't like having to think about the possibility of hitting the animals and doing great damage either to them or me. This was not a road to make time on-it took a full two hours to drive the 65-mile length.
Most striking about this road, though, is how truly remote it is. I have driven or been a passenger on thousands of roads on three continents, and only the gravel trails in the arctic would match the remote feeling I got here. From the town of Ely I drove 35 miles to a rest area along the road. That entire distance I saw NO traffic whatsoever. From the rest area to the end of the road (another 30 miles) I saw only two vehicles-one of them coming the other way and one following me. Both of these vehicles were from Iowa.
At Lake Superior I turned north onto U.S. highway #61, a major road that runs from Canada to New Orleans. Traffic picked up, of course, but the road was also much better. I stopped briefly in the town of Grand Marais, the last real town before the Canadian border, to buy gas and coffee. The price ($1.14/gallon) was much higher than it is anywhere else in the U.S. now, but I was still smart to buy in this country. >From there it was less than an hour's drive on to the Canadian border.
For some reason Canada Customs was being particularly thorough today. I had the most difficult time I have ever had entering Canada. There was quite a line and while several officers appeared to be doing very little inside the customs building, there was only one woman actually inspecting vehicles. Most people had boats, and the woman made every one of them remove the tarps that covered their boats so she could see there was nothing hidden underneath. In front of me was a van from Wisconsin. The woman got into the van and searched EVERY nook and cranny. She even had the driver (a man in his forties) remove a removable seat and take out the spare tire. She then had the man park and go inside the building. Apparently he wasn't guilty of anything serious, though. Before the woman was done with me that man returned to his van and was on his way.
I got less of a search than many people, but it's still the most thorough inspection the Canadians have ever given me. The woman asked several standard questions (where? how long? food? guns? booze? drugs? etc.) She asked me to open the glove compartment and seemed surprised that there was virtually nothing in it (some napkins and a tire gage). She repeated the questions on guns and drugs several times, in a slightly different way each time. She seemed especially concerned with the fact that I had a bag of cotton balls on the front seat of the car. After I explained that I used the cotton balls to prevent ear infections (something I've had problems with for about five years now), she seemed satisfied though. Soon I was on my way. As I left I noticed seven cars in line behind me.
Beyond the border is the province of Ontario. The highway is still called #61, but it gets noticeably worse. I was on this same road with Margaret and Brian a year ago. It wasn't good then, and it hasn't improved any. Fortunately I wasn't on it terribly long.
Rather oddly, this is farming country again. While the land by Lake Superior is solid forest in Minnesota, there are several rather rugged dairy farms in Ontario. It's not exactly pretty or pastoral, but it is different.
Highway #61 leads to Thunder Bay (population 150,000), the only place of significance between eastern Canada and western Canada. Thunder Bay is a rather dirty old industrial center, with not much to recommend it to the tourist except that it is bigger than anything for five hundred miles in any direction. I hadn't really noticed it on previous trips to Thunder Bay, but today the city seemed especially polluted. On this Sunday morning I could smell the smog of Thunder Bay nearly 15 miles south of town. Thunder Bay, like 99% of Ontario's population, is on Eastern Time. I didn't re-set my watch, but I made a mental note of the fact that it was exactly noon when I arrived in the city.
I decided to stay at the Journey's End Motel, a nice-looking place across from the airport on the west edge of the city proper. It was a nice place (and its cost was just slightly more than the Holiday Village), but unfortunately none of the single rooms had yet been cleaned. The desk clerk apologized again and again, and I agreed to have lunch while a room was being made up.
I had a grand total of nine Canadian dollars with me, and that's not much with today's Canadian prices. Canadian banks, like virtually all businesses, are closed on Sunday, so I was limited in my choice of locations for lunch. I went to a McDonalds and asked if I could change a U.S. traveler's cheques. The girl at the counter had no idea whether I could or not (in fact I'm not sure she had any idea what a traveler's cheques was), but she called the manager, who was very helpful. The manager took over the cash register, took my traveler's cheques, worked some magic with the buttons, and (according to the cash register) gave me more change than my "cash tendered". (My meal came to Can$6.95. I gave her a traveler's cheques for US$50, which she punched into the register as 50.00. In the end the register and my receipt showed my change as 53.05-with no reference that any exchange of currencies had taken place. In fact they had exchanged the U.S. funds at $1.20 Canadian-so the $50 became $60. After subtracting the $6.95, the change really was $53.05 ... but it sure does seem weird to get back more in change than you give them.)
After lunch I went to Old Fort William, a restored Northwest Company fort from the 1800s operated in living history style, with actors playing the parts of various early settlers. I walked around the grounds a while, but I wasn't really in the mood to tour the place in depth. So I left and drove around the city.
Thunder Bay advertises itself as "Ontario's 11th Largest City". That may be true, but somehow that doesn't strike me as anything especially outstanding. I think they would do much better to say they were "Northern Ontario's ONLY city"-which is both true and a bit more important, if you ask me. As I said before there is really nothing of much touristic interest in Thunder Bay (the fort is the attraction), but I like the place nonetheless. It strikes me much the same as Amherst, Nova Scotia, the place we were stuck for a week last summer. Both places are about as typical as Canadian cities can be. Because Thunder Bay does not cater mainly to tourists, it gives a sample of how Canadians really live.
It was extremely hot while I drove around the city. It had not been bad while I was on the highway driving at speeds that let the wind blow through my windows, but in town it was downright miserable. Canadian banks do not have those time and temperature signs we have in America, and I think it's just as well-it would only have made things hotter. It was one of those days when you could see ripples of heat rising from the parking lots. At one point a radio station said they were expecting a record high of 41 degrees that afternoon. I can't convert Metric temperatures in my head, but the scientist in me knows that 37 degrees is body temperature (98.6 Fahrenheit). Forty-one has to be well over 100 Fahrenheit. The last time I thought about temperatures that high was in Spain. It's desert heat there; here the water condenses off the lake, and the air just drips. I drove from one fast food place to another, buying diet Coke and iced tea to fuel my afternoon excursion. (Note: I just worked out the conversion on my calculator-it's 106 degrees.)
For nearly a century Thunder Bay was two separate cities located a few miles apart on "the lakehead", the far western shore of Lake Superior. Port Arthur, the more northerly town, was slightly larger and more important than Fort William. About 1970 the two cities merged, and new development largely filled in the space between the two old towns. In many ways, though, there are still two main sections of town. There are two downtowns, two motel/restaurant strips, two hospitals, etc. The same street names can occur in two different places. It's not unlike driving through Waterloo and Cedar Falls in one trip (in fact the area is about the same size), but it is all officially one city. The local government very carefully refers to the sections as "Thunder Bay-North" and "Thunder Bay-South". Stores still use the old town names when they give their locations, though, and they often give a third location "Intercity" (like the "Midway" or "Rainbow" areas in Water/Falls).
The main route of the Trans-Canada Highway skirts the west edge of Thunder Bay. To see the city I took the business route (#17-A, which locals refer to as "King's Highway-Old") which follows no less than nine different streets as it meanders through the town.
The business route starts out as Arthur Street, five kilometers (three miles) of motels, fast food, and shopping centres running from the airport to the southern downtown (Ft. William). In some ways it looks like any American suburban strip, yet somehow it would not be right in an American city. First of all, it's newer-many American strips date to the '60s or even the '50s. Nothing on Arthur Street looks more than ten years old. Second the businesses aren't quite right. There are signs like "PetroCanada", "Canadian Tire", and "Tilden Rent-a-Car" that don't exist in America; and even familiar names like "McDonalds", "Safeway", and "K-Mart" sport maple leaves on their signs. Third the traffic signs and lights are different. The speed limit says "50-MAXIMUM" (50 km/h = 30mph), while other signs point to "CITY CENTRE" and the traffic lights blink green to signal a protected turn. Then just when things start to look familiar a gas station advertises its product at "57.3", a gas [price that was never found in America (even when gas was cheap we didn't use any tenth other than ".9"). The final difference is that Canadians always favor bright colors (or should I say "colours"), and the suburban strips there are always even more gaudy than they are down here.
Close to downtown the strip stops and the buildings abruptly become much older. They are almost all three-floor brick apartments, and most are painted-some in rather bizarre colors (again, typically Canadian). Large trees separate the street from the sidewalk, and people lounge on benches under the trees. It's a pleasant neighborhood that reminded me somewhat of Madrid.
The business loop turns, turns, and turns again to follow every major street in downtown Ft. William. Although the city hall is here, it is clear that Ft. William is not the main downtown of the city. Most of this part of town is really rather seedy. Driving through there reminded me of the times we drove to WOC-TV in Davenport for the "High School Bowl" academic contests. In those days the neighborhood around the TV station was fast decaying, and thick with massage parlors and the like. This part of Thunder Bay featured peeling paint, litter in the streets, drunks passed out on benches, and a number of rather questionable businesses. If the last neighborhood reminded me of Madrid, this one reminded me of Barcelona.
Beyond here is "Intercity", four miles of brand new malls and car dealers that fill the gap between the two old towns. The speed limit here picks up to 70 km/h (45 mph), and since EVERYTHING was closed, traffic was quite minimal on Sunday. The impression the place gives (especially on Sunday) is one giant parking lot. I don't think there's a strip of grass for the entire four miles.
Next in line is a maze of one-ways that leads through what the map calls "New Finland", but what I'd call "Ethnictown". Again these are three-floor brick apartments, but here there are restaurants and family businesses on the first floor of every building. The residents seem widely varied, but all appear to be first or second generation immigrants, mostly from either Asia or southern Europe. The restaurants offer every kind of foreign cuisine imaginable, not just "Chinese and Canadian" (which is inevitable in every place of any size at all), but also Greek, Portuguese, Indonesian, and Egyptian. There also appears to be a substantial Finnish population. There is a "Helsinki Grocery", a "Finn People's Library", and a "Traditional Finnish Drug-Ette"-whatever that may be. Nothing was open on Sunday afternoon, but that didn't stop hundreds of people from congregating on the sidewalks. It seemed like a really fun neighborhood.
This dumps out in downtown-north, or Port Arthur, by far the more important of the city centres. Half of this downtown area is massive nineteenth century dark stone buildings, and half is brand new brick malls, government buildings, and "arcades" (parking ramps). Although there are still some stores downtown, most have moved to the outskirts or to Intercity. Mostly the place is offices-banks, insurance, and above all government agencies. There's Employment Canada, Environment Canada, Health and Welfare Canada, etc., etc., etc., ... not to mention Ontario Board for the Development of Mines and Forestry, Ontario Board for the Promotion of Leisure and Recreation, Ontario Board for the Regulation of Industrial Production, etc., etc. ... and various "Lakehead Metro" boards, departments, and councils. Thunder Bay seems to be the northern Ontario headquarters for every government agency that anyone could possibly think of, and each of those has its own private building. The civic information section of the phone book says that 30% of Thunder Bay works for the government, making it by far the largest local industry. While I would be among the first to suggest that America's government could be trimmed, compared to Canada's (or EVERY other country I have been to, for that matter), our government is truly skeletal. (A side note ... One thing I found interesting is that the national government keeps its department names as short as possible, while the provincial agencies ramble without end.)
Just beyond downtown I stopped at Marina Park, a pleasant urban renewal project that combines a marina for small boats with a beautiful urban park. There is no beach in Thunder Bay (I can't picture Lake Superior ever being warm enough to consider swimming anyhow), but in this park the rocky embankment is bordered by a margin of trees, fountains, modern sculptures, and formal gardens. The park offers beautiful views in every direction. To the north are nice homes, some with their own docks. Across the bay to the east is "the Sleeping Giant", a peninsula named by local Indians that looks rather like a person at rest. The giant has guarded over Lake Superior for millennia. To the west is a lovely view of the city. Even though it is not particularly large, Thunder Bay has a real skyline, and it is quite pretty when viewed from a distance. To the south is the reason for Thunder Bay's existence-the port. Until recently the city processed almost all of Canada's grain, and enormous storage buildings stretch for more than a mile along the lakefront. One structure, owned by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, is taller than any office building in the city and is said to be the largest grain storage facility on earth. They also ship tons of newsprint, mineral ores, and oil from Thunder Bay. Even though it is 3,000 miles from any ocean, Thunder Bay is Canada's second largest port; only Vancouver handles more cargo. Lately business at the port has been slower. As more and more of Canada's grain is sent to the Pacific Rim, Vancouver has become the port of choice for shipping, but Thunder Bay still remains a busy place.
North of downtown and the marina the highway goes through an old suburban area. The homes are all brick, and all are extremely small by American standards. The homes are separate, but there is almost no space between them. Their front steps are flush with the sidewalk, but they do seem to have substantial back yards. Interestingly, every house seems to fence its back yard, and two different styles of fence frequently are put side by side where two yards meet.
This neighborhood ends abruptly where the business route re-joins the main highway. It is about a 15-mile drive through town, and it takes the better part of an hour-even on a weekend. The new road is better, but even it takes a goof 20 - 25 minutes.
I drove a few miles east of town to a rest area where there is a monument dedicated to a man named Terry Fox. A few years back Fox, who had one leg amputated, attempted to walk across Canada to raise money to fight some disease. He started in Newfoundland and made it nearly half way when he became seriously ill and could not continue. He died in Thunder Bay shortly afterward. (In 1984 another one-legged person completed his journey.) The monument is a nice bronze statue of a one-legged man in a beautiful setting overlooking the lake. While I was there I met a young couple that was very much in love. They asked me to take their picture by the statue, and although for a moment those traveler's cheques commercials passed through my head, I was happy to comply. We talked a bit, and they were quite interesting. He had long, scraggly black hair and wore jeans and a T-shirt with cigarettes sticking out of the pocket. She was a blonde bombshell in a blue bikini. Her cigarettes (they seem to be a necessity for Canadians) were tied to her bikini bottom. On other trips to Canada I have seen hundreds of young people just like them. They were students at Lakehead University, and they had walked to the statue from somewhere in the city. They started walking back after I took their picture. Even if they had come from somewhere on the outskirts, that had to be at least a five-mile round trip. In that heat, I certainly don't envy them. They didn't ask for a ride, and I didn't offer, but I really don't think they would have accepted if I had. They seemed to be enjoying each other's company a bit too much to be disturbed by a third party. At least the girl was dressed for the weather.
I drove back to the motel and finally got into a room. I highly recommend the Journey's End chain to anyone traveling in Canada. This was one of the finest motels I have ever stayed in, and for the money (Can$40, or US$33), is truly outstanding. The room was enormous, with velour carpeting and a double-locking patio door (in addition to a hallway door). The entire room was immaculate, it was beautifully decorated, and it had more furnishings than anyone could ask for. There was a firm queen-sized bed with a lovely quilt, a comfortable velour couch, a big solid oak table with four oak chairs, a huge dresser that held a television/radio combination, and a second dresser at bedside. Even with all that furniture, there was plenty of open space in the room, and I could move around as I pleased. There were four lamps that operated independently, so the room could be as bright or as dim as you wanted. A floor-mounted climate control unit cooled the room sufficiently on its medium setting. The bathroom was large, modern, and well lit. My only complaint was that the water pressure was only adequate; I prefer a shower with strong pressure. The place is not unlike the Super 8 motels in America, but overall it seems to be of higher quality for the same money. Journey's End is a chain with motels across Canada (and in New York and New England), and after seeing this room I made a fast decision to stay in them whenever I saw them.
A few blocks from the motel, down the Arthur Street strip, was an outlet of Pizza Delight. Some people may remember that when we were stranded in Amherst a year ago, Margaret, Brian, Paul, and I ate at least one meal daily at the Pizza Delight there. For old time's sake I decided to go to the one in Thunder Bay. Unfortunately this was a take-out place rather than a sit-down restaurant. (They had tables, but they seemed to be more for waiting than for eating.) I walked down to Pizza Delight, and I ended up walking back to the motel carrying pizza-trying hard to ignore the people gawking at me from their cars. I bought some pop from the motel vending machine and ended up having a rather enjoyable (if also expensive) dinner.
I watched some television and got to sleep rather early. The nice bed and the air conditioning helped me to get a really good night's sleep.
I got up relatively early (although very late, compared to the previous night) and was off at precisely 7:00. I picked up some breakfast at a McDonalds drive-through window and then headed westward on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Thunder Bay is an urban accident in the middle of a vast unpopulated area. Its suburbs spread on for nearly twenty miles westward, but then the city fizzles out and the land is EXTREMELY remote. For hundreds of miles in every direction there is nothing but wilderness. This section of the Trans-Canada was the last to be completed; it is only twenty-five years old (and has been paved for only fifteen years). Before the road was built the only link between eastern and western Canada was one rail line, which the highway follows all the way across northwest Ontario. This section of the highway was especially difficult to build because there is virtually no soil in the region-just the solid rock of the Canadian Shield. Every mile had to be blasted, compacted, and then finally paved. It really is an engineering marvel.
While I was marveling at the road's existence, though, I couldn't help wishing the engineers had added another two lanes while they were at it. Unlike the U.S., Canada has very few four-lane expressways. The Trans-Canada is Canada's busiest and most important highway, but in Ontario it is a crowded two-lane road. The heaviest traffic comes from semi trucks, some with as many as THREE trailers behind them. The speed limit is officially 90 km/h (about 55 mph), but the trucks average about 110 km/h (nearly 70 mph). Fortunately the curves on the highway are gentle and can fairly easily accommodate these high-speed monsters, but it is a pain for the casual tourist.
It is nearly 80 miles from Thunder Bay to the next village-a place called Upsala that has less than 500 people. From Thunder Bay to the next place of any size at all (Dreyden-with about 5,000 people) is well over 150 miles. The scenery is repetitive and frankly ugly (scrubby forest mixed with long stretches where it has been bare-logged so no trees are left). There are no cross roads and no billboards to look at. There is one radio station (the C.B.C.) audible for most of the way, and as I drove several men were discussing the merits of banning cigarette advertising. (Two weeks later the ban was officially passed in Canada.) About the most interesting thing is that every twenty kilometers (12 miles) signs announce the approach of the next town. It's a long dull drive, and I can certainly understand why the truckers take it fast.
This is rugged country, too. Mining and forestry are the only industries; no one would even think of farming on solid rock. The telephone poles here are propped up on tripods to stand firmly on the rock base. There are moose and deer signs everywhere, including some that say "EXTREME NIGHT DANGER!!" in bold red letters. I saw whole flocks of birds flying within feet of my car, and mosquitoes are everywhere. After driving for three hours my windshield was plastered with bug remains to where it was difficult to see in places. The area reminded me a lot of the Northwest Territories, where our family traveled over a decade ago. It seemed startling to me that such a remote area could be found in what is generally considered Canada's most modern, urban, and developed province.
The most interesting sight along the way was a sign marking the Continental Divide. Being American-minded, I always pictured the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains, following the highest peaks and dividing the Atlantic waters from the Pacific waters. The Divide here does mark one of Ontario's highest points, but he watershed marks not Atlantic and Pacific, but the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The Great Lakes drain most of Canada's Atlantic waters, while the Red River and Lake Winnipeg flow northward to Hudson Bay and the Arctic.
I arrived in Dreyden (DRY-din) shortly after 10:00. On entering the town I encountered signs saying "CITY BUSINESS" and "HIGHWAY BUSINESS", with arrows pointing in two directions. I was looking for a bank and figured the city business stood a better chance of offering that service, so I turned and went into town. Dreyden is not especially large, but it is a service center for an enormous area and thus seems much larger than it really is. Its residential areas are rather old and dumpy, but its business districts are booming. There are at least five supermarkets in Dreyden, plus branches of Canada's two most fashionable department stores (the Bay and Eaton's). There are a few government buildings, but the major employer seems to be a paper mill-which also spews hideous pollution into the air giving this small town some of the world's worst smog. There was also a branch of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, where I stopped to change some traveler's cheques. The exchange rate was US$1 = Can$1.2150, and there was no fee for changing money.
I drove back to the edge of town and turned toward the "highway business". The only gas I saw was full service, but with the way my windshield looked I didn't object to that. I pulled into a Husky station and paid 56.7 cents per litre (about US$1.70 per gallon-don't American prices seem cheap by comparison?), and since my tank was nearly empty this turned out to be the most expensive fill of gas I have ever bought. The station gave a free Ontario provincial lottery ticket to every customer who bought at least 25 litres of gas. My ticket was actually a winner-not that it would matter much. I won one litre (about 1/4 of a gallon-value about 50 cents) of gasoline which could only be claimed at a "participating Sunoco station" in the province of Ontario during the month of June. Since it was highly unlikely that I would be buying more gas in Ontario this month, I threw out the ticket. I wish the station would have just given me the 50 cents in cash. I grabbed a cup of coffee at a nearby McDonalds and was again on my way westward.
The next real community is Kenora, which is the government administrative center for all of far-west Ontario. It is also a big tourist destination, serving the north end of Lake of the Woods. I remember a friend of mine from college going to a cabin near here. Kenora has a year-round population of about 10,000, but in summer its numbers swell to four or five times that. The Trans-Canada winds its two-lane path through every part of Kenora, turning no less than nine corners en route. Kenora is a lovely city, but the traffic congestion is unreal. To make things worse, they were doing utility work in two different neighborhoods. It took over half an hour to get through town. A by-pass is being constructed north of the city. My provincial road map lists the completion date as "late 1987". Obviously they missed that deadline; hopefully they will get it done before too much longer.
I drove straight through Kenora without stopping. The scenery gets better around this area-prettier forest and lovely waterways. The road gets worse, too. I think this section is older-the curves are more severe and the grades steeper. The traffic is every bit as heavy, though, and the trucks still take things at breakneck speed.
From Kenora it is less than an hour's drive to the Manitoba border. I stopped briefly at an information centre on the border to get some maps and use the restroom. The attendant was a very friendly and very helpful old lady who seemed surprised that I had been to Manitoba before. It was about 1:30 when I left the information centre, and I continued heading westward.
While the Trans-Canada in Ontario is a remote road linking obscure outposts, in Manitoba it is THE main highway. Called highway #1, it is a four-lane expressway across most of the province of Manitoba. The change from two to four lanes makes the traffic seem unusually light in Manitoba, although I am sure there is roughly the same amount. The sped limit is 100 km/h (62 mph), and EVERYBODY obeys this law. Driving in Manitoba is a pleasure.
Manitoba is the first of Canada's "Prairie Provinces". The change in geography from neighboring Ontario is abrupt and occurs almost exactly at the border. Western Ontario is hilly and rocky, with ugly forest. Eastern Manitoba is sandy and extremely flat. The highway cuts through a provincial park, and the trees are tall and lush. Even with the table-top flatness, it's really much prettier than in Ontario. About 50 miles into the province the provincial park ends and the prairie farmland abruptly begins. The trees end in a line at the park boundary, and in my rear-view mirror they seemed to make a wall behind me. To the west there is nothing but open fields, with only an occasional windbreak. The land remains flat. Although there are rises here and there, there are no real hills. It's like a dry version of Illinois or Indiana, much flatter than Iowa. The road heads straight westward, paralleling the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Every few miles a tiny town (often little more than a grain elevator) breaks the view. This basic pattern continues for more than a thousand miles to the Rockies.
A sign in eastern Manitoba marks the center of the Trans-Canada Highway. From here it is 2700 miles to St. John's, Newfoundland, and another 2700 miles to Victoria, British Columbia. It is also about 2700 miles north to the tip of Canada's Arctic islands. With numbers like that you get an idea of just how enormous Canada is.
Just as the trees formed a wall behind me as I entered the province, the towers of Winnipeg formed an island on the prairie as I drove toward them. Winnipeg is Canada's fourth largest city (after Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver), and with 700,000 people it is home to nearly three-fourths of Manitoba's population. The city stretches over miles of farmland, but its downtown area also rises to 30 or 40 floors. It's quite an attractive city into which to drive.
Winnipeg is ringed (almost) by a beltway locally known as the Perimeter Highway. All distances in Manitoba are measured from the Perimeter Highway, and nearly all traffic in Canada seems to follow this route. It's busy and archaic, but it does move traffic better than most of urban Canada's highways. At the east edge of Winnipeg I turned onto the Perimeter Highway and headed southward around the city. I exited at Pembina (PEM-bun-uh) Highway (so named because it is the highway that leads to Pembina, North Dakota-and that turns into U.S. Interstate 29), which is Winnipeg's main motel strip. Right at the exit there was another Journey's End Motel, where I stopped.
--2004 David M. Burrow
The background music on this page is "Spread Your Wings", originally by Queen.