Fullfilled Anticipation

Leg three, from the Prairies into the Canadian Shield and around Lake Superior, was defined by fulfilling a long built-up anticipation. From the very beginning of this trip, even before we crossed the Rockies, other cyclists, truckers and even the everyday Joe we'd meet in diners along the way had been talking about the hills on the north shore of Lake Superior. They had become a bit of a monster in our minds and we were excited (and a little nervous) to see for ourselves what all this talk was about!

From Winnipeg, within half a day's riding we had left the prairies behind us and entered the Canadian Shield, the region of granite rock that encircles Hudson's Bay that glaciation has left filled with thousands of lakes, rivers and streams. The transition was dramatic: the praries ended in a line of trees and the boreal forests began. We took several days traversing a part of Ontario far north of what most Canadians consider Northern Ontario. The landscape could be desolate and lonely, and we were grateful for the truck traffic along the Trans-Canada highway and the occasional fishing or hunting outpost as a link to civilization.

The descent to Thunder Bay and the north shore of mighty Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world, however took us to a much brighter and warmer place. For the next five days we enjoyed warm weather and brilliant sunshine, the forests turned to a mix of bright greens, yellows, oranges and reds and we'd regularly get both glimpses through the tress and grand vistas of sparkling blue as the highway weaved up and down along the shoreline. Having turned right at a fork in the Trans Canada Highway, we had left behind a large proportion of the truck traffic and the almost traffic-free roads provided some peace (and better road conditions) that was very welcome indeed. It couldn't have been better conditions to tackle these big bad hills we had been anticipating.

And tackle them we did - with great success. There were some mighty big ones: both steep ones and long ones (and a few cases of both steep and long) and we were forced into our "granny ring" ten times (compared to only three times when crossing the mountains out west). But in a way the mountains never were, they were a perfect dose of challenge followed by immediate gratification: one was never more than a couple of bends in the road from seeing the top, the decents were always right behind and just as big as the climbs, and one constantly had the feedback of the lake as a gauge of one's elevation and progress. And they did great things for changing the focus from the slowly moving odometer to the top of the next hill in sight, and the miles seemed to fly by in a way they hadn't done before. It was a good thing we were scared, as if we hadn't been they might have been too much of a shock, but given the hype we found ourselves pleasantly surprised and enjoying the journey.

Besides settling this debt with our anticipation, Leg 3 was also characterized by the sense of progress of crossing the half-way point. This built as we passed a number of milestones: a signpost indicating the longitudinal centre of Canada, another marking the halfway point of the Trans Canada highway, the 1/2 way point of the mythical distance of 3600 miles at 2880 km, the 2000 mile mark, signposts pointing to the Pacific and Atlantic with a smaller number for the latter, the Atlantic watershed (must be downhill to Halifax from here!)... With these, and now the completion of the "around Superior" hurdle, we are finding an unavoidable shift in our attitudes: whereas we had been living by the mantra of "one day at a time" considering at most the current leg of the journey, it has become increasingly difficult to avoid considering the big picture and looking to the final destination, as it now seems much more within our reach. This can be dangerous as we still have a significant distance to go, and goals set too far in the future aren't nearly as effective in motivating you to drag tired legs out of bed in the morning.

We continue to make friends and meet characters along the way, in the way one can only do when doing something crazy like riding a tandem bicycle across the country. We have been flagged down by cars on the highway on several occasions recently: by a police officer to tell us we came in on his radar at 26 kph, by a travelling pair who had seen my jacket that had managed to get loose from the back rack on the side of the highway some miles back and turned round to return it (THANK-YOU!), a friendly German couple we had met in a donut shop a couple days back who wanted to simply say hi ... For the second time we listened to the life story of a complete stranger in a small logging town, who recounted in great detail the tale of his recent near-death experience and all the insight it had provided him with. And in addition to human contact, we have been in search for wildlife and there has been a near constant lookout staged from the stoker's seat. The excitement of FINALLY spotting two moose yesterday nearly caused an accident as we screeched to a grinding stop.

So now we set off for a quick 5 day dash east to Ottawa, the nation's capital, Leg 4 of 5. We hope to write again from there. Happy Thanksgiving!!!