Superior Cycling

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 that Roberta Bondar is from here!


We left Thunder Bay on June 12 and over six days pedalled 732 km to Sault Ste. Marie, where we took a full day off to relax and walk around the city. The Soo is a big steel-producing border city, so it’s concerning chatting with people about all the economic uncertainty. In a number of these resource export towns there seems to be a ‘wait and see’ mentality in hopes that conditions improve.


Most of last week was spent cycling around the Canadian portion of Lake Superior. Each day it provided new views of this massive inland sea.


We’ve gone 12 days and over 1,500 km since Winnipeg, which was where we had our most recent rest day. The last week has felt like we really had a good rhythm going. We haven’t been pushing ourselves anymore with gruelling 11-12 hour days, but we have cycled enough to feel accomplished, that we were still making progress, and could do it again the next day.


And here I thought Winnie was from Winnipeg, not White River, Ontario. Yet another Canadian Great.


Karen’s Ontario book of the week: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes

Comments

  1. CJJune 22, 2025 at 1:19 PM

    Just caught up on your posts today. Really proud of you guys and your accomplishments so far! So amazing and very inspiring. Happy for you guys, but looking forward to having you back on the west coast!

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