Sault Ste Marie, Ontario

As summer 2018 comes to a close (it's 0 degrees in Edmonton today!) I am starting out on the next piece of my cross-Canada bicycle trip.

Yesterday afternoon I landed at YAM, Sault Ste. Marie's airport, having flown here via Toronto.

I picked up a rental car and drove straight to Velorution, a bike shop on the north side of Sault Ste. Marie.  I had prearranged for them to do a tune up on my bike, although when I pulled it out of the box it was looking to be in nearly perfect shape.

My bike safely in the good hands of Velorution, I drove into Soo and checked in at my hotel.  Since then, I have been exploring the city.

Last night I went downtown and to the waterfront of the St. Mary's River, whence Sault Ste. Marie gets its name. 

Actually, "sault" means rapids or waterfalls in archaic French, so specifically Sault Ste. Marie's name comes from the rapids of the St. Mary's River.  The rapids forced travelers to stop here while passing between Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and since the late 1800s there have been locks to allow shipping to get by the rapids and up to Lake Superior/down to Lake Huron, depending on the direction of travel. 

This morning I went north along Lake Superior to hike for an hour at a place called Robertson Cliffs.

The weather was lovely, but, sadly, I failed to realize that the morning fog would prevent a good view from the cliffs.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the hike.

From Robertson Cliffs I drove back into Sault Ste. Marie and to the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site.

The historic site is the single set of locks that have ever been on the Canadian side of the river here, and they were built after the Americans refused to allow a steamer full of Canadian soldiers through their locks in 1870.  The soldiers were headed for Thunder Bay and, eventually, further west into the land Canada was purchasing that very year from the Hudson's Bay Company (more-or-less what is now Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta), and presumably the Americans (who seem to have on occasion thought that land might end up theirs) were not so keen on helping Canada assert sovereignty in the west.

Today, the locks that are the final piece of the St. Lawrence Seaway are on the American side, but the Canadian locks are again operational now for recreational purposes.

Besides the historic locks and associated buildings, this site also includes Whitefish Island, which also has an interesting history involving Canada attempting to assert sovereignty and winding up embarrassed.  In this case, Canada expropriated the island from the local Anishinaabe people in the 1890s before finally returning it in the late 1990s.  Meanwhile, during the nearly 100 years of Canadian control, the Anishinaabe burial grounds were removed and the fish spawning location nearly destroyed.  Now, however, apparently Canada and the First Nation jointly manage the island, since it is both a reserve and part of the historic site.

After coffee, lunch, a stroll, and novel shopping at Sault Ste. Marie's only used bookstore, The Skeleton Key, I next headed to Algoma University's Shingwauk Hall.

The tragedy of Whitefish Island is nothing compared to this place, despite how glorious it looks today in the sun and against the blue sky.  While now a part of the university campus, the hall spent its first 35 years of life (1935-1970) as an Indian residential school.  Interestingly, this school's origins (long before the current building was built) seem quite positive, and involved the Anishinaabe Chief Shingwauk's advocacy to have what he termed a "teaching wigwam."  Shingwauk envisioned his people learning the best of Euro-Canadian ways in this wigwam, while of course remaining Anishinaabe.  Needless to say, by the time this hall was built with his name on it, what was happening was quite different than he had imagined.

Algoma University has done an amazing job of turning a floor of the hall into a exhibit, and I spent half an hour or so going through it.

When I was done, Velorution had my bike ready, so I drove there to pick it up.  They seem to have done a great job.  I also needed a new helmet, and, after trying on one with a price tag of $345(!), chose one that cost $120.

I drove the bike back to the hotel, then dropped the car off across the street (Enterprise let me drop the car from the airport in town here, which is nice, because otherwise I would have had to drive out to the airport and cycle back, and each way is 20+ kilometres).

Now I should be all set to start out tomorrow, east towards Ottawa!

Range Road 232 to Red Deer, Alberta

Yesterday, Sunday, morning I began my day at the Stettler Smitty's breakfast buffet, before driving west along the route I had cycled on Saturday.  I parked more or less between Range Road 232 and Red Deer.

It was a much, much sunnier day than it had been on Saturday, with little chance of rain.  I was now completely mentally (although still not physically) prepared for the westerly wind.

I rode east first, back to Range Road 232 (and leaned my bike against the very same reflector pole I had yesterday).

Then I did the tough, into-the-wind ride west to Red Deer.

I crossed the Red Deer River valley, which actually involved some pretty good climbing by prairie standards.  Also, a beautiful river:

Across the river I was now in Red Deer County, the fourth county I have cycled in this weekend--Painted Earth, Stettler, Lacombe, and now Red Deer.

Eventually I reached the top of the "mountain" (I think it is about 150 m above Red Deer's elevation) and could see down to Red Deer and really quite away (the photo just barely gives you a sense for the long distance view).

I made fairly quick time coming down the hill and into the city and across the Red Deer River again (it loops around) to the Wal-Mart where I had cycled from in May 2017.  I stopped in the Wal-Mart to eat lunch at McDonald's, then got back on the bike to head east to the car.

This is where the day took a very interesting and unexpected turn.  I was across the river and up the hill in east Red Deer, at a red stop light just somewhat behind and beside a pick-up truck.  The light was taking a long time to change, so I began drifting towards the sidewalk to hit the pedestrian crossing button hoping to trigger the light change.  

I heard a yell of "No!" and turned to see a German shepherd jumping out the open window of the extended cab, and straight onto my left rear saddle bag.  He held on to it pretty good for a second or so, then moved in on my left calf.  I managed to get my front wheel around enough to hit him with it, and he let go and jumped onto the sidewalk.  Quickly I had my bike out from under me and between my body and the dog's, but by now a young guy was out of the truck and grabbing the dog's leash.

I looked down to see the damage.  Two red spots were growing through my white leggings, evidently where the dog's fangs had broken skin.  I took off the sleeve from my right arm and tied it around, hoping to at least slow the bleeding.

I was in total shock.  Nothing hurt, but it was taking me awhile to process what had actually happened!

The young guy's first words were "can I give you some money for those pants"?  Which to me suggested he was pretty shocked as well.  

I actually do not even remember much of the conversation, but eventually I said something like, "that can never happen again," and he was on his way.  I took another minute to collect myself and remounted my bike.

I had another 20 km to go, which I did as quickly as I could.  The bite was beginning to hurt intermittently, but quite badly when it did.  The bleeding was not serious, but I was not sure what it would look like when I took the leggings off.

I finished around 16:00.  

After packing up the car I headed north, past Joffre, towards Ponoka.  I was thinking at first I would go to a hospital in Edmonton, but the pain was increasing and I decided I would stop in Ponoka instead.

I think this was a good choice, because the emergency room was nearly empty, and I was quickly in to see the doctor.  Together we stripped my leg, and it seemed much worse than I had expected.  There were two sizable gouges where the fangs had gone in, one of which was probably an inch and a half long.  There were much smaller marks where other teeth had bitten in, although these were relatively minor.

The doctor told me he would need to stitch up the two fang cuts, so he got me on a table, splashed some type of disinfectant in (which certainly brought the bleeding back!), and then stuck me with needles (for tetanus in the shoulder and freezing in the leg).  By 17:30 I had six stitches and was on my way back to Edmonton.

Once the freezing wore off my leg was really hurting, but as my girlfriend says, at least I had a good story to tell!

So, with this trip complete, I have now cycled this route across Alberta:

Botha to Range Road 232, Alberta

It was raining on Saturday morning when I woke up, so I put off leaving for a little bit, then, once it had let up, cycled east from Stettler to Botha.  As it was yesterday, my time heading east was much better than coming back west.

But, I managed to average almost 26 kmph, so it was not too bad.

I rested for a bit in my hotel room and ate an early lunch before getting back on the bike and leaving Stettler to the west.  I had picked a destination--Range Road 232, about 35 km west of Stettler--which would give me exactly a metric century of riding for the day.

Once I reached it, I was not in an especially great mood, because it had been raining and the wind continued to make the going tough.

On the way back I was having more fun, although it started to really rain for about 15 minutes or so.  When the rain stopped and the sun started coming out, I was able to get some really good speed going, often in the high 30s kmph.

I was back in Stettler before 15:00.

After an ice bath, hot shower, warm food, and short nap, I jumped in the car and headed south to Drumheller.

There, in the middle of the badlands, I watched a performance of the famous opera Carmen.

Pretty cool!

Castor to Botha, Alberta

Today I resumed my cross-Alberta cycling that I began last summer.

As a reminder, I am working on connecting the Alberta/Saskatchewan border at Macklin, Saskatchewan with Saskatchewan River Crossing in Jasper National Park.  Last year, over a handful of trips, I pieced together Red Deer to Saskatchewan River Crossing and the border to Castor, Alberta, which means all I have left for this year is Castor to Red Deer (140 kilometres).

This morning I drove from Edmonton to a village called Halkirk, which is roughly halfway between Castor and another small village called Botha.  In other words, it made a good midway point to park the car, since I would be doing this route self-supported (i.e., without my dad dropping me off and picking me up!).

I began by cycling eastward to Castor around 11:30, and I did the 22 kilometres in 40 minutes, which I was pretty pleased with.  I ate lunch at the Shangri-La, where I had eaten dinner after finishing up in Castor last year.

As last year, I found one of the most striking things about the Castor area was the wind turbines (you have to look closely in this picture to appreciate how many there are!).

It was almost 13:00 when I started back westward, and in just seconds I realized why:

     a) this is such a good spot for those wind farms; and 

     b) why I had made such good time coming east!  

The wind was bad news.  It took me 65 minutes to get back to the car, and probably twice the effort, too.  I did not bother stopping and kept on towards Botha, another 24 or so kilometres west down Highway 12.

I left the beautifully named Painted Earth County and entered Stettler.

Besides the wind, the sky was also darkening now, so I was worried about a storm.  Anyway, did not much matter, because I was basically working as hard as I could and still moving really slow.

When I finally reached Botha, I had been riding for 130 minutes west since Castor--and the total time it took me to ride the same route east was only 90 minutes!  Needless to say, riding one direction was much more enjoyable than the other!

Botha is a tiny place, but has an interesting story, and some neat old buildings.  The story is about perhaps the first manned flight in Canada (1908!)--some farmers in the area had a "flying machine" that is memorialized on this highway sign and a mural on the arena.  Who would have thought!

From Botha I made quick time back to Halkirk and the car.  

Tonight I am staying Stettler, just a little ways further west from Botha.