journey east: day 16

June 17, 2006

It was a long stretch of driving today(819 kilometres,) but manageable. A good night's sleep will set me straight for another long haul tomorrow.

I don't have much to make note of today. I am now into the eastern time zone, which will carry me to the New Brunswick/Quebec border. With Manitoba several hundred km behind me I have once and truly left the west. Geographically the change was gradual. Over a 100 km stretch east of Winnipeg the landscape gradually began to roll and the highway gained curves, and what were periodic copses of trees eventually began to grow together into small forests and then again grew into large forests. I have been driving among trees for the better part of the day.

An audio note from the road transcribed at the end of the day: quality of road inversely proportional to distance travelled from Winnipeg, though still better than Saskatchewan. I've just passed through 30-40 km of mixed forest with no sign of communities. It is nice to be back travelling through wooded land - driving down a corridor of green with a blue ceiling. The open spaces of the prairie can be almost oppressive.


A jackpine seed orchard near Kakabeka Falls, Ontario.

The weather was fine all the way through to my final destination of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park just east of Thunder Bay. Fittingly, for the location, the lightning and thunder accompanied by heavy rain began mere moments after I pegged in the tent-fly. Just my luck, in a weird sort of way. The last time I fiddled with a tent in a thunderstorm was in Grasslands National Park, but then I was taking the tent down, in a panicked sort of fashion, and reached the dry, and lightning-proof confines of my car at the exact moment the first globs of rain hit the windshield. I must be a thunderstorm magnet. Tonight's was the third storm in as many nights of camping, spanning three provinces, two time zones, and 1800 km. I wonder what tomorrow night will bring.

Sleeping Giant park is beautiful. As the last daylight fades, and the rain drifts northward, I can hear the haunting call of loons coming from somewhere across the lake I'm camped at the shore of. Now that the rain has passed other birds are finding their voices and their songs are filling the air. Together with the loon-calls and the sound of rain-soaked leaves dripping all around me it is like I'm immersed in one of those nature sound-tracks you find in patchouli scented stores and Hallmark card shops.


no turning back.

Today's playlist: Blues Traveller, Four; Jack Johnson, On and On; Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds - live, disk one; Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse; various artists' covers of Leonard Cohen, Tower of Song; Madonna, Confessions on a Dance Floor; Pink Floyd, Echoes; Johnny Cash, The Best of Johnny Cash.

I just stepped out of the tent. I was drawn out by lights in the sky I could see through the tent's screen. The forest is filled with fire flies. It's been a long time since I last saw fire flies. I had almost forgotten about them. I wonder now if they even have them in British Columbia. A fog has settled over the area and all is quiet except for the dripping of rain off leaves and lapping of water at the shore.