North Dakota, Minnesota, North Ontariooooooo!

Whew! Time Flies (Without Wifi!!)
We're a couple days behind but tonight is Friday, June 28 and we're in Cochrane, Ontario. Here's the quick catch up... My caveat is that the follow missive is a first draft, unedited and just sort of stream of consciousness writing. Too tired for finesse but I'm wanting to get some ideas down. Photos to follow when we have better wifi...

June 25
We stayed the night in Culbertson, Montana - our last night here. We were really impressed with Montana as a whole. The people were very kind and generous and very friendly. The countryside was spectacular, from the mind-blowing mountains of Glacier National Park to the rolling foothills and then the wide open prairie. Montana also has miles of pink tarmacked roads - some kind of rock that they crush and use that ranges from coral to pink in colour. Very pretty... and the quality of the roads are GREAT. Mind you, we only stayed on Route #2 but it's amazing how good roads can be when they don't get frost heave!!
That night, we stayed at the city park where they let you camp for free. We were joined by a few other folks, a couple from Utah, some people in a broken down motorhome from Saskatchewan that was towed in so they could wait for parts and repairs. Lastly, we were joined by two other motorcyclists from Florida who were en route to Alaska, hauling a dirt bike... they were both ex-Navy and one of them, let's call him Dave, arrived wearing a fake-haired hat and started to tell stories before he even got off his bike. A great couple of guys with many outlandish stories to tell - we're fairly convinced maybe even 50% might be true. A fun evening...

June 26
We couldn't resist, we'd heard all the horror stories from the wheat farmers across Montana about the royal mess that is Williston, North Dakota. About 3 years ago, they found a huge oil patch and since then, it's been a total boom town with people flocking from all over for work. We heard stories of 1000 man "Man Camps" springing up daily (ATCO type trailer accommodations that are put up in quick "trailer park" arrangements with a central mess hall), so many big trucks it wasn't safe to drive the roads and traffic so heavy, you could hardly get through town. We also heard that the cost of everything was through the roof to the extent that many long term residents were leaving because they couldn't stand the chaos and the expense. Sad... At first, we looked at ways to dodge it all but then the curiosity got the better of us and we decided what the heck. The time it would take us to detour would probably be more than just pushing through and we wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was about.
To be honest, it was about like driving through Fort St. John on a busy Friday afternoon. It was busy to be sure and yes, there were man-camps after man-camps all up and down the highways offering room and board for around $800/week. Crazy. The delay in getting through town was because of all the road upgrading they're doing. Everywhere for miles are hundreds of oil derricks bobbing up and down. In industrial lots all over the place are miles of pipe and other heavy equipment waiting to be used and TRUCKS like you've never seen. BIG trucks by the hundreds, almost in caravans, hauling everything under the sun. And it was BUSY. We stopped to buy gas and spoke to a welder and his son who had come from Louisiana to make some money to send home and, for the dad, to eventually retire in Colorado where "there's a mountain behind me and a lake out in front". Everyone is from somewhere else, trying to make a living. A gal at the gas station said that some of the people working there had been over 3 years and still living in ATCO trailers in muddy lots. Pretty tough... It was interesting to see and we're glad we went through. The rest of North Dakota was a whole lot of prairie and small, prairie roadside towns with a gas station, some grain elevators and a corner store if you're lucky. We arrived in Grand Forks, North Dakota that night and found a campsite.
Around 11pm, we were disturbed by the sound of a pick up truck going peddle to the metal down a side road beside the campsite. At the end of the road, we heard a big WHUMP and then silence and then a KAFLUMPPP!!!! We decided we better go see what happened and see if anyone was hurt. When we arrived, we saw that the truck had gotten to the end of the road and didn't realize there was a T-junction. He went straight through and up over the bank, through the fence, blowing out the road signs and getting probably 30 feet of air before landing in the rhubarb and arriving at a stop mere feet from the first freeway lane. Good grief. A total miracle no one was hurt. He was OK but DRUNK as a lord and staggering around with a goose-egg on his forehead. We managed to get him to where we were (off the highway) and a passer-by  called 911. We waited with him until the police came and he kept saying "I think I just got punched out!" No doubt, buddy. A little Thursday night excitement in Grand Forks, ND...

June 27, 2013
Woke up to a beautiful cloudless sky and off we went. We crossed into Minnesota and almost instantly it was apparent we were in a different part of the world. The land became very beautifully cultivated and immaculate and there were stunning big and little farms all over the place. The houses were all very quaint and well looked after, nothing looked old or dilapidated. The prairie gave way to more treed land and it became a bit more hilly. Just beautiful! We were very impressed with Northern Minnesota! One of the nicest parts of our US drive. We finally arrived in International Falls, Minnesota where you cross into Canada. If you've never been to this crossing, you should go at least once just to see it. You drive down to what was once a pulp and paper plant and you cross some rail tracks and there's a little toll booth. No signage. Nothing that says "Canada This Way" - nothing. I only knew we were on the right track because of our GPS! You pay a toll to cross a REALLY OLD bridge that takes you to the rest of the old pulp and paper mill on the other side of the river in Fort Francis, Ontario. You drive through the mill yard, crossing the rail tracks several times and weaving around mill buildings until you see the border patrol booths. It's so bizarre! But there you are! And without further ado, we were back in Canada.
Off we went and we decided to make a run for Thunder Bay but first, we pulled over and phoned the Relais-Nordik in Rimouski Que. to confirm our reservations on their cargo ship down the St. Lawrence. We were very happy to find that they were putting the bigger boat on that route (for July 3) which meant they had room for us. It also meant we had 5 days to cover 2500kms to get to Havre St. Pierre in time to catch the boat at 4am on Wed, July 3!! That certainly lit a fire under us... We made it into Thunder Bay by 9:00PM that night and found a very nice campsite. We pulled into our site and it was next to Dave from Toronto who was riding his bike to BC. Of course, we traded stories and very quickly found out he grew up just outside 70 Mile House, practically neighbours to us back home. Figures.

June 28
This morning, we woke up to very heavy and low cloud cover and it was cold... about 55 degrees F. We suited up and took off by 9:00am, having lost another hour yesterday in time change. We're now 3 hours ahead of home. We set out on Route 11, the northern route through Ontario. We made our way to Long Lac and had lunch and looked at our maps. We realized just how far we still have to go. We decided if we're going to make this boat on Wednesday, we're really going to have to put some miles behind us. We did over 600kms yesterday and we ended up doing another 600kms today. We drove through miles and miles of scrubby spruce trees and sub-alpine tundra looking land... and the BUGS - oh MY!!! You've got your horse flies, your deer flies, your black flies.... you've got your no see-ums and your mosquitos and these flying ants. You also have your HUGE (and very juicy when they hit your windshield!) dragonflies and yellow butterflies as well as beetles of all descriptions. I also got stung by a stinging kind of hornet type of bug (it got up into my chaps!! OUCH!!!) - yes, the one thing we can say about northern Ontario - they're got BUGS!! At one point, we stopped to tie down our cooler better and within minutes, the bugs were swarming so thick around us that it was like a cloud and we literally dove back on our bikes and started to ride away FAST to get away from them!!!  Fortunately, having arrived here in Cochrane for the night, the bugs aren't nearly so bad. No camp sites here but a nice lady in line at the gas station drove us down to the train station where, apparently, we can park in the weedy lot across the street. Sounds good to us and that's where we are as we speak...

One of the things that stands out for me in the past few days is just how BIG this country is but, more apparently, just how SMALL it is. Almost everyone we've met has had a connection to us or our immediate area at home in some way. It's been very synchronistic. When we were closer to home, it didn't seem like a big deal but the farther East we get, the more we're amazed. Last night, Dave at our campsite was heading to BC but he grew up on a ranch very near were we live now. The lady who owned the campsite was just speaking to a friend of hers who is getting married who lives in Williams Lake, BC. We don't know the friend but we helped her figure out which store to buy her wedding present in. Another lady at the gas station in Thunder Bay is going to BC and her brother lives out our way... The woman from Utah we met in in Colbertson grew up in Penticton and her father worked for the Kettle Valley Railway which I lived near for a number of years. Crazy hairy-hat guy from Florida is riding right on up through Williams Lake to get to Alaska so we told him to stop in for coffee at our son-in-laws workplace... we'll see if he does! Anyway, it's been a fantastic experience so far.

Things of Note in Ontario Thus Far:
Near Thunder Bay we started seeing a lot of Terry Fox signs - a look out point and then the sign where his run ended because of his cancer returning. Made me sad to see that even all these years later. It also made me think, for the next 100 kms or so, about how incredibly lucky we are to have our health and be able to be on this incredible trip. It was quite moving and thought provoking.

Visual images for northern Ontario - scrubby spruce trees that are REALLY tall and spindly and they've got tufts of new growth on the top, making them look to me like a bunch of skinny chickens, stretching their necks to try to look around each other. Lots of varying shades of pink and purple lupine growing on the side of the road. Huge piles of stacked firewood in people's yards. The winters must be really long and cold up here. Lots of old, falling down barns and churches. We saw a moose and a red fox beside the road yesterday. LOTS of water - little lakes everywhere... and lots of cabins tucked into wiggly shorelines. Very beautiful.

I really notice the smells here - the clean smell of sub-alpine trees and the smell of the soil where they are digging it up for road work. The lilacs are just out here so every now and then you get a big whiff of lilac as you go by. Sometimes there is the rank smell of roadkill - saw a dead moose in the ditch. Everywhere there are signs warning of moose at night.

We're only a short way from the Quebec border. For the past 200 kms, we've noticed an increasing French presence in both the people, the signage and the names of lakes and towns. It's nice to hear the French language spoken or English spoken with a French accent again. It reminds me so much of my Grandma Alice. It's making me think about  her and miss her quite a bit again...

In thinking about the Canadian Identity, the word that really comes to mind in the past 2 days is endurance. I can't imagine how challenging it must be to live up here. The summers are short and filled with bugs and it seems as soon as the snow is gone, they must start splitting wood in preparation for the long hard winter that's not far off again. We've travelled parallel to miles of train track and I think about the people who laboured to put that track and all these miles of roads in, in very hostile conditions. Living wouldn't be easy here, especially years ago when people were homesteading. Endurance is the Canadian Identity word of the day.

The other word of the day would be friendly. Everywhere we've gone, people stop to look at our bikes, ask us questions about where we're from and where we're going. They've been so quick to offer helpful advice: where to camp, where to eat, things to see, what routes to take. At the end of almost every conversation, they've all told us to have a safe trip and to be careful... sending us on our way with good wishes for a great journey. We've been really touched by the kindness and friendliness of the people we've met...