I decided to try a three day trip this time. We got the van ready for the trip and put a foam mattress in the back to cut down on expenses of hotels. I had two shops lined up that would pay enough to make the trip worth while. I got another two finalized just before leaving on Saturday morning.
We gassed up in Winnipeg, I mean we filled the tank in Winnipeg. It has been a while since I put my own money in the tank, but there were no gas shops available along the way this time. There was no calculating to see how far I could get on the gas I had and how full the tank would get at each stop along the way. No figuring if I would run out or have too much gas. This was a less complicated trip. Just drive to Dryden, take care of a shop and Drive to Sioux Lookout and take care of another one. Spend a relaxing day in or around Sioux Lookout and take care of two more shops. That was it.
So we headed out of town, going East on the Trans Canada Hwy. I remembered the highway was under construction between Winnipeg and Hwy 12 to Steinbach, so I took a detour through Lorette and got onto the Trans Canada at Hwy 12. As we were driving through the Sandilands we remembered an article in the Winnipeg Free Press by Bill Redekop about a 10 foot wide fiberglass tree stump. It was somewhere in the bush between the divided highways around the rest area that had the chip truck. We couldn’t remember where he said the tree stump was, but he did mention it was very hard to find and it took him several attempts before he was able to locate it. If the underbrush is too thick you could walk right past it. Anyways, we pulled into the rest area and asked the people at the chip stand if they knew anything about the 10 foot fiberglass tree stump. The woman said she just read the article not long ago. She said someone came by with it, and showed them the article. She remembered the directions and gave them to me. Her husband also gave his version of the instructions. Both versions required us to turn around and head back toward town. Well, that was not going to happen, but on the way home we would look for the stump. They said it was either seven or ten miles west of the rest area. You turn left at their sign along the highway, either after the Brokenhead River or at the Pipeline. It’s in the bush somewhere around there. I wasn't sure I would be able to find it from those directions, but I thought we could give it a try.
We left the rest area and were back on the Trans Canada heading East. We stopped at the Ontario border at the tourist information. I wanted to get some tourist information and maps of the area we were heading to, a better map of Ontario, and some more information on the Lake of the Woods area. I got everything I was looking for, including a great map of the Lake of the Woods area in the Sunset Country brochure. We asked the lady at the tourism center if a fellow with a shopping cart and bamboo hat had been through. She said “as a matter of fact yes, he came through two days ago”. We have been spotting this person along the Highway now on a few occasions. When we went to Brandon a few weeks ago (June 25) we saw him around Austin. On our last trip to Kenora (July 3-4), we saw him just East of Prawda. Now he is inside Ontario.
The lady at the tourism center said he is from Japan. He started his trip in BC and he is going across the country along the Trans Canada Highway pushing a shopping cart with his travel gear. The tourism lady said there was also a man from Korea who was cycling across Canada. We commented that we have seen several different cyclists, some with campers following, some on their own, and others traveling in groups.
We got back on the road, this time going around Kenora. We went as far as Vermillion Bay and stopped at the gas station for a rest. There were a group of cyclists stopped as well. We went over to talk to them. There were four cyclists, two were from New Brunswick. They flew to Vancouver and are cycling back home. They started at the beginning of June and had planned on taking three months to cycle across the country. They met up with the Korean cyclist somewhere in BC for a short time. Then met him again a day or two ago. The other cyclist was a woman that they met up with a few days ago as well.
The guys from New Brunswick are not your ordinary jock cyclists doing a marathon trip across the country. They are a couple of young guys, very tattooed, and one was sporting quite a number of metal objects on his face, in his ears, along the back of his neck, and I am sure various other locations. They had not done a lot of preparation for the trip in the way of long distance cycling. One of them purchased a bike just for the trip. But what better way to train for a long distance trip across the country than to put one pedal in front of the other.
We swapped sayings on the philosophy of travel.
“It’s not the destination but the journey” – an old Turkish proverb.
“If you never travel you have only read one page of the book of your life” – possibly Oscar Wilde.
“A man who has never traveled thinks his mother is the best cook in the world” the guys heard that from a fellow from Ghana.
Then I got a picture of the statue at the gas station in Vermillion Bay. Next stop would be Dryden, Ontario.
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