Reboot

Hello to anyone still subscribed to this, after thinking about it for a bit I have decided to start blogging again. I really enjoyed doing it for my roadtrip in 2011, and now that I'm done with school again (for now) I think it would be an interesting hobby to muse on what I'm up to in Halifax along with other posits of information.

Keep an eye on the blog for more interesting things to come!

*Edit December 3rd: Actually I've decided to give Haligonian it's own blog under my handle, the link being here: http://hrmian.blogspot.ca/

Epilogue

Having had a few days to think about what to write here, I'm still not sure if I've got a complete idea of what this whole trip meant to me but I had a bit of a brainstorm this morning so I figure that I would at least start putting it down here.

This trip started as an idea I had for high school. I figured that after twelve years of the Public Educational system I was ready for a treat in the form of this trip. In the idealized plan, we would specifically drive up to the school in a van on report card day, grab our report cards and steal the 25 cent candy machine in the front lobby of the school that our group had collectively spent so much money on over the four years we went to Rothesay High School. 

As with the original plan, the original roadtrip was going to have my whole high school close knit group of friends so about five of us (hence the need for the van). However, high school graduation came and went, and suddenly it was University that needed planning for. Out of the blue I realized how underprepared for University I was and everyone else just sort of slinked away into summer jobs or university prep (Myself included) and the plan just fell by the wayside.

So University came and after three years came and went it seemed like University graduation was coming on as quickly as high school did. The plan for this epic roadtrip to celebrate a new sense of completion came up again. However at this point the old group was divided between school, work and just plain life. It appeared that of the original five roadtrippers, the pool had shrunk to four, which isn't that bad as it allowed planning to have a car rather than a van.

Unfortunately, fourth year of University turned out to be soul crushingly difficult, busy and more life cross-roadsy than I imagined. By the end of the academic year I was just happy to have made it out alive and was more concerned with my immediate plans than with this amazing trip that would celebrate a true milestone of my adult life. So University graduation came and went, I got a job and an apartment within Halifax and all of a sudden I was 400km away from this group I had made this vague roadtrip pact with way back in high school. One roadtripper ended up doing his own bike trip that year and was then out of contention. The other roadtripper ended up taking a fifth year to complete his degree so when this roadtrip came around the timing was too early.

Thus the roadtrip ended up being a serious venture between only two people: Myself and Geoff. With no academic pressure to worry about and the freedom of thought that came with following a routine of work and not work, the idea of this country spanning trip started taking shape. I didn't know at the time that I would be going back to school, I just knew that first I was working a summer job, and then after that I ended up on contract at the same place (The Saint Mary's University Patrick Power Library), the contract that would be terminated at the beginning of April 2011. This gave a sense of a framework that this trip could be worked around. I knew that at the very least, I would have at least one month without work stretching to however many months I chose, and as long as I saved enough while I was working, I wouldn't have to worry about the financing of this trip.

And so, through the long winter months I started fleshing out the planning for this trip. Originally going to be three months long, a conference with Geoff over winter break hammered some reality into it and shortened the length of the trip to one solid month of travelling. Although plenty of people warned that one month isn't enough time to cross the country, let me assure you that it is, it just isn't enough time to do it thoroughly.

People have asked me what my favourite part of the whole trip was. I didn't think this was going to be a very difficult question to answer but upon reflection it turns out, it really is. I want to say that each province had it's own charms but even that isn't fair to some provinces that simply have to be visited if you live in Canada and others that don't work very hard advertising themselves. I would have to say that my favourite part of the trip was simply having the opportunity to do so. I know that not everyone has a month free, a few disposable thousand dollars and a friend in the same situation, and while I feel that at some point in their lives everyone should drive, fly, train, canoe, walk, whatever across Canada, I was lucky to be able to accomplish this at my age, when most other people fresh out of school are grappling with debt. 

If I had the chance to do it all again the only thing I might change would be to convince more people to go with me, but then again that might change the whole experience so who knows what I would do. I do know for sure that if I had the chance to do it all again with the knowledge I have now I would do it all again, although I think I might figure out a way to do it with less driving! Even though I planned for this trip to be mostly driving across the Trans-Canada Highway, in reality it turns out to be even more driving than I expected it to be.

Also as a note to past self and future travellers, DO NOT plan to camp before Victoria Day, very few campgrounds anywhere will be open, no matter how hard you search. Although this added a bit of cost having to stay in hotel/motels most of the trip, I would advocate that the extra expense is worth it. The one day we did camp we had to get to the campground while there was still light out, set up the tent, get all our stuff inside, and sleep. Then the next day you have to spend time cleaning out the tent, taking all the stuff down and repacking the car. At least with a hotel you can show up at 10pm, go right to sleep and get up at 8 or 9am and be on the road in 30 minutes if you want to.

In conclusion, after reflecting on it I've decided that the best way to sum up the trip is this: Canada is a glorious country. All the verses in our anthem about the true north being strong, free and beautiful are there for a reason. The natural beauty is enshrined in our National, Provincial and local parks, our historic sites and in the very people who populate this great country. However, you don't have to travel across the country to see it, every province we visited had some sort of nice park or neat historical site that the local population can easily access. I know this sounds a bit like this blog was bought out by the heritage ministry but that's really how the trip ended up being. I was hoping to be inspired by all the sights I saw, and while I'm not going to write any great poems or paint any great works, I can at least pay lip service to the sights that I saw, and that by association all you people reading my blog saw. 

As a final side note, I'd like to thank everyone who followed my blog. I wasn't sure how popular of an idea it was going to be to have this running dialogue of my trip, but I the response I got surpassed even my expectation. I was hoping it would be a way for family to keep in touch while I was away and a touchstone for when I get back so I didn't have to jump into a two hour lecture on my trip (That is saved for my slide show!). Soon after however, co-workers, friends and others were responding to my posts, I was getting stories from my parents that people they referred to the blog were following it AND enjoying it as well. So that really gave me the motivation to start posting every day, for the benefit of the audience. I want everyone to know that I derived great pleasure summarizing my experiences of the trip every day into post form and even more pleasure from the fact that people were not only reading the blog, but thinking it was funny, or informative or just plain entertaining. It really meant quite much to me.

So now it's back to reality. I had a month and a few days to escape from the normal routine, but after days of take out food, hotels (seedy and nice) and what seemed like endless car trips I'm ready to inject some normality back into my life. I'm settling into Oakville quite nicely, and while I miss people from Halifax, I'm looking forward to starting school again in the fall. As well, a good chunk of people I know from Halifax and Saint John are moving to Ontario anyway, so it seems like a started a bit of a trend.

For anyone coming to this blog months (or years) down the road, it is a blog of excitement, new discoveries and (sometimes) hardship. While the specifics my fade from my mind, the memories will last forever, and the specifics will always be transcribed on this internet site until the end of time or someone finally presses the giant internet off switch we all know they have hidden away somewhere.

Oakville Outlook

Well, it's the last few days of the trip and I have to say in hindsight this trip has been great. We're currently in Oakville taking the opportunity of free lodgings at my Dad's house. Once again we didn't really do much today because we spent most of it driving but we did get a chance to stop at that ghost town. I have to say though, it was a little disappointing.

This isn't really Depot Harbour's fault (the name of the ghost town), when the town finally went belly up, the sold most of the buildings for scrap (because you can do that somehow) so all that remains are the foundation. On top of all that it's smack dab in the middle of some Ojibwa territory who are very hostile to the federal government, so I felt a little uneasy the whole time.

After driving across a turning bridge (it turns to let boats through) you're stuck on a dirt road the whole way there. The surrounding area is very nice and green, but not very developed. You come in from a fork in the road where some ruined buildings stand guard at the old entrance to the town.

All that is left of a three storey hotel. I guess ghosts don't pay the daily rate.

After that you come into the town proper, where all that remains of actual structures are two log cabins with no roof's. The whole area is overgrown with vegetation other than the roads that run through the place. There are trees growing right out of the houses themselves, which shows that nothing we build can last forever.

Abraham Lincoln's house got to be a national monument, this one isn't so lucky.

Inside the log cabin there was a frog. He was almost like foul bachelor frog but not a bullfrog. I missed him on the first pass but Geoff pointed him out to me when he looked through himself.

Wake up, people are looking at me: Go back to sleep.

The story of Depot Harbour is a sad one, as many ghost towns. Basically this guy owned a lumber mill near Ottawa when he was awarded the contract to build the National Parliament Buildings, so he needed more wood for the construction. So he bought up all the Algonquin forest permits, and built a railway to ship it up to Ottawa. Later he got into the grain market and extended his railway to Depot Harbour, the largest, most calm and most protected harbour in the Georgian Bay, a town he founded himself. The town grew as it took advantage of the surge in the international grain markets, eventually reaching a population of 650 in 1911. Unfortunately by the 1920's CNR had bought up all the railways in Ontario and shut down the Depot Harbour railyard. Later in the 30's a ice jam broke the railway trestle in Algonquin and cut off the railway link to the town.

In the 1940's they stored cordite there (An explosive powder used in artillery shells) until a post war Arson destroyed the harbour in a spectacular explosion, subsequently most of the people moved away. After about 20 years, all the buildings were scrapped so only the foundations remained.

All that remains of a mighty man's office

There wasn't much left of the harbour (due to the explosion) but there is still the moorings left on the far side of the harbour (near where we parked). It's shows that human construction can sometimes take more than a huge explosion and still stand. Unfortunately that couldn't be said for the rest of the town.

A little concrete can go a long way I guess.

Conclusion? Don't go to Depot Harbour without a tour guide, or at least make a half day trip out of it rather than somewhere you expect to spend only an hour. I think there were more roads that went elsewhere to the ruined town, but it wasn't well marked and we were in a hurry.

Unfortunately this is likely to be the last post for a while. After today we're just driving through Quebec and then back down to New Brunswick to drop Geoff off and grab some stuff to bring back to Oakville. This trip has been amazing and I would recommend anyone interested to repeat the trip, or at least go to some of the highlights. I plan to have a epilogue to this blog, but it won't be posted for the next little while.

Wild Ontario Roadways

Another driving day today, got up early in Thunder Bay and hit the road for Sault Ste Marie. For anyone expecting awesome ghost town stories, my apologies but it was actually past Sault Ste Marie so I won't have any stories about it until tomorrow.

However, that does not mean that today was devoid of awesome memories. This trip has had a few objectives that I've been hoping to achieve since the start. I wanted to see how flat the prairies are, I wanted to walk in Banff National Park, I wanted to see lots of wildlife and I wanted to get ice cream from a highway roadside ice cream stand.

Now obviously I have done the majority of them, and while I have seen lots of wildlife there has been one animal that has been eluding me: The Moose. I don't know if I somehow travelled across the country in some sort of sub-par Moose season, but I assumed that going in the high season of spring, there would be Moose stumbling out of winter hibernation (Or whatever they do) and want to have delicious food and salts that could both be located near people. However I was spurned at every turn, driving the entire distance west (save Newfoundland) of the Trans-Canada Highway and then coming back almost 3/5th's east I had yet to see a single one. Even walking through multiple national parks and a few provincial ones, still no Moose. It's almost like they have some sort of Moose Information Network and they warned all Moose to stay 500m away from me. Either way it doesn't matter because today I saw not just one, not just two, but five Moose spread out across a 50km stretch of highway.

I'm like the paparazzi, I don't stop until I find wild animals in their most vulnerable

So that made me feel that much more accomplished in the perspective of this roadtrip. Geoff and I have had spirited debates on whether the side of the road ice cream stand on highways are more or less extinct. He hypothesizes that because people are lazy, they figure they drive right on past ice cream stands knowing that they have tubs of it at home, or can just get it where ever they are going. I feel that side of the road ice cream stands, especially by gas stations strike at you when you're most vulnerable. Picture it: you're driving down the highway, it's really hot and you're super bored, when suddenly an ice cream stand appears like a mirage in the desert. As you approach it, you realize it is real, and you pull over and get a cone.

The ice cream stand was turning out to be like the moose of the trip, but since we've gotten past Regina we've passed more and more of them, especially in Ontario. It appears that they just don't open until the Victoria Day weekend so they sort of spring up like toadstools across the way. Unfortunately I haven't stopped at any of them because of our 'no turning around-sy's' on our roadtrip. Basically if we pass something on the highway but we've already passed it, it's gone forever unless we travel back in the opposite direction later. While this may seem heartless, if we turned around for everything that seems interesting, we'd still be in Alberta going towards BC at this point. Suffice to say, I haven't gotten any ice cream yet.

We stopped at a rest stop after a while and I took the opportunity to take in the sights. While I'm going to show everyone a nice picture of the river with the overpass, you need to be warned that this place was not so idyllic. We discovered a veritable murder ground of small woodland creatures. Normally I wouldn't worry about this, it's nature and stuff gets eaten all the time, since animals need to eat too, and large animals sometimes eat smaller ones. However today I found a rabbit's foot, then I found another one, and then I found a disemboweled bird carcass. It was like there was some sort of woodland party going on at the rest stop and something just came in and ate the stuffing out of the whole lot of them, then left pieces of the lesser animals everywhere as some sort of warning. Maybe there was some sort of animal kingdom serial killer on the loose! I didn't think about it too hard because we really needed to get back on the road.

Looks like a job for CSI: Ontario Wilderness. "Looks like the killer couldn't bear to stay around... YEEAAAAAAHHH"

Finally we made one last stop in Wawa before getting to our destination. Now we didn't actually go into Wawa, we just visited the tourism centre because of the giant goose. The giant goose has a bit of a story, it's a 9m tall steel Canadian Goose that stands on the intersection of Highway 101 and Highway 17. The town of Wawa means "Wild Goose" in Ojibwa, so they wanted to make a statement that reflected their heritage. A local businessman wanted to build this statue to commemorate the construction of Highway 17 across the shores of lake superior that created an access point for Wawa. Up to the construction of Highway 17 (Which wasn't completed until 1960) the only way to get to Wawa was by ferry or train, so getting a highway was a bit of a big deal.

Most the town thought that a statue was a stupid idea, but he went and built it anyway from his own pocket. Unfortunately he made it basically out of plaster and chicken wire, and anyone who knows anything about Canadian weather can see this is a bad idea. After a total of two years the statue was basically falling apart, but it had done it's job, it was a draw to Wawa for motorists and it was a rallying point for the community, so they replaced the statue with a huge foundation and topped it with the steel bird designed by a famous European immigrant who has designed other monuments across the highway. So the giant goose stands to this day.

All that was missing was mounds of poop everywhere and it would be completely realistic

The statue was build with support from the Federal and Provincial Governments of the time. I figure this was sort of the 'stimulus spending' of the 1960's. Instead of funding the replace the doorknobs in Universities and public buildings, they just build giant animal statues across the Trans-Canada Highway. Probably about as useful.

Tomorrow we're planning on getting to Oakville for a free stay at Dad's house and some all you can eat sushi. Oh also the ghost town too! Hopefully we don't get possessed! As with when we went to the mint, if there is no post tomorrow or you get one that suddenly has a change in tone or content, call an exorcist.

Great Canadian Mint Tour

Although we spent the day driving from Winnipeg, MB to Thunder Bay, ON we still had time to stop over at the Winnipeg branch of the Royal Canadian Mint and take a little tour there. The first floor where you can mill about without paying for a tour was neat enough, there was a machine where you could print your own currency, a gold bullion bar and some interactive features.

While we were waiting for the tour we took a look around at some of the features. The first thing we saw was their set of 2010 Olympic metals they had on display. Close up like that you can almost feel like you won one! It was neat because they had patterns on the metal that linked up (If you somehow won multiple metals) into a larger pattern, sort of like a puzzle. Unfortunately the metals aren't pure bronze, silver and gold, they're just electroplated metals, which makes sense because I can't see the Canadian Government issuing $50,000 gold metals to every person who ranked first in every event.

I just saved myself hundreds of weeks of intensive athletic training

What I thought was really cool was the fact that they had a gold bullion brick. They just had it sitting out there in the open for anyone to lift up, and I have to say: That this was heavy. I mean, it was attached to the pedestal by a chain, and there was a security officer who's sole responsibility seemed to be ensuring that no one steals the gold, which is worth approximately $10 million dollars. The mint took is seriously enough that the security person had a gun, which she jokingly threatened to use if we tried to run off with it.

"What'd you get from the mint?" 'Oh, you know, just millions of dollars in gold bullion"

Of course, Geoff just had to try his hand at moving the gold bar, although it wasn't too hard to move it around, I think you'd have a hard time running off with it. Fortunately because I am blogging this post, we didn't get arrested for attempted capital theft so we're not currently rotting in jail.

Geoff wouldn't do very well in stripes and chains

Before we went upstairs, I took advantage of the coin making machine. Unlike the traditional ones that take a piece of bronze or copper and pressing it into some crazy shape, this one was more awesome. Although it cost $3, it used a machine that was actually used to print currency between the 1940's to the late 1960's. While they use more efficient machines now, the older ones are still quite useful for tourists. What I made was effectively a silver dollar, but I thought it was pretty neat.

Vacations: Exchanging money for sentimental memory since the 20th century

After that, we went upstairs to see the whole currency making process in action. Unfortunately they only made coins here, collector coins are made in Ottawa and they outsource the bill making process. However, did they ever make lots of coins! The tour guide said at full production, they make 20 million coins a day! While the Canadian economy has no need for that many new coins a day, the Mint actually uses it's excess capacity to make coins for other countries. At this point there are about fifty countries that outsource some or all of their coin currency production to Winnipeg. They claim that if you take 10 of any collection of international coins, at least four of them would be made at that location. Pretty neat huh?

While I wasn't allowed to take pictures of any of this process, I did have a good picture of the outside of the mint, which I guess will have to be good enough for everyone not actually on this roadtrip.

The Canadian government: Protecting it's secrets against tourists since 2001

Tomorrow we're going from Thunder Bay to Sault. St. Marie, with stops at the worlds largest Canada Goose (Statue) and a bona fide ghost town. Should be exciting!

Pleasant Prairie Days

Well today went perfectly as planned, which was a nice change of pace over the last few days. We started the day at our hotel and usually I don't mention the continental breakfast that most of these places have because they're pretty bland. For a continental breakfast you can usually expect some kind of cereal, some toast, maybe some bagels. If you're in a two star set up you might even have more than one type of bagels and some muffins.

However this place, the Days Inn in Regina had the option to make your own breakfast sandwich. That's right they had friggin' English Muffins, a heated tray with egg patties and sausage patties, it was amazing. I still only had one but it was a great way to start the day. I'd definitely recommend a stay at the Days Inn Regina if you're there for a few days and want to spend more than a rate that would get you a bed bug infested room but not so much you have to remortgage your house just to stay for a week.

The goal was to go from Regina to Winnipeg, which is about 600 km. Normally that wouldn't be too bad but you lose an hour going over the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border so it is like driving 700km. We were hoping to stop over at the Spirit Sands Park (The mini-desert mentioned in the blog posts a ways back) and check out the Artillery Museum in Shilo, MB. Unfortunately the park was no longer underwater, but it was still closed to visitors as they waited for it to drain out. Apparently there was so much water they were afraid the whole area would turn to quicksand for a while, and they didn't want to take any risks. While neither did we so we just kept on going.

We did get a chance to stop over at the Artillery Museum in Shilo and that was a pretty awesome time. It was neat because unlike other museums this one was in a working CFB so you got to see modern day military stuff going on while you explored the past. The Canadian Artillery Regiment is based there so it makes sense the museum was set up there. Many pieces that all saw active service were housed there so it really gave you a connection to the past. They had tiny 6 pound guns that would have been shipped over from Britain and France to see service in the colonial periods, to great big howitzers that saw use up to as recently the 80's.

The some of the artillery pieces had little diorama's set up to show how they may have been used in action. For the little 6 pounder it would be more impressive if I hadn't lived near the Citadel for five years to see what they actually looked like in action.

Unfortunately for all you internet denizens, this is not some sort of rule 34 request involving 18th century cannons 

Inside the building they also had a very concise military history of Canada that I really enjoyed. It basically took the 5 hour experience that was the Museum of War and distilled it into a 20 minute walk through. It wasn't as graphically pleasing (No pictures) but it got the job done. If you're any fan of military history I would recommend taking the inside tour for the $5 charge.

The outside of the building also housed some larger artillery pieces that wouldn't fit inside the building. They were a little more worn but they gave you a better idea of what they might have looked like when they were in service. The collection also allowed you to see the evolution of artillery over the generations of war. You start out with the little cannons up there and they got bigger and bigger until World War One when they were really big. Then in World War Two mobility was more of an issue so you started seeing them get smaller but still more powerful until you ended up with this:

I'm sure some people wish they had one of these strapped to their car during rush hour!

They even had a rocket truck in their yard. I didn't think Canada ever had any of these but apparently they made up the missile deterrent defence that replaced the Avro Arrow. I think we sort of lost points for gracefulness in that trade off:

Put a Nuclear Missile on something that just about anyone could hijack? Seems like a good idea to me!

That was pretty much it for the day. The rest of it was spent driving to Winnipeg. Tomorrow we visit the Mint and make our way back to Ontario. If there is no post for tomorrow, it's because we got arrested for Geoff trying to steal gold bullion, and need someone to come bail us out!

Run-down in Regina

Finally got out of Edmonton today, but at what cost?! When we went to load up the car, Geoff noticed one of the tires was a little low, so we went and put air in it. Being surprisingly cautious for Geoff, he checked to make sure there wasn't air leaking out of it, and low and behold, there was. I was planning to waive it off but Geoff convinced me otherwise. I figured that if it was from the pothole that was three days ago so obviously it could wait until Oakville. However, the car was driven very little between then and now, so we probably shouldn't take the risk with so much distance left to cover. 

So we went back to the Canadian Tire who so gladly fixed up the car hoping that for a quick patch to solve the problem. They were able to take the car in quickly enough and tested it fast enough. Then low and behold it was deemed irreparable and also have to be replaced. Also I found it was interesting that as soon as I authorized the repair, there was not a mechanic to be found, it took them an hour to go over to the pile of tires and put it on the car. So we left about three hours behind schedule (We got up late).

I can only hope that this car and pull itself together and make it over the rest of the way of the trip. The rest of the day was subsequently spent driving the 8-9 hours over to Regina, SK, where we find ourselves now. As a final insult it would appear that some big thing is going on here so every hotel in the city was booked, we managed to find a spot after much searching, and it is nice, but it was added, unneeded stress.

It would appear that this trip is trying its hardest to end on a sour note, but we'll see how that goes. There are still a few more spots to hit up so there is hope for cheerier blog posts over the next few days.

As promised, due to no pictures today, more video on cats: