For those counting (I sure am) this is my fourth time zone this week. Though I’ll be in this time zone for at least a week, so hopefully I’ll have some time to catch up with myself here.
So, I’m in Thunder Bay, in a hotel room instead of a hostel (which is a bit of a culture shock, actually, after four nights in dorm rooms). So far my “Victoria’s Super Awesome Road Trip Rules” are holding true, especially when it comes to just mentally adding at least two hours onto whatever time estimate Google Maps is giving.
Which is how it came to take me about nine hours to get here from Winnipeg instead of seven. I arrived too late to try out the local pastry delicacy, a persian. Maybe I’ll be able to snag one tomorrow for breakfast.
Not much to report today. I’m definitely in the Canadian Shield. It was interesting to watch the landscape shift from the utter flat of the Winnipeg area to the boreal forest and hills and massive rocks of eastern Manitoba and northern Ontario. And there are so many pretty lakes. I like driving these roads! There are actual curves! I am not kidding, I hate the never-ending straightness of prairie highways. I’m from B.C., and highway driving in Alberta nearly causes me to unhinge on a regular basis.
The interesting observation from today is the sheer number of inuksuit along the Trans Canada here, which is Hwy. 17. I thought I was going a bit nuts at first, but I’d say I saw at least a hundred in the hours and hours of driving. Thankfully, the Internet knows all the answers to my stupid questions, including this one. The prevalence of people randomly building them as a “I was here” thing is even mentioned in the inuksuk Wikipedia entry (and it is better than graffiti, I suppose).
So if you’re ever driving in northern Ontario, now you know that you’re not crazy when you first think “was that an inuksuk that seemed to be perched at the top of the giant heaps of rocks that have been blasted to put the highway through” as you careen by.
Tomorrow, I hurtle towards Sault Ste. Marie as I continue my drive towards the centre of the universe (Toronto).
Speaking of centres, I am now more than halfway across Canada. I passed the longitudinal centre just outside of Winnipeg this morning. It was a pretty boring sign so I didn’t take a photo.
Victoria Paterson 