train – Vague Direction

Horror Movies and Frisbee Trickery [VIDEO]

348 – 355: Sault St Marie to Toronto.

Spooky moments. There’ve been a few over the last few days. It snowed a lot leaving Sault St Marie, and several hours into the slowest ride ever it was obvious that rather than make minimal ground and camp in the open, it would be wise to seek shelter if any became obvious.

Being in farmland there weren’t many options, other than a single barn on a side road. It looked like it didn’t see much action so I resorted to the age old tactic of – ‘as long as you pack up early enough it’ll probably be fine’. Luckily it worked and the combine harvesters didn’t slip.

It snowed on and off for a couple of days, but other than that the ride was pretty much plain sailing (except for a bizarre night in the town of Espanola which is a story for a separate post coming soon). To make up some of the lost snow time, I opted for a train ride again to increase the chances of being able to cycle into NYC to finish up. It would suck after so long to finish by train or hitchhiking. As always seems to happen, it’s the time off the bike that provides most of the stories. Fittingly, being halloween and all, what happened next wouldn’t be out of place as an introduction to a horror movie.

blog6

The train was scheduled to leave a small station on the outskirts of Sudbury at 1.30am, and looking at the map, there was a 24 hour Tim Hortons a few km away. Seemed like as good a place as any to wait until the early hours, so I left downtown Sudbury and began cycling to Tim’s. It was late, and at a traffic crossing I very briefly bumped into an older gentleman out for a walk. Then a few minutes later in the cue at TH, he was there too.

“Are you travelling somewhere?”, he said.

We chatted for a while and it turns out he’s a friendly chap called Bruce who’s been based in Sudbury his entire life, except for a 10 day hitchhiking trip he took around the Great Lakes as a 24 year old. Since then he’s been living with his wife and they’re content in the city, scratching any travel cravings with online photos and by chatting to people who are passing through town. He’d been working night shifts so this was his afternoon, and he generously offered to go get his van and then drive me to the station as it’s hard to find. We started walking to the his house to pick up the van and somehow the conversation turned to movies and axes.

“You know, I gave my daughters boyfriend a fright a few months ago. We watched a movie, and the main character is sent a message from God that he has to remove some evil souls from the Earth. One day he’s driving along a country lane and see’s a beam of light land on a barn. He goes in and it’s shining on an axe. The movie is about the guy’s task to kill various people.”

It’s 12.30am. We’ve just met and are walking back to Bruce’s house, where he’s going to pick up his van and drive me to a train station on the outskirts of town. He’s explaining the plot to a movie where a man is tasked to kill people with an axe. Anything suspicious going on here? Then came the kicker.

“Oh, by the way I’m not an axe murderer or anything. Although I could be. You’ve just met me. Or you could be a murderer. It’s hard to tell.”

Hmmm, where’s that bear spray? Should I just leg it? Had a moment of woah-this-is-a-bit-intense, which is laughable now because it turns out Bruce is a truly awesome dude, with a lovely wife called Brenda, crazy kindness, a real van, a knowledge of out of town train stations, and no axe in sight – you had me there for a second Bruce!

blog4

The train showed up at 3am. On at Sudbury, quick snooze, off at Toronto. Magic. Quite convenient timing as far as trains go because it meant waking up and starting the day in the city, instead of arriving at night with no time to explore properly. And what a place. Incredible downtown architecture and amazing graffiti dotted around. Had a fun morning getting lost and then stumbled across a park where there was a bunch of people walking dogs and taking lunch breaks, and in the corner there was a guy doing insane tricks with a frisbee.

Jolan Canrinus is a freestyle frisbee expert, and in this Vague Direction People video we chat about how he ended up learning such a unique skill. It was frickin’ cool. (If you’re reading this in your email browser, click here to watch the video)

A milestone, a thanksgiving, a dog attack & a train.

338 – 346: Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie, ON

As each day goes on, it’s more and more obvious that the jaws of a harsh Canadian heavy winter are approaching, snapping away and closing in quickly. Holy smokes it’s getting cold and the prospect of a snowfall that lasts increase daily. It’s one of the first times where I’ve felt like this project has come full circle, with the days now being similar to those first few setting off from New York during 2012’s Nor’Easter snow. Speaking of which, I looked at the remaining route on the map closely for the first time in a while yesterday, and it was a bit of a milestone. There’s less than 1000 miles left, which is kind of insane to think about. Suddenly the scale is more akin to a small island like the UK than a hefty continent like North America.

The last ten days have been intense. Spent a few of them in Thunder Bay, and managed to get a tune up from the folks at Rollin’ Thunder as the gears had been playing up and as everyone knows front derailleurs can only be fixed with dark magic. The results were amazing – the bike ran like new again and suddenly there was a range of new gears to ride in which had been previously forgotten about.

Leaving Thunder Bay, you pretty much instantly hit hills. Brutal hills. Not as lengthy as some of the previous mountain sections but much more intense, on a par with Big Sur in terms of steep climbs, fast descents, more steep climbs. It’s not a bad thing, if anything it was quite refreshing, but it definitely took some getting used to after so long on the flats. Much more physically demanding than the prairies. These hills take you around the edge of Lake Superior, which provides an amazing setting when the dense trees open up and other than the fresh water the scale of the lake makes it hard to tell the difference between it and an ocean.

Something that was unexpected setting off on this trip, was the occasional curse of public holidays, and it was Canadian Thanksgiving the day after leaving Thunder Bay. It’s not a day we celebrate back in ‘blighty, so it wasn’t a big deal really, but when you’re camping rough in a rest stop whilst it’s literally freezing outside, and your main company is the peanut butter sandwich you’ve just made, it’s easy for the sighs to begin and flashes of depression to reach your mind when you know that close-knit groups nearby are celebrating with a kickass Turkey dinner. Of course there are small perks to these days – it’s super quiet on the roads, there’s no distractions etc, but still it’s a part of road life that I doubt will be missed much when it’s done.

Nearly got attacked by a dog which hasn’t happened for a long time. Casually riding through the woods with the familiar, almost-getting-annoying sound of overplayed hip hop in my headphones, and in the corner of my eye there’s a blurry four legged creature coming in FAST from a wood cutting yard across the road. Is it a horse? A moose? No it’s the mother-of-all big dogs, not sure what kind but one of the frightening ones that you don’t want to mess with. It was kind of a sketchy situation in that the dog ran straight across the road and three cars had to stop suddenly, and it was soon resolved when the owner was honked repeatedly by the held up traffic, but nevertheless that minute-or-so provided that days adrenaline kick (maybe too much because a few hours later a chainring snapped in half).

Reading other cycling blogs, there’s a lot of talk about the Algoma Central Railway linking up nicely with the sparse section between Wawa and Sault St Marie. It’s a railway line that goes through Agowa Canyon, and is mainly used for hunters and summer tourists to take them to log cabins nestled in the depths of the Shield where roads don’t go. The train or a floatplane are the main options. It’s not a frequent on-the-hour deal – it runs 3 days per week, but it happened to be running in the right direction on the right day so I jumped on at Hawk Junction after an intense down-to-the-wire burst from Wawa town. It’s a fairly short trip, covering 155 miles and shaving off two days, and knowing that this trip means you don’t get the reward of a huge downhill is tough, but like the reports suggested it was a great mini-journey well worth taking if you end up in the area.

Being winter the train was deserted. In fact that goes for general road life at the moment too – people are inside now the temperatures have dropped so it’s mainly a quiet and isolated existence. Occasionally a hunter would jump onto the carriage and soon jump off at a lone cabin (once carrying a moose’s head), but other than that it was a quiet, slow journey through some amazing territory under rainy skies. After 6 hours (told you it was slow), the train pulled into Sault Ste. Marie station around 7pm – the transition from heated carriage to bitter city air briefly shocking – and that was another section of the journey ticked off.

It’s a race against the clock now because of flights, and whilst relatively speaking this trip is nearly over, there’s a lot that can happen in 20 days, especially at this time of year. Here’s hoping the heavy snow holds off a while longer.