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Heat Waves, Sea Caves, and Birthday Raves

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Our bikes got a break on a ferry ride. This week we finally made it past the Great Lakes. Earlier in the week, we went on the Chi-Cheemaun ferry from Manitoulin Island to the Bruce Peninsula. As common users of BC Ferries, we hurriedly locked up our bikes on the ferry and rushed to get a seat with a good view. Unlike BC Ferries, there was open seating everywhere. The variety and quantity of seating on the Chi-Cheemaun far outmatched BC Ferries. The ride itself was beautiful, but I will say, it’s tough to compete with seeing whales in the Georgia Strait or hearing the iconic BC Ferries horn as they go through Active Pass. On June 22, Karen celebrated her 34th birthday, and it was a full day. We hiked the famous Grotto, a shoreline sea cave with beautiful blue waters; we had ice cream, twice; we saw a memorial to Canada’s late and great soothsayer, Wiarton Willie; and we biked 134 km. In all, Karen is able to stay impressively active well into her advanced age of 34. There wasn’t a liter...
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Superior Cycling

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Karen  and I are getting some cross-Canada inspiration from one of Canada’s Greats Last week as we left Thunder Bay we saw the Terry Fox monument along his marathon of hope. The monument was to commemorate where his recurring cancer had forced to give up his running across Canada, having already conquered five provinces. It was inspiring thinking about the way Fox united Canadians with his determination and devotion to such a noble cause. It also fills me with hope and optimism that Terry Fox is the type of hero Canadians look up to. I think it’s important that we hold up and remember our historic and ongoing wrongs. But I also think it says a lot about who Canadians aspire to be through who we look to as national heroes, like Terry Fox, David Suzuki, Roberta Bondar, and Tommy Douglas. Each had a relentless drive to work towards a vision of Canada I am proud of. I wrote the above paragraph the day before biking into Sault Ste. Marie. I didn’t realize until we made it into the city ...
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Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

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  We’re not in the prairies anymore After leaving Winnipeg where we seemed to eat constantly (the frying pan), we made our way east towards smoky Ontario (the fires). We got really lucky in that after only one extra day delayed because of bad air quality, the winds blew the smoke away from us. Since then, we’ve had a few nights of rain. Even Karen, whose biggest fear on this trip has been biking in wet feet, was happy for the rain. We made it into Ontario and were excited to bike on hills again. If felt like we were changing gears for the first time since the prairies. A few milestones are that we entered the Atlantic Watershed (all watercourses now form part of the Great Lakes’ drainage system and all streams flow into the Atlantic Ocean). We’re also the farthest south we’ve been on this bike trip. We’re now below the 49th parallel, which is especially strange because all the signs call this “Northwest Ontario.” Helmet hair at the second highest waterfall in Ontario Many people wa...
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Friendly Manitoba

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Hanging out with Grandpa in Winkler. He still takes the stairs and insisted Karen give him some of her stuff to carry. This past week was filled with several milestones. We made it into Manitoba on May 29, and then on June 1 we made it to Winnipeg, which we had planned to be our second big rest stop after Edmonton. May 30 was also a significant milestone because we had our first day of tailwinds, which allowed us to do our first 200+ km day from Pipestone to Crystal City. It’s been a great week for tapping into our Mennonite roots. We spent an afternoon with my grandpa in Winkler eating apple pie and ice cream. In different towns we stayed with friends, family, friends of family, and families of friends. When we finally made it to Winnipeg we had a classic meal of kielke (rolled-up noodles) and schmaundt fat (cream gravy), homemade buns, and farmer sausage at my aunt and uncle’s place. There’s nothing quite like Mennonite fats and carbs to refuel us. We got to Winnipeg just as the smok...
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Saskatchewan’s Small Towns

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Saskatchewan’s pretty good looking when there’s no snow covering it As of May 28 we are in the heart of Canada’s breadbasket. I can’t say for sure but I’d guess we’re taking a route across the country that no cyclist has done before, so that we can maximize seeing people we know along the way. So far our route has meandered from Vancouver to Banff, through Sylvan Lake to Edmonton, across to Waldheim, and down to Gray. Next significant stop: Winkler, Manitoba! I spent a lot of time wondering how much this barn would sell for in Vancouver Cycling is an inherently more social mode of transport than driving. In a few small towns it feels like we’ve become local celebrities, with people randomly coming up to us at gas stations or grocery stores to ask us what we’re up to. One day, for example, as we were riding to see our uncle and cousin in Waldheim, a friendly couple we didn’t know from the town rolled up to us and asked if we were the people pedalling across Canada. They had clearly been...
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Rest and Recovery

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We spent four days at Gill’s house eating all the food in her fridge We didn’t think we’d make it to Canada’s separatist province so quickly! It’s our first significant milestone, and now if wildfires or something else derails our biking at least we’ve accomplished something by making it this far. Also, now when strangers come up to us and ask us what we’re up to, instead of vaguely saying, “we’re heading east” we can begin to more confidently say, “we’re biking across Canada.” Two days before reaching Edmonton, we learned about the challenges of headwinds. We were planning on having a relatively chill, five hour bike day going from Cremona to Sylvan Lake. A 20 km/hour headwind turned that five hours of biking into a difficult ten hours. Unlike mountains, which are inevitable and culminate with a sense of accomplishment, wind is random, unpredictable, and unsatisfying to bike through. That same day Karen also learned about the benefits of drafting, and spent the whole day strategically...
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Alberta Bound

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 A  picture  of  the  Misty—  I  mean,  Rocky  Mountains.  Keeping the Tolkien references to a minimum is an ongoing challenge with this blog. This past week we said ‘goodbye’ to BC. Biking over mountains has been much more fun and rewarding than I imagined. Some of the best days so far have looked like this: get into a low gear and grind uphill for tens of minutes (or sometimes several hours) while trying not to think about how slowly we’re moving; feel a thrill and sense of achievement at eventually making it to the top of a pass; reward ourselves by bombing down the mountain at full speed; repeat the process several more times throughout the day. Summation of our time in BC Both our bikes and bodies are holding up reasonably well this week, apart from karen having a persistent sore knee. Both of us are surprised that her body is causing more issues than mine, given my pre-exiting injuries, but that will likely change in the upcoming w...
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