Maywood Community School Students Raise Funds for Clean Water for Ethiopia

I was recently informed by Brenda Hain, Teacher-Librarian at Maywood Community School in Burnaby, B.C. that  students (elementary) raised $100.00 for the Clean Water for Ethiopia Project. Peter Frouse, an ESL teacher at Maywood told me earlier that staff would be working with students on such a project and I am glad to observe that this initiative has been achieved.  The contribution is generous, significant and demonstrates the high level of social responsibility that these children hold for others in need. This demonstration of compassion is not uncommon at Maywood so many thanks to students and staff who supported this important fund-raising initiative. It is greatly appreciated :)

Doug

Natural Northwestern Ontario

Dear Friends,

I'm catching up on a few things on my rest day in English River, a little hunting and fishing outpost along Highway 17. I am not a hunter, nor do I condone it but it is the economic mainstay for this little community. The English River Inn (a great place to stay) fortunately doesn't post gruesome photographs of bears and moose hanging by a chain from some crossbeams with happy hunters smiling beside their trophies like one place I visited.

I've heard all the arguments but I still can't stomach the gratification someone can get in killing wildlife for fun. One day when I was riding past a ranch near Starbuck Manitoba, a small herd of cattle (acknowledging that they are not wild) started running alongside the fence skirting the road beside me. It was a remarkable sight as they didn't seem to be startled by me but seemed like they were joining me for a bit of my ride. Maybe I started a stampede. Okay, I'm probably anthropomorphizing a little too much here, but I really felt a connection with those animals. Something similar happened at an elk ranch in eastern Manitoba and I experienced the same sentimentality. A city boy mentality, I suppose. Nonetheless, I must admit that I am unresolved with the meat eating dilemna. I guess the main issue for me is about killing wildlife for fun as opposed to necessity or one's livelihood.

Highway 17 is a long run (by bike) of over 500 km. between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, Ontario, with a handful of small communities in between. When I first looked at the route on the map, I admit that I felt intimidated by the open spaces and perceived long rides in the north Ontario wilderness without much "civilization". It turned out much better than imagined as I began to feel more intimate with the countryside. It was much friendlier than I thought. One night, I had to camp in a rest stop because there was no other choice given time and distance factors. I had an exceptional time at Jackfish Lake, humming John Lennon's lyric, "Oh that magic feelin', no where to go...!" After my MEC dehydrated seafood chowder (recommended), I took an evening stroll to the lake and watched the moon's reflection on it's glassy surface with background sounds of loons, frogs and of intermittent 18 wheelers from the highway. Later, when settling in to the Summer Moon (my tent), I heard the distant roll of thunder preceded with a few flashes of lightening. Although it seemed afar, the patter of rain began and pretty much put me to sleep, feeling fairly secure, thinking that the weather would help dissuade bears from interrupting my much needed sleep.

The next morning brought breaks in the sky and the promise of a good day. It turned out to be one of my best as the winds were mostly friendly and I covered a little over 120 km to English River. I was a rather tired in the a.m. but got a welcome 2nd wind in the afternoon and 3rd in the evening. The landscape flattened out which also helped considerably.

One event worth noting occurred earlier in the day when I rolled into rest stop to look for water. I had another 40 km to go to reach a town called Ignace and had about 500 ml of Gaterade remaining. I drink a lot of water, especially on a warm day so I thought I'd try my luck although I didn't think there would be a reliable source. I was having a conversation with a truck driver from Quebec when an odd looking fellow, sporting a scraggly beard and crooked yellow tear drop sunglasses, approached. He seemed rather eccentric and interrupted with irrelevant comments. His old van was parked on the other side of the pull over and it's open side door revealed that he was the "keeper of many things". He was the kind of fellow I was tempted to ignore or placate but he asked me straight out, "How are you doing for water?" What a question! Guardian angels don't look like this, I thought. As I cautiously joined him at his van, he warned me about his vicious dog who did not look dangerous at all but rather motley, like his master. He told me that he filled up with water from the Huskey Station in Kenora and proceeded to grab an old plastic Coke bottle with the bottom cut out for a funnel and filled up my water bottle to overflowing before I knew it. My cup runneth over as there was abundance for all! A line from an old hymn came to mind later as I resumed my ride towards Ignace..."His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me..."

I thanked him for his generosity, we shook hands and wished each other well. He said he was heading for Halifax and debated whether he should take the Lake Superior route past Thunder Bay because it's twisty and steep...the route I may be taking. I'd rather not hear about that.

I'm grateful for this rest day as I've slept, fed, walked (what a concept!) and written - some functions repeatedly. It's a great opportunity to pour over my map to plan potential routes and destinations. My next leg will probably include Thunder Bay to Wawa, Ontario. In a couple of days, I would like to visit the Terry Fox Lookout, east of TB. Tomorrow, I'll be in the Eastern Time Zone...crazy, huh? 

I'm not covering the mileage I hoped to achieve but I believe it's the journey that's most important and it's better to "respond" than "react" to changing elements of my ride. I'm grateful for how well things have gone so far. Is Ottawa at the end of Canada? This country is so damn big!

Thanks for reading.

Take care,

Doug

Jackfish Lake

Doug is snug in his tent, with the comforting sound of big trucks passing by, at a rest stop at Jackfish Lake, Ontario, somewhere between Dinorwic and Borups Corners. The sign conveniently said "No Camping between the hours of 9 AM & 5 PM" so no problem. Oops, that's between 5 PM and 9 AM.  Looking forward to the pictures of the wildflowers and the moon at the lake.

Black Flies in Northern Ontario

The song going through Doug's head as he tries to out-ride the deer flies.

From the Prairies to the Canadian Shield

Dear Friends,

How does that 'ol country tune, go?..."Back in the saddle again..." Back on the saddle again is more like it. Got back home to celebrate my Mom's 90th - a wonderful time. I think she really enjoyed herself, I know I did! I landed back in Winnipeg in the rain but the next morning was beautiful and I rode to Hadashville, then Kenora on Sunday and here to Vermilion Bay, today. I kind of miss the prairies, they seemed so open and honest...it was easier to anticipate what was going to happen weather wise. At first I felt a little intimidated by it's vast openness but I got used to it. Today I was faced with a lot of hill work but not like the extremes of B.C.

In Winnipeg, I was hosted by Lee and Wayne Anderson who were remarkably generous with their home so I publicly thank them for their kindness. In Kenora, I was hosted by Jennifer Finlay and Tim Wehner so a thanks to you both as well. I am struck by the kindness of folks I've met along the way and I'm most grateful. speaking of folks you meet...I was finishing a plate of cabbage rolls at Sophie's Cafe in Hadashville when I encountered a fellow who seemed interested in the particulars of my bike trip. As we chatted, I felt that I had met him before but how could this be, I've never been in this neck of the woods before. It turned out that he and Deanna, his wife were one of the two couples who were selected for the History Channel series, Pioneer Challenge, a few years ago. They were given supplies that settlers of over 100 years ago would have had to survive with on the prairie for at least a year. It was a remarkable series and I am so glad that I had an opportunity to meet them. Interesting things happen when traveling.

I have a fairly challenging ride tomorrow so I'll sign off shortly but not without commenting on the voracity of Deer Flies..they are the jetfighter pilots of the insect world and their central strategy is to dive bomb you from all angles until you crack. I have been practicing "on bike" meditation to ignore their antics and as long as you are moving, they seldom land and bite. I was moving at 25 km/h and they were flying ahead of me and making tight turns to buzz me. Maybe I should think of them as Dolphins playing in my bow wave, but really, it doesn't feel that endearing, or should I say, en-deering. Locals suggest rubbing lemon on your clothes, etc. so I'll give this a try. When you experience lemons, you might as well make lemon-ade.
This is the lemon twist to my story today.

Bye for now,

Doug

Rest Day at Last!

Dear Friends,

It's been 8 days since I left Regina for Winnipeg and all points inbetween. I left Starbuck, Manitoba fairly early Thursday morning and arrived in the SE part of Winnipeg at around noon. I'm being hosted by Lee and Wayne Anderson and am benefitting from their generous accomodation at present - very much appreciated! Lee and Wayne are related to Janey and John Talbot, good friends of mine back home. I was treated to a tour of the waterways of the city including the flood control system. Very interesting. Great food and conversation is an amazing antedote to solitude and a repetitive diet of Subway sandwiches.

The reason I haven't taken a rest day after my intended 4th day is because of the wind. The Weather network enables me to see forecasted wind directions for coming days ahead. I enter a window of opportunity to ride if a westerly is blowing to my advantage. As you know, a headwind makes for a tough day with decreased mileage. Sometimes that's life, but if you get a run of westerlies, you have got to take advantage of the situation. Three days ago, I covered 120 km without exhausting myself which was very satisfying.

Winnipeg is a beautiful city, rich in the fine and performing arts and higher educational institutions. Today I visited Assinaboine Park, specifically an outdoor sculpture garden. I also headed downtown to the Manitoba Museum to get more background on the amazing history of this place. As I walked down near Portage and Main, a fellow sitting on a bench beckoned me over to him..."Hey you, you'd better get ready because it's going to rain!" I looked up and although it was overcast, it didn't look like rain to me and I'm from the coast. Fifteen minutes later, the clouds unleashed their ample supply of rain and I was drenched. The farmers can't plow their fields for seeding at present because they're sodden which is a serious time sensitive problem for them (and us) at the very least. I also took my bike over to Woodcock Cycles, a great shop on St. Marys Street to get some repairs done. I'm a bit of a bike shop junkie and enjoy observing variations in bicycle culture best located in shops with the people who you find there.

Looking back at the Regina to Winnipeg run, a few experiences stand out...

Montmartre (locals pronounce it "Mo-mart") was my first stop after Regina off of Highway 48. One of it's claims to fame is the 30' Eiffel tower at the head of Main Street. Montmartre was settled by French Farmers in the 1880's. This is about as close to the subtlties of Parisian culture in Mo-mart as one will likely get in my opinion. I stayed at the local hotel that night and the cacophony of yelling, drunken revelry and fights coming out of the attached local watering hole may be similar to the times of the wild, wild west. Granted, it was Friday night and the establishment was full of cowboys and pipeline roughnecks enjoying themselves after a week of hard work but the noise was incredible. I took a walk outside to achieve a reprieve from the madness and noticed a long horse trailer out front being bounced around and bashed from the inside. Even the horses were going nuts!

All I can say about that experience is 'Yeee Haaaa!" I was glad to see that place in my rear view mirror the next morning. Sorry if I've offended any locals. I'm sure this community has some fine attributes which of course would be noticed over time.

The next stop was Kennedy, Manitoba. On my way, I stopped for lunch at the Red Paper Clip Cottage in a small town called Kipling. You may recall the story of a young fellow who traded up a red paper clip on e-Bay acquiring a fish pen, then a door knob and so on until he finally traded for a small house in Saskatchewan. Well this was the house he concluded his trading challenge with...the cottage where I had lunch. He moved to Montreal and donated the house to the town of Kipling which is now leased out as a Cafe. What a hoot!

Kennedy is smaller than Kipling with no ammenities like a service station and such. It did have a campground at the end of Main Street which was very rudimentary but it was home for the night. The only inhabitants were me and a couple staying in their modest RV. There was water and electricity as well a few delapitated picnic tables but the grass was cut and the view of the rolling prairie to the south was beautiful. I liked this place...not pretentious at all!

As I began to unpack my kit, one of those fast moving storms moved in with battleship grey brewing clouds and brief bursts of thunder. Gord dropped by and as we chatted, it started to rain. I spotted a run down old pavilion for holding picnics under cover, ran and threw my stuff under it's protection just before the deluge. I looked out at the torrent with a sense of satisfaction, security and wonderment at my good fortune. It rained so hard, a mist drifted into my little refuge but this was more refreshing than anything. The smell of prairie grass in the rain made me feel more alive as I stood there in my odd cycling gear watching this remarkable act of nature. The storm passed as quickly as it arrived with the restoration of blue skies and the songs of birds. I could've set up outside again but decided to go for a double ceiling with my tent in the pavilion.

Gord and Betty invited me over for cocktails and munchies which turned out to be ribs and rice. What a feast! Gord and particularly Betty have deep roots in the prairies...Gord is a safety officer for the pipeline and is a country music artist. I got to hear about 3 recordings of his originals. One song in particular was about life on the road staying in less than desireable motels, as country music can convey so well in a lonesome existential sense. Personally, I don't mind staying in cheezy little old motels because they're more convenient than camping but I found the lyrics a little depressing because I thought for a moment that maybe I was one of these sad and lonely losers. As long as those suckers are clean and don't smell too badly, I'm okay. I use the ice from the dispensers for icing my leg and soak in a hot bath tub and I'm good to go for the next day. Whoo Hoo! The Lazy Dee Hotel isn't so bad. I kind of like to rank the kitchy art and tacky wallpaper for my amusement, smug yuppie that I am.

The next morning, I was packed up and ready to go and thought I'd get a good head start on the day when I decided to pump my rear tire up a little harder given the weight I carry. Big mistake! I lost all my air and my crumby pump could not reain it's former pressure. I ended up breaking the valve and replaced it with another inner tube. Pump was broken and I was out of comission. I did have a valve adaptor if only I could get to a gas station. Kipling was 23 km away and fortunately Gord had a day off and offered to drive me to Kipling. Gord and Betty were my guardian angels and I got my tire issue resolved. With a 12:30 start, I was able to resume my journey to Redvers where I may have fulfilled the image portrayed in Gord's song as I stayed in the ancient Redvers Hotel that night. I used a beer bottle to prop up the window but the view was pretty good of the old Redvers Grain Elevator and the Co-op, a prairie institution. I slept well.

My next day was blessed by westerly winds which took me over 100 kilometers to Souris where I arranged B&B accomodation in a beautifully refurbished victorian house. Marilyn, the owner likes cyclists and gave me a great deal and I slept in a room that Lois XIV would feel comfortable in. Highly recommended! Souris is a larger Manitoban town and has a well documented history with the longest suspension bridge in Manitoba. I walked/bounced on it before I left. I did restock my Subway provisions at Marilyn's daughter's store and off I went to Treherne (past Holland) and Starbuck before landing in Winnipeg. I illegally camped near Starbuck but it beat getting hit by a truck at dusk on the shoulderless Highway 2. I watched part of the Stanley cup with some good 'ol boys at the Starbuck Hotel before I found my safe place to tent for the night. All was well!

So here I write this little tome in a Frank Lloyd Wright'esque design of a home overlooking the Red River in Winnipeg, waiting to fly home tomorrow morning to celebrate my Mom's 90th birthday. Hilda immigrated with her family from Norway in the early 1920's and settled in New Westminster. Our family grew up in Burnaby where I still live. Since I've been on the prairies, I have developed a strong sense of the importance of families and their significance to the development of this country. You can smell the family histories out here and time/space becomes even more palpable as I cycle past old country town graveyards and listen in on the conversations of old timers in local cafes. A town of 300 that has 3-4 churches speaks of a time past where communities were more populated and economically robust.
Lots of young people have moved to centers like Winnipeg where they obtained further education and stayed. Some young(er) people are moving out to the country as well to pursue an alternate life style to the urban one so change continues to occur in a variety of ways.

I'm signing off for a week or so until I resume the next part of my cycling journey across Canada.

North Western Ontario, here I come!

Best,
Doug Ibbott

Starbuck - a one coffee town

Yesterday, Doug arrived at his destination of Starbuck and made a decision to carry on toward Winnipeg but quickly realized that there was too much traffic. It was getting toward dusk so after a few kms he turned around, headed back to Starbuck and ended up camping in the park by the golf course.
Winnipeg is very close.

Kipling to Kennedy to Kipling to Kennedy

Doug has discovered that riding on the alternate roads brings more opportunities to see the land, meet the people and have experiences that wouldn't arise while riding on the #1 Hwy.  Doug arrived in Kennedy last night after attending a horse auction, eating lunch at the trade-it-up Paper Clip guy's house, and experiencing a sunset like he's never seen.  In Kennedy, Betty & Gord immediately took him under their wings... fed him dinner and breakfast and helped to make his tenting comfortable.  This morning there's a few problems with a bike tire that required a gas station air pump and so Gord has driven Doug back to Kipling to pump up the tire. (don't run out of gas!)  Late start but Doug expects to make it to Redvers tonight.  At least he doesn't have to give up his hour crossing the time zone until tomorrow.

Looking forward to more of Doug's writings...soon.
Lynda

Dear friends,

I've taken a couple of rest days in Regina to get another new tire, find a battery charger, get some physio on my knee and get a little rest for the next leg from here to Winnipeg, Manitoba...I'm opting for an alternate route to Hwy. 1 via Hwy's 48 and 13 which becomes Hwy 2 in Manitoba and leads directly to Winnipeg. I've been generously hosted by Murray and Delores Logan and their two sons, Simon and Andrew in their home in West Regina. Murray is a good friend of a friend of mine...Vic Austen, back in Metro Vancouver. Speaking of generosity, I received physiotherapy from Keith Fitzsimmons of the Regina Sports Physiotherapy Center as a contribution to the Clean Water for Ethiopia Project. Other contributions over the past few days have been free bike repair labor and discounts on equipment, pizza, and a taxi cab ride, all in support of the project. People seem generally enthusiastic in their support of improving the quality of life for others.

At one breakfast place in Moose Jaw, an older gentleman sarcastically commented that "...this was another project to save the world." I know the plethora of humanitarian projects can be overwhelming for some and annoying for others but I believe that more projects provides more latitude for giving in a variety of arenas. One of the reasons I chose Clean Water is that it's not complicated and can provide clean water for life for 4000 people. Dead easy, but essential to the health of the folks in Southern Ethiopia.

I've enjoyed an abundance of clean clear drinking water on my trip to date. I must admit, I haven't been overly concerned with water conservation but I'm reminded of a story of an ultra-marathoner somewhere in the Sahara who jogged into the camp of a nomadic family. A young boy grabbed one of the runner's water bottles attached to his waist and in lightening speed, chugged it's contents to the very last drop before the runner could retrieve it. To this boy, I presume water might be like something precious. In Bonke District, Ethiopia, water accessibility is not the problem but the water quality is - a common problem in many places in the world, yet it is resolvable in many cases.

It's great that so many people have contributed in large and small ways to this project. Folks have many charities they like to support but if someone is looking for a new and effective project to support, I would recommend CWfE.

I wonder if someone woukd be willing to submit a haiku on clean water via the guestbook. I will announce the name(s) of the author(s) if submitted and publish a couple if I receive more than one. I have no t-shirts, mugs or pens on this road trip but fame can be yours.

I'd drink to that!

Goodbye to beautiful Regina (and it is!) and hello Montmartre (not Paris!), south east of Regina about 86 km.

Cheers!

Doug