Day Three

UPDATE: Here's a video teaser of all the things that happened today! Read on for more details!

This morning, I woke up in Thunder bay to catch the sunrise.

Caught a CP Rail train comin' in too!

Visited a Canadian cultural institution (Tim Hortons) and had an excellent conversation with Matt McCuddy, who was on his way to work. We talked a bit about whether Canadians felt good about being defined by corporate franchises sprinkled across the country. Neither of us felt too keen on the idea, even as we sipped our coffees.

Passed through a number of small towns in northern Ontario, but today's grand victory was...(drumroll)

Manitoba! I made it at last!

After nearly three whole days of slugging through Ontario i've finally reached Winnipeg! I knew Ontario was huge but now I have a whole new perspective of the scale of Canada. To give you an idea on how big Ontario actually is, the exact longitudinal centre of Canada (as in, the centre of it if you were to pin it on a map of Canada) is only just inside the Manitoba border. The time zone changed over to central time before i'd even left my home province, and i'd driven nearly 2000km. Ontario. Is. Massive. Imagine it on the tourism websites: "Ontario - it's way bigger than you thought it was."

Actually when you put it like that it sounds rather cocky. In more ways than one.

On the subject of bigger than you thought it was - I saw the SECOND Moose of my trip! Managed to get the camera out in time this time but I had a brief moment of terror. I was putting it on the tripod so it'd be stable at long lens-length...and as I slid the plate in it made this ominous 'click'. The moose looked up and stared RIGHT at me, and we had one of those tense pregnant pauses. Granted, I was still pretty far away (i'm not crazy enough to sneak up on a Moose) but either way I had a brief conversation with myself about how fast the average human runs compared to the average Moose. I could see the numbers flash before my eyes as I tried to factor in the weight of the tripod, and then before I knew it, a truck came around the corner and the beast vanished into the undergrowth, not to be seen again. I inched a bit closer (on the opposite side of the road) just to see if it'd re-emerge and I could get a better shot of it, but alas, it was not to be.

The first thing I noticed crossing into Manitoba was that they'd traded in their Moose signs for Deer signs. (Side note - I just noticed i'd been taking pains to capitalize "Moose". I suppose it's out of respect. It seemed only fair to capitalize Deer as well.) But yes, it seemed almost a deliberate attempt to show that Manitoba's much more benign than Ontario. It was quite a stark and sudden transformation altogether! You look at the provincial borders on a map and think, "Why there?". Seems as good a place as any, perhaps they wanted the provinces to look even on a map. But down at ground level it's quite sudden - the Canadian Shield vanishes into the earth, the hills flatten out, the tundra and scrub stretch into tall, stringy grass, and the sky grows and grows until it fills your whole field of vision - all over the course of about ten minutes. There's a method to the mapmaker's madness after all.

I kept seeing cyclists as I drove along the Trans-Canada. It's easy to spot the country-crossers (as i've begun to call them) because unlike the local leisure cyclists, they're weighted down with gallons of sleeping bags, tents, supplies, etc. They look like they've got their whole lives on the bike with them....which is essentially the case. Allison (who biked across Canada last year) had told me quite a bit about the experience, so I decided to try to interview someone who was right in the middle of it. I didn't want to kill anybody's momentum though, so I hadn't stopped anyone just yet. Then I caught sight of a couple just west of Dryden, Ontario who were stopped at the side of the road. Too good an opportunity to pass up, I hastily pulled over and sprinted down to chat with them.

The law of astounding coincidence dictated that Emily (pictured left) was from AURORA, and had gone out to BC with Brent (pictured right) to bike all the way to St. Johns. They've got a blog too! I caught them in a brief moment of doubt and exhaustion, but after some chat about Canada, travel, cycling, and happiness, all of us left a little cheerier. They were headed into Dryden that night, and Thunder bay was in their sights after that. We talked a bit about what we each had to look forward to, and as we spoke, the overcast vanished and the sun came out. It was pretty surreal.

I'm going to snag some stills out of the video of the Moose, and downtown Winnipeg but it'll have to be in Brandon, MB over breakfast tomorrow. I've gotta try and get to my campsite before full dark so I can get my tent in the ground while I can still SEE the ground. I'm going to edit the Day 2 post to include the video teaser as well! Peel them eyes, and keep 'em peeled!

See you all in Saskatchewan, tomorrow!

-Jeff