The Perambulator

The drive into Thunder Bay is incredible. Majestic bluffs, forest, farms, and fields. Thunder Bay itself was a litle bit of a disappointment. It wasn’t any worse than how I remembered it from the early eighties and still smells like the pulp mill.

I stopped at the first park I came to and immediately met a young traveller from California, Jacob. He was a poet and a warm welcome to Canada for me. I found more of a welcome down in the gritty part of the city. I work with the homeless and I intended to tour the local shelter.

The shelter was easy to locate. All I had to do was follow the trail of homeless natives who had just left the midday meal there. There were a lot of them. The support worker on duty was quite helpful. She described their operation and encouraged me to have lunch.

Hearing I was from the states, one of the men engaged me in conversation. He had a pension but only got by with the aid of the free meals at the shelter. He insisted that Americans must impeach Bush. Now I don’t object to that, but I am quite confidant that our figurehead is only a small percentage of our problem.

After I ate, I joined the staff and workers in the smoking area out by the rank dumpsters. I met a woman there who had just been evicted, was unable to stay with her relatives, and was a few years shy of retirement. She had just moved into the shelter. She said there was provincial aid available but that you had to hire a lawyer to access it.

I drove down to a nearby shopping center, parked to study my map, and noticed two old guys examining a rock with a jewelers lens. Of course, I got out and struck up a conversation. They were looking at a chunk of kimberlite and said they did a little prospecting to supplement their incomes. Bob was a WWII veteran and the other guy was only a little younger. They also had to give me their opinion on Bush so I asked them if they disliked Bush so much, why did they elect themselves a Bush clone? We all laughed. This area was also crawling with homeless natives.

From there I went down to the waterfront where a group of workers were setting up a stage for free concerts that evening. I figured I would stay and enjoy a show. While I waited I walked the promenade and admired the bay. As I gazed at the water, I noticed something unusual on the bottom. There were two computers looking as if a couple drunks had tossed them in as some kind of hurling contest. Weird.

I fully intended to stay for the free music on the waterfront in Thunder Bay. It was still an hour before it was to start and the audience was slowly starting to arrive. As I was standing by the water a woman walked up with her two kids. I had heard them coming. The daughter was persistently trying to amuse her mother with a knock knock joke but consistently failed to deliver the punchline.

I greeted them, and shortly gained enough confidence with the child to give her the old banana knock knock:

Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

This old joke elicits groans around my house but in this particular circumstance amused the family to no end. Despite this pleasantry, I was restless and not quite comfortable with Thunder Bay so I decided not to go to the amethyst mines and drove off west. Riding Mountain was calling me. The drive from Thunder Bay to the Manitoba line on TC17 is long, isolated and monotonous. I came across this trucker who must have fallen asleep at the wheel. This was a beer truck folks. Don’t cry.

I crossed into Manitoba around midnight and pulled in to the first rest area. I arose in time to capture this gorgeous sunrise.

I’m not much for cities, so I turned off the Trans Canada and tooled through Whiteshell Provincial Park. I saw a pair of beautiful foxes and several deer. These two tried to stay still for their portrait.

I passed a village West of the park and about a mile farther along the road saw a hiker walking facing traffic. Of course I stopped to render assistance if possible and asked the grizzled man if he would like a ride. He was carrying a pack, had a light jacket on for the morning chill, and had quite the blond bush rolling off his chin. He was extremely taciturn. It was a struggle to extract any info. I did figure out that he had been on the streets for five years, had spent the last seven months in Southern Ontario, and was originally from Winnipeg. That is about all he told me in an hours drive and here I was desperate for conversation. It wasn’t long before it dawned on me that he might be hungry. All the food I had in the car was half a bag of potato chips. I handed them to him and he began to eat with the deliberation and thoroughness of a truly hungry man. He looked at me before they were gone and I said, “Go ahead and eat them all.” I also offered him some water and he guzzled a liter and a half, draining my water bottle dry. When he was finished, I asked him how long it had been since he had had anything to eat and he replied, “Two days.” When we got North of Winnipeg I began to look for a place where I could treat him to a real breakfast. However, as soon as I stopped he grabbed his pack and left with nary a goodbye. Tough for him as I was also going to slip him a few dollars to ease his arrival in Winnipeg. I had never been up the Interlake so I turned north heading for the Manitoba Narrows. This was beautiful farm and ranch country with oak savannahs. I was amazed at the quantity of oak trees. I took my first break at the village of St. Laurent on the shore of Lake Manitoba.

North of St Laurent the map showed several villages but none were apparent on the ground. The area surrounding the Narrows was perfectly flat with forests and hayfields and very few habitations. Ste Rose du Lac marked the change from ranch land to farmland and I started to see Harleys, ponytails, and hemp fields. I took the scenic route into Dauphin along the shore of Dauphin Lake. I went to the city campground, parked, strolled downtown, and had a burger at the stand in front of the Co-Op. I had a vague notion that I would go to the library, use their internet, and try to contact my stumble friend who lives in Dauphin but I was still restless (sorry Lisa) so I went down to the government offices, obtained my SI number, and headed south for Riding Mountain.