Month: August 2026

The Longest Day of the Journey

The question I’m asked most often on this trip is:

“How many kilometres do you ride a day?”

There really isn’t one answer.

Every day on this journey is different. The distance is usually determined by how far it is to the next official campground—or, failing that, my best guess at where I might find a decent wild camping spot.

One day I might ride only 75 km. Another day, much farther. I generally plan around 150 km, but sometimes circumstances require me to stretch well beyond my comfort zone.

Day 29 was one of those days.

I needed to ride 168 km to reach MacLeod Provincial Park.

The day before, Day 28, I had ridden only 106.7 km, but it had been a tough, long day: constant rain and a chilly wind blowing directly out of the north and directly into my face.

Now I was worried about how much harder the next day might be. Fear might be the best way to phrase it.

I rolled into Nipigon Marina Park and Campground after the office had closed. Fortunately, another camper named Dave came to my rescue.

Dave had a sensibly sized RV—one that wasn’t roughly the dimensions of a Greyhound bus—and gave me the lowdown on what to do and where to pitch my tent.

Dave is in the “Returning” stage of life, probably in his mid-to-late 70s. He’s tall, with a full head of striking white hair. You could picture him in a TV commercial for retirement living—he’s that kind of good-looking.

I imagined that back in his “Earning” years he might have been a CEO. He’s outgoing, confident and very much a take-charge kind of guy. And that evening, he took charge of making sure this soggy cyclist got settled.

Dave lives in a condo about 75 km south of Toronto where, on a clearer day than this day, he told me, “you can see the Toronto skyline perfectly.”

He lives near a marina because he loves sailing, which might explain his perfect tan. And he takes his “sensible” RV north to remote places like this to escape the crowds of city life.

We didn’t have much time to talk that evening because the rain started again.

It was still raining the next morning when Dave walked over as I was finishing packing my wet tent and preparing for the long ride ahead.

I thought it was nice of him to come over to say good morning and ask how I’d survived the night in my tiny, rain-soaked tent.

“Good morning,” he said. “Do you pray?”

What?

Do I pray?

Did this guy somehow know how worried I was about the day ahead?

I didn’t answer as forthrightly as I might have.

Something had happened three months earlier.

More on that in a moment.

“I’m not very religious,” I said.

“You don’t have to be,” he replied.

We talked for a while. He was clearly thinking not just about the difficult day ahead of me, but about my entire journey.

Then he took my hand.

He told me that he and his wife were praying for me.

There was something about the warmth of his smile, his words and the simple act of holding my hand that enveloped me.

Wow.

I thanked him.

And I thought about that moment many times throughout the day.

168 Kilometres to Go

Like I said, I don’t set out each morning determined to ride a fixed distance. The road, the weather and my body usually have some say in the matter.

And on Day 29, they had plenty to say.

The first 80 km took me almost directly north, over relentlessly difficult, uphill terrain.

Worse, the wind was once again coming straight out of the north.

It was a cold autumn wind.

My average speed dropped below 10 km/h.

For much of that first half, I seriously considered abandoning the plan to reach MacLeod Provincial Park. I could stop early and wild camp wherever I could find a suitable patch of ground.

And believe me, after hours of grinding into that wind, some very unsuitable patches of ground were beginning to look pretty suitable.

But eventually the road turned east.

Suddenly, that brutal headwind became a slightly favourable crosswind.

The terrain flattened.

The kilometres started coming a little easier.

And late in the day, the sun finally came out.

I rolled into MacLeod Provincial Park with about an hour of daylight remaining.

168 kilometres.

Ten and a half hours of pedalling.

My longest day of the journey. The longest day I will ever spend on a bike seat!

And somewhere in all those hours on the bike, through the cold, the hills, the headwind and the doubts, I kept thinking about Dave.

“Do you pray?”

Do You Pray?

Three months earlier, I had moved into my sister Dianne’s apartment to help her in whatever way I could.

It wasn’t an easy time for her.

I think it was a time of fear.

She was a little annoyed that some people had stopped coming to see her. Part of the problem, as I imagine happens for many people in their final days, was that she wasn’t always forthcoming with others—or perhaps even with herself—about how dire her situation had become.

She also talked about the people who did visit.

Some simply didn’t know what to say.

There were long, awkward silences.

But silences are okay.

There’s no need for them to be awkward.

Sometimes everything that can be said has already been said.

Sometimes silence, with companionship, is enough.

By this point, Dianne had decided that she wanted Medical Assistance in Dying. But she also said she wanted to be alone when it was finally administered.

I wondered if, beneath that decision, she was afraid no one would want to be there.

Our conversations during those days were long and, at times, all-encompassing.

At the end of one particularly difficult day, I helped her back into bed.

I asked if there was anything else I could do for her.

She looked at me.

“Can you pray for me?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had prayed.

Yet I answered,

“I will.”

That night, following my usual habit of overthinking almost everything, I thought about Dianne and about her fear of what was coming.

I made some notes.

Then, in the den of her 26th-floor apartment, dimly lit by the lights of the city beyond the windows, I lay on the fold-out bed and said a heartfelt prayer for my sister.

The next day, I sat in a chair beside her bed.

Dianne—still my big sister—started asking questions, almost as though she were checking to make sure her little brother had actually done his homework.

I admitted I prayed. I told her I prayed that she would understand, know, how much she was loved by her friends and family, and about how much difference and impact she made on their lives, and what a blessing it had been that she allowed me into this intimate time with her. 

Then we didn’t talk for a long while.

There was silence.

But it wasn’t awkward.

Words were spoken that otherwise would never have been said.

Dianne’s circumstances changed rapidly after that.

She thought she had weeks left but it became days.

With her last breath, in her tiny palliative care room, she was surrounded by family and friends and an abundance of love. 

I think of Dave…

”Good morning, do you pray?”

Yes, I Wild Camped. Will I Ever Do It Again?

When I first came across the expression “wild camping” while preparing for the Journey of My Life, I had an image—as you might—of a truly wild camping experience.

You know: butt naked except for maybe a loincloth, carrying a spear you made yourself from a branch. You’d kill whatever you needed for dinner—a squirrel, a rabbit, maybe a bear—and cook it over a fire you started by rubbing two sticks together.

As it turns out, wild camping in the bike-touring world is not quite that wild.

Mind you, it’s still considerably wilder than the camping I’m used to.

Over the years, our family camping trips have evolved into major social events. And since they are mainly social, responsibility for them lies almost entirely in the capable hands of Deanna, Minister of Domestic Affairs and All Things Social.

In these areas of responsibility, I operate strictly on a need-to-know basis.

Deanna is also part German, and she possesses many of the endearing traits—rightly or wrongly—attributed to that heritage: precision, attention to detail, and discipline.

Camping for her is a finely tuned operation. Everyone has assigned tasks. Meals are planned and responsibilities shared. And, as if by magic, somehow four or five of the best adjoining campsites have been secured for family and close friends.

Rustic?

Well, if my sister Cathie comes along, we have espressos or lattes in the morning. If she doesn’t, we go really wild and drink percolated coffee—which Deanna and our son-in-law, Drew, have perfected.

Our meals would rival what you’d expect in a fine restaurant, just without the fancy plates and cutlery.

At night, marshmallows are toasted, s’mores are devoured, Drew plays guitar, people sing along, and stories are told around the campfire.

The only suggestion for improvement I heard this year came from one of the grandchildren, who asked that Grandpa’s campfire story not be quite so scary next time.

And our gear?

Light, minimalist and practical?

Not exactly.

We have a tent large enough to host a small cocktail party, an inflatable mattress so thick and high off the ground you almost need a ladder to mount it, huge memory-foam pillows, and some very nice linens to complement the sleeping bags.

Wild camping on a bicycle is not like that.

Everything Has to Fit on the Bike

On a bike, if you can’t carry it, you don’t take it. And generally, the fewer things you carry—and the lighter they are—the better.

I bought a specialized bikepacking tent—the one I mentioned earlier that feels like sleeping in a toppled-over phone booth—and a much smaller sleeping bag. Normal camping equipment is simply too bulky.

There is still a surprising amount of gear to carry. I have roughly 100 items, counting the bike, bags, tools, clothing and camping equipment. Thanks to all the experienced cyclists who post their gear lists online, I also brought along a number of things I never imagined I’d actually use.

But I’ve used pretty much everything.

Take needle-nose pliers.

I thought, Why on earth am I carrying these? I’ve never needed pliers on a bike ride in my life.

On this trip, I’ve used them probably a dozen times.

Once, on a long, secluded stretch of road, a tiny piece of wire penetrated my tire. Without those pliers, I couldn’t have removed it. And without removing it, I couldn’t have installed a new tube without immediately puncturing that one too.

We can argue about tubeless tires another time.

And then there’s the ultralight plastic trowel.

TMI Warning

Part of the wild-camping code is to Leave No Trace.

This presents certain challenges when it comes to one’s daily constitution.

The accepted solution is to carry an ultralight plastic trowel so that, when nature calls:

● You dig a hole of a prescribed depth, width and so forth—which seems to vary depending on the author, presumably according to the author’s perhaps boastful personal production volume.

● In places such as British Columbia or the Canadian Shield, where digging into the ground can be nearly impossible, you cover everything thoroughly with rocks.

This amuses me to no end.

At my age, I am literally stooping to new lows.

And yet there is something weirdly satisfying about the whole procedure. Perhaps there’s a little feline DNA in me, giving me some primitive gratification from figuratively kicking kitty litter over my “gifts.”

The understanding is: that no one else should see or smell what you’ve done!

Picking the Right Place

Finding a good wild-camping site isn’t easy, particularly for a newbie like me.

There seem to be three basic approaches.

1. The organized approach.
 Use an app such as iOverlander to find places where other wild campers have stayed legally, including Crown land. The locations can be approximate, though, and so far I haven’t had much success with it.

But I remain determined.

2. The calculated approach.
 Set a minimum and maximum distance you want to ride that day, then look for the best possible camping spot somewhere between the two.

My results using this method have been decidedly hit-and-miss.

3. The emergency approach.
 The weather becomes absolutely horrible, you’re completely exhausted, darkness is coming—or, to use the more precise technical term, you’re fucked.

Three of my six wild-camping experiences have fallen into Category Three.

Not recommended.

I’m not particularly proud of one of them, shown in the photo.

I had been turned away from a campground packed with long-weekend crowds. No hotel rooms were available. So I kept riding and searching…and searching…and searching.

Eventually, I found a tiny elevated square of ground, barely large enough for my tent.

Nearby, a glacial river thundered down the mountainside. Trains roared past through the night, their whistles screaming and their wheels squealing and grinding as they rounded the mountain curves.

And somehow, I had one of the best sleeps of the entire trip.

Exhaustion is apparently an excellent soundproofing system.

Darkness, Northern Lights and Being Completely Alone

I’ve slept deep in the woods on a cloudy night where it was so dark that the mysterious noises outside the tent were almost reassuring.

At least they reminded me that I was still of this world.

Another night, I camped in an open area. Sometime during the night, I reluctantly crawled out of my warm sleeping bag to pee—and found myself standing beneath the Northern Lights.

They danced and shimmered across the sky, mesmerizing enough that I forgot about the cold and just stood there watching.

There are some things you simply can’t plan.

Note to self: Don’t camp in an open area on a clear night. The condensation can make it seem as though it rained all night.

Four of my wild-camping experiences—including the last two nights—have also been in places with absolutely no cellular service.

No calls. No texts. No contact with family or friends.

Just me, my little toppled-over phone booth, the darkness and whatever is making that noise outside.

Final Thoughts on Wild Camping

I’ve had some extraordinary moments wild camping on this trip.

But when this ride is over, I’ll probably never do it again.

But as I ride hour after hour, memories surface.

Sometimes it’s something shitty I’ve done in my life, intentionally or otherwise.

Sometimes it’s something shitty someone has done to me.

And sometimes it’s something shitty that worked its way into my personality during those long, tough “Earning” years of life.

For each one, I’ve figuratively dug a hole of the prescribed depth and width, or I’ve covered it completely with rocks.

No one needs to see—or smell—the mess

I Left the Prairies but They haven’t Left Me Yet

I drafted this post while hunkered down in my tent at Inwood Park Campground near Upsala, Ontario, just west of Thunder Bay.

I spent the evening—including dinner—inside a tiny tent while rain hammered down, accompanied by rumbling thunder and flashes of lightning. It was a bit like spending the evening inside an old phone booth lying on its side. Very constrained.

A perfect place, as it turned out, to reflect on the vastness of where I’d just been.

I left the Prairies three days ago, but in a lot of ways, the Prairies haven’t left me.

They begin just west of Calgary and end somewhere around Falcon Lake, Manitoba, where the landscape begins its transformation into the Canadian Shield. It took me a little over 12 days to ride from the land of endless horizons into the land of endless forests, rocks, lakes, and rivers.

It’s beautiful.

I love it.

Looking back over those 12 days, I’ve already written about the wonderful people and the brutal headwinds. I did have three days of tailwinds, but the other days were nasty enough to erase most pleasant memories of them.

But there were some striking things I left out.

From a bike, one of the most unforgettable is the constant presence of freight trains passing nearby—mind-bogglingly long trains. Some stretch for kilometres. They pass you heading east. They pass you heading west. The whistles, grinding wheels, and rumbling of these monsters carry across the Prairies day and night.

You’d think trade between East and West was booming.

Then there is the sheer size and scale of the farming.

I was fortunate enough to ride through during the early grain harvest. Vast fields of gold rolled like waves in the wind—which, on far too many days, was rolling in exactly the wrong direction.

Headwinds. Damn it.

From a bicycle, it’s easy to believe that the overwhelming majority of Canada’s farmland is out here. The scale is difficult to comprehend until you spend hour after hour pedalling through it.

And then there is the night sky.

The stars stretch in every direction, right down to those endless horizons. Standing beneath them, with almost nothing between you and the universe, you realize just how small you are.

I have rarely felt more tiny—or insignificant.

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While tenting, I got to see what other people in their “Returning” Stage like to do, and like to take with them.

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Prairies and Thoughts of Dianne

Dianne was the eldest of six children growing up on our farm, and she fit some of the eldest-child stereotype perfectly.

She took charge.

She could be hard at times, and she certainly suffered no fools. But she was fiercely loyal and extraordinarily kind to family and friends.

A close friend observed that during the last year or so of Dianne’s life, she softened considerably. She became kinder, more outgoing, more openly loving.

I noticed it too.

Especially during her final weeks, her conversations, observations, and reflections became more focused. More distilled. It was as though, with time running short, the unimportant things simply fell away.

It reminded me of the first person with cancer I ever knew, although at the time I didn’t know he had cancer.

I was 14.

I’ll call him Mr. H.

He “hired” me as his farmhand for the summer. I’m pretty sure my parents had arranged the job partly to help him out—a neighbour in need. That was simply what country people did.

He became a great mentor, and that summer job eventually stretched into a year and a half.

When I turned 15, my mother let me drive her car along the back roads to his farm. I would get up early, drive over and do the morning chores, come home for breakfast, catch the bus to school, return home, eat supper, drive back to his farm for the evening chores, then come home to do my homework.

Sleep.

Repeat.

Again and again, until he became too ill and other arrangements had to be made.

Eventually, my dad took me out for lunch. Alone. My father had never done that before, and he would never do it again. He told me Mr. H had died.

Like Dianne, as his illness progressed, Mr. H spent a lot of time observing, reflecting, and teaching me lessons that seemed pretty dark to a 14-year-old boy.

I understand them better now.

Death is a great teacher.

And a remarkably consistent one.

One day, Mr. H grabbed a hoe and took me into a cornfield. It must have been early July because the corn was about knee-high—right on schedule according to the old saying: knee-high by Fourth of July.

He pointed to all the milkweed growing among the corn and demonstrated how to carefully hoe around each stalk, removing the weeds without damaging the corn.

Carefully.

Delicately.

I am not, by nature, a delicate person.

This was going to be a problem.

Then he handed me the hoe.

“So you want me to do this patch here?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

Then he gestured toward the field.

The whole field.

“What?!”

It was 40 acres, but to a 14-year-old holding a hoe, it might as well have been the entire province of Ontario.

It would take forever.

“You’d better get started,” he said, “or you’ll never get ‘er done.”

I don’t remember whether I spent the entire first day cursing him under my breath, but probably.

I do remember thinking it was impossible.

I can’t even remember whether it took me a week or two to finish. What I do remember is that, after a few days, something changed.

I became comfortable being alone with my thoughts.

Mr. H would occasionally inspect my work and offer a few pointers. And he talked to me about being alone.

“You’re born alone, and even if you’re surrounded by friends, you live alone, and you die alone,” he would say.

I’m not sure whether he knew he was echoing Orson Welles.

But his point was clear: being comfortable alone—with your own thoughts, even while doing the smallest and most monotonous task—was part of the work of a good farmer.

Maybe even a noble one.

I would love to know what Mr. H would have thought of something Blaise Pascal wrote more than 350 years ago:

> “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

One of the unexpected gifts of this journey has been being largely free from the news and from social-media algorithms engineered to constantly grab our attention. There is something liberating about stepping away from the endless stream of distractions—news, entertainment, work, outrage—and simply having time to think.

On the Prairies, I had plenty of time to sit quietly on my bicycle.

And plenty more to lie quietly alone in my tent.

I won’t be solving all of humanity’s problems.

But I may solve a few of my own.

Out on the Prairies, on that starry night amid those endless horizons, everything is insignificant..

It is a lesson less about reason than about faith.

No matter how small the strike of a hoe, or the turn of a pedal, or the “I love you” to someone who matters to you every time you see them…it matters.

I can hear Mr. H saying: 

“You’d better get started…”

47 Years Ago, Winnipeg Changed My Life

In an earlier blog, I reflected on the fun double meaning of calling this the “Journey of My Life.”

First, this is the biggest physical challenge I have ever taken on—and probably ever will.

But there’s the other—this journey is roughly 7,000 kilometres long, and I’m 70 years old. That means I can map the ride against my life:

Every 100 kilometres represents one year.

As I pedal along, I find myself thinking about those 100-kilometre markers and asking: Where was I at that age? What was happening in my life?

Sometimes the parallels are quite funny..

A Shitty Day for a Shitty Year

Day 20 was a shitty day on the bike.

The rain was pounding on my tent before I even got up and persisted for much of the day, finally stopping shortly before I rode into Portage la Prairie. Add the cold and a strong, unfavourable headwind, and it was easily the worst riding day of the trip so far.

At the start of that day, I had reached 2,163 kilometres—the equivalent of being 21 years old in the “Journey of My Life.”

So what happened when I was 21?

My father died, and a seven-year relationship with my high-school sweetheart ended.

A very shitty year for the first reason. In retrospect, considerably better news on the second.

So, yes, the shitty cycling day more or less lined up.

Day 21 was different. Dark, low clouds threatened rain all day, but they produced only a couple of hours of drizzle. Better still, the crosswinds turned favourable, and what could have been another grinding day became a surprisingly easy recovery ride.

A recovery year, perhaps?

By the time I reached Winnipeg, my bike computer showed I reached 2,381 kilometres.

Twenty-three years old in the “Journey of My Life

Dear reader, you might ask, “What was significant in your 23rd year?”

For a start, on Saturday, August 11, 1979, I was in Winnipeg.

I was a University of Waterloo co-op student on a work term with a publishing company. They had sent me on a mission to visit major independent booksellers in Northern Ontario, Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon.

Armed with my book bags—large, hardened suitcases filled with sample books—I met with store buyers and showed them the hot titles for the coming season.

You know, the really exciting stuff.

Like the latest edition of Edna Staebler’s Food That Really Schmecks.

Who could forget?

As I travelled through Northern Ontario, I took lots of photographs with my old Nikon FM 35mm SLR. By the time I reached Winnipeg, I had five rolls of 36-exposure film that I desperately wanted developed.

For anyone who grew up with digital photography, it’s hard to explain the suspense involved in taking pictures back then. You could spend days happily clicking away without having the slightest idea whether you had captured a masterpiece—or 180 badly exposed pictures of your thumb.

So when I arrived at my Winnipeg hotel around 3:00 that Saturday afternoon, finding a photo shop was urgent. In those ancient times, stores closed early on Saturdays and stayed closed all day Sunday.

From my hotel room on the 21st floor, I spotted a store below and figured out how to reach it. I would have to cross a major intersection about a block away.

The corner of Portage and Main.

How did I not know about this famous intersection?.

I was 23. I was a kid. I was naive. And I wasn’t particularly worldly.

I was almost at the store when two young women crossed the street and stopped me.

“Can you tell us how to get to Portage and Main?”

I laughed.

I explained that I had just arrived in Winnipeg myself and that, by sheer coincidence, Portage and Main was the only intersection in the entire city I could actually help them find.

They laughed too.

They had just arrived from Vancouver that afternoon and were in Winnipeg for a two-week session with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

As naive as I was, I thought dancing with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet sounded pretty amazing.

I would run into them twice more on Sunday before finally asking them to join me for a drink in the hotel bar.

In those days, Winnipeg bars couldn’t serve you just a drink on the Sabbath. You had to order food as well.

One of the women ordered a Brown Cow—Baileys Irish Cream and milk—along with french fries and gravy.

An unforgettable culinary combination.

Hey, we were 23.

And that woman would become the love of my life.

The Road Ahead

Winnipeg changed that 23-year-old forever.

Today, 47 years later, I have roughly 4,700 kilometres of road still ahead of me. But this time I have maps, apps and a reasonably good idea of the hills, turns and obstacles that lie between Winnipeg and the Atlantic.

That 23-year-old had no such map.

He had no idea what lay ahead over the next 47 years—the heartbreaks and losses, certainly, but also more happiness than he could possibly have imagined.

He didn’t know that the young woman drinking a Brown Cow and eating french fries with gravy would become his wife.

He didn’t know they would raise two wonderful children, welcome a daughter-in-law and son-in-law into the family, and eventually find themselves surrounded by four beautiful grandchildren.

He didn’t know any of it.

Which, perhaps, is just as well.

At 23, the road ahead seemed almost endless.

At 70, I know better.

Roads have a way of disappearing beneath your wheels much faster than you expect.

And so do years.

He would be shocked to know how quickly 23 years of age becomes 70.

And somehow, 47 years after a chance encounter with two strangers asking directions at Portage and Main, I have pedalled my way back to the very place where the most important journey of my life really began.

Headwinds, Cold Mornings, Warm People

Today I crawled into a campground just east of Brandon, Manitoba, after a day of unrelenting headwinds and crosswinds.

So far, I’ve travelled more than 2,100 kilometres—about 30% of this journey of a lifetime. My legs are suggesting that 30% is a much bigger number than it sounds.

I have no idea how many pedal strokes that represents. But, as I mentioned in an earlier post, every turn of the crank moves me in three directions: physically, toward St. John’s; inwardly, along a path of reflection about what’s possible at this stage of my life; and outwardly, toward honouring my sister Dianne by raising awareness and funds in the fight against ovarian cancer.

Learning, Earning, Returning

There’s a popular idea that life can be divided into three stages: learning, earning and returning.

I’m relatively new to the “returning” phase, having retired only a few years ago. Part of this ride is figuring out what that means.

What can I still contribute? How can I make a difference to my family, friends and community? And what constraints of the “earning” years am I finally free of, allowing me to do things differently?

Not long after leaving Mile Zero in Victoria, I received a message from an old friend, Mike, who lives in Calgary. He invited me to stay with him when I came through town.

I hadn’t seen—or even talked to—him in years.

But Mike isn’t just an old friend. He’s a really old friend. Our friendship goes back 45 years, to when we were young guys working together at a publishing company in Vancouver.

He was Best Man at my wedding.

When I arrived in Calgary, I discovered that Mike has barely aged. He’s still tall, fit and handsome, with a full head of hair—all qualities a guy like me could easily hate. And although he’s a couple of years older than I am, he isn’t quite retired yet.

Fortunately, he’s also an extraordinarily good man.

Mike went well out of his way to help me sort out bike shops, replacement parts and the assorted mechanical crises that come with dragging a heavily loaded bicycle across Canada.

He and his wife, Caroline, live in a beautiful, walkable neighbourhood. Soon after I arrived, Mike took me for a stroll. We picked up fresh buns from a nearby bakery and ice cream from a local creamery.

That evening we feasted on hamburgers made with great Alberta beef, followed by homemade blueberry crumble buried under ice cream. Joining us were Mike and Caroline’s daughter and her boyfriend, both in their twenties and already building solid careers with large companies—an impressive start to their “earning” years.

The conversation left me feeling pretty good about the future when it’s in the hands of young people like them.

The next morning, Caroline made me a huge breakfast and sent me off with a homemade sandwich. Mike got on his bike and rode with me through Calgary, making sure I found the pathway that would take me safely out of the city and eastward again.

Then I was on my own.

And somewhere out there on the road, with Saskatchewan ahead and far too much time to think, one question kept bothering me:

Why the hell did I ever let this friendship go quiet?

Too busy earning?

Too busy with life?

Too confident there would always be more time?

One thing this ride is teaching me is that “returning” doesn’t have to mean only giving something back to the world.

Sometimes it means returning to the people who mattered along the way.

So I’m making a list.

Old friends I haven’t called.

People I’ve lost touch with.

Friendships worth recovering.

I still have thousands of kilometres ahead of me.

Apparently, I also have a lot of phone calls to make.

After a Hot Day in the Saddle

At a campground in Bassano, Alberta, a guy named Curtis walked up to my picnic table.

He had a biker beard—maybe four inches wide and twice as long—a T-shirt, jeans and plenty of tattoos on weathered, tanned skin. He looked like a guy who either works outdoors all day or rides his chopper all day. Possibly both.

He was about the right age to be a “returning” kind of guy.

He had come over from his RV, where he had parked his motorcycle—a chopper with bizarrely high ape-hanger handlebars, straight out of the 1969 classic Easy Rider. He also had a sports car which, when he started it at 5:30 the next morning, produced roughly the same amount of noise as a jumbo jet at takeoff.

Curtis handed me Popsicles, a Pepsi and a bottle of water.

Then he plopped down a glass full of ice and started pouring Jack Daniel’s into it.

“Say when,” he said.

“When, when, when, when…WHEN”

Apparently, “when” means something different in Alberta.

What an impressive “home” pour.

And what a wonderful, completely unexpected act of generosity.

RVs in Alberta—and Returning

In Medicine Hat, the campground, like most I’d seen in Alberta, catered mainly to RVs. But this one had two tiny, side-by-side “Bike and Tent” campsites—just enough room for a tent, with no space for a car, let alone a house on wheels.

While I was eating my freeze-dried dinner at the picnic table, a man rode his motorcycle into the other site and set up camp.

Later, he walked over carrying two cans of beer and plopped one down in front of me.

That beer turned into a long evening of conversation between two men firmly planted in the “returning” stage.

Gerald—or Geri, as his friends call him—is from New Zealand. He’s 67, fit and energetic. He was riding from Alaska to the southernmost reaches of South America.

He described seeing elk, caribou, bison and some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable. He was travelling with little more than what he could strap onto his motorcycle. He’d already done similar trips through Asia and plans to tackle Europe and other parts of the world.

Across the road from us sat an enormous RV, roughly the size of a Greyhound bus, complete with slide-out compartments and a small car being towed behind it.

Geri looked over at it.

“Everyone wants to get away and leave it all behind,” he said. “These people want to get away and take everything with them!”

I laughed.

But it also left me thinking.

How much stuff do we really need?

And how much of this “outdoor” living do I want to do in the last stage of my life?

Geri seemed to have answered that question for himself.

Everything he needed was strapped to a motorcycle.

Salt of the Earth

On Sunday night, I ended up in Chaplin, Saskatchewan—population 222.

After a tough week of riding, I decided to treat myself to a proper Sunday dinner at the town’s only bar and restaurant.

So much for a Sunday dinner. Pub Grub was all that was on the menu.

I was the only customer until I was about halfway through my meal.

Then five people came in and sat at a round table beside mine. Suddenly, I felt like an imposter, someone who stumbled in and sat down in their dining room.

They were wonderfully friendly—and wonderfully curious about the alien, me, who had invaded their home turf and the even more, about the alien thing I was doing: riding a bicycle across Canada.

When I went to the cashier to pay, one of the men got up and walked toward me.

He was a giant of a man—big, strong, and wearing clothes that looked as though he’d been working in them all day. He looked to be in his sixties.

He introduced himself as Tex.

He told me he’d been born in Chaplin and had worked the family farm there all his life.

Then he pointed toward the table.

“That’s my dad over there. He’s ninety.”

He paused.

“People here are good.”

I grew up in the country, and it occurred to me that farmers never really retire. They just keep working, helping and contributing for as long as they can.

Tex put his massive hand on my shoulder.

“My mom died some years ago from breast cancer,” he said. “I like what you’re doing.”

His eyes got a little watery.

So did mine.

Then he said:

“I got your dinner.”

And suddenly my disappointing Sunday pub grub was something so much more impactful…

Maybe farmers don’t have three stages of life..

Maybe, for people like Tex, returning is simply something they do all their lives.

Salt of the earth.

And out here on the Prairies, I’m discovering there’s an awful lot of it

Monday of this week, August 3rd—Day 9—was the most incredible day of the journey so far. And Day 10 turned out to be equally notable, but for being the most satisfying and fulfilling imaginable—I’ll write about that in a future post.

On the evening before Day 9, I made a stupid decision a smart calculated risk that would lead to some incredible vistas and wildlife, as well as some of the best riding and hiking imaginable. My Garmin bike computer revealed a shortcut that would take me along a trail beside a lake. I usually don’t rely on Garmin alone to plan my routes. Normally, I use other apps to double-check that everything will actually work.

But at this campground, as well as the one the night before, there was no internet and no electricity to fully charge my devices. So I took the Garmin shortcut.

At first, the path was wide and reminded me of the many bikeable trails in Gatineau Park.

And the scenery was amazing!

But the wildlife encounters that morning was something else entirely.

But previous to all these, while I was still in the park, on the service road leading to the entrance/exit, I came down a fast descent at around 6:30 a.m. into a blind left-hand corner.

I squeezed the brakes as hard as I could.

Just metres in front of me stood a brown bear staring at me.

Her cubs, startled, bolted off the road and scampered up nearby tree trunks to get away from me.

The mother was startled too, she had backed up a bit.

What could I do?

I couldn’t go forward. And there was no way I was going to back my fully loaded bike up the hill.

I found myself reaching for my iPhone.

Maybe I was thinking that my very last video before I died might also be my best one ever—capturing some intense drama for posterity?

I looked at the screen.

Shit.

Because there was no cellular service in the park, I had shut the iPhone off to save battery.

I started powering it up.

The bear was looking at me.

Then, she reminded me of my wife and kids, who get really annoyed when Dad takes too long to take the family portrait—she simply turned and ambled into the forest. No hurry.

I thought the bear cubs were freaking adorable as they shimmied down the tree trunks, butt-first, and then chased after their mother.

It would have made an amazing video.

Instead, I watched the Apple startup icon slowly appear on my phone while my hand trembled from the adrenaline rush.

I later confirmed that the bear was not a grizzly, but a black bear. Interestingly, black bears can have brown fur.

But it didn’t matter what kind of bear she was in that moment.

To me, she was the size of a Volkswagen minivan.

And I was very pleased that she had other ideas for her menu du jour.

Oh, yeah, back to the route: it started to get a bit rough.

Then rougher.

And then really rough.

My bike broke down—the derailleur failed—and it could no longer be ridden.

I walked it across a beam over a river. I lifted it over fallen trees. And as the “hike” continued for hours without seeing another person, I gradually lost the good humour required to take pictures of myself crossing knee-deep streams, pushing the bike up steep riverbanks, or scrambling across rockslides and the many other fun obstacles along the way.

I had committed to staying safe on this journey and to not doing anything stupid.

Technically, except for the bear thing, I was doing pretty well.

I had lots of food, a tent, and enough supplies to get me through the night and, eventually, back to civilization.

But in retrospect, taking that trail was incredibly dumb a good calculated risk. I’ve had lots of experience on mountain trails, in the Rockies and in the Pyrenees.

When I got to within about five kilometres of a road, I was totally exhausted or, as my son might say, “fucked.” Maybe I would camp there for the night.

My hope was that a park ranger on patrol would eventually find me and take me back to the park entrance. From there, I could call my loved ones to let them know I was safe and sound. I could catch a bus—yes, Banff has city buses with bike racks—and get to town, find a bike shop in the morning, and be back on the road the next day.

Then…

Ta-da!

An off-road vehicle appeared.

And with it came three guardian angels.

Young, bright, energetic and clearly very comfortable in the wilderness, they knew exactly what to do.

Before I could say much of anything, they had my bike, my bags and me loaded into their truck…a VERY serious off-road vehicle with wheels monstrously huge.

And off we went.

The driver, Tobias—the guy on the right in the photo—had just bought the new truck, and it was impressive.

He left the road and crossed an open area that looked completely impassable, with terrain as random and rugged as on the moon.

The truck pitched and bounced as we made our way forward, and I got my first real off-roader experience: being thrown around in the back seat like a rag doll.

Actually, it fun.

It reminded me of riding one of those mechanical bulls.

Along the way, Tobias pointed to a ridge where they had eaten dinner, then to a steep hill where he said his truck had slid sideways.

I asked him if he wasn’t terrified that the truck would roll.

“No, it don’t roll.”

Apparently, Tobias had never promised his girlfriend that he wouldn’t do anything dangerous.

Mikayla, the woman on the left, is a town councillor in Cochrane. She told me which hotel I should stay at and recommended two “really great” bike shops where I could get my bike fixed.

Ethan, in the middle, is a student.

He was the observer of the group, making observations about me, about what I was all about, about Alberta, about politics—pretty much everything.

At one point, he turned his attention to Tobias.

“He’s a true stereotypical Albertan.”

Tobias protested.

Ethan continued.

“Yeah, you work in the oil industry, you drive this truck, and you’re listening to Country and Western!”

Ethan seemed to have won the argument.

Tobias is a handsome young man with a moustache, wearing the kind of shirt and blue jeans that, if he had been wearing a cowboy hat, would have made him look a little like the Marlboro Man.

The off-road trail eventually turned into a gravel road and then, finally, a paved road as we headed toward Cochrane.

We travelled through the foothills and past streams where Tobias talked about trout fishing, and the outlooks where they’d camp or hang out. Along with the others they talked about what makes this region so special and their love of living the outdoors life.

We traveled over a large indigenous held territory and other stretches of land, with virtually no houses—stretches of hills, ridges, valleys, and rivers that were absolutely gorgeous in the golden light of this evening.

Eventually, they dropped me at a Tim Hortons about a hundred metres from my hotel so I could get something to eat.

They wouldn’t take any money.

They wouldn’t even let me buy them food.

They said they were just happy to have been able to help.

Such wonderful people. Bright, full of life, generous. What a blessing to have met them. 

The staff at Tim Hortons were just shutting everything down for the night. The only food they could still serve me was pastries.

After my shower, lying for the first time in eight days in an actual bed, I thought about supper.

My apple fritter.

I seemed plenty enough—maybe I was already plenty full from all the humble pie I had been forced to eat earlier that day.

Either way, I fell into bed knowing that I had somehow survived one of the most spectacular, frightening, frustrating and ultimately rewarding days of my journey.

And I had three complete strangers to thank for it.

Who Won? & Life is Good

I hate when a corporate entity—in this case, LG Electronics—takes a simple and wonderful phrase like “Life is Good” and turns it into a cheap corporate slogan to sell products.

When you’re watching their TVs, listening to their headphones, or using their appliances, is life really good? Aren’t they getting in the way of us actually getting out there and living?

Two months ago, at the Pur & Simple restaurant in Ottawa, I watched an old man try to stand up from a table where his wife and friends were sitting.

His joints were clearly stiff from sitting for so long. It took him a long time to straighten out his aching body. He paused before attempting his first steps. He looked around, hoping no one had noticed his struggle.

That old man was me.

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself clearly. And at that moment, no one doubted more than I did that riding a bike across Canada was even remotely possible.

So, to all my well-meaning friends who reminded me of my ancient, fossilized state—and suggested that my butt was better suited to a golf cart, whacking a little white ball with my buddies, than sitting on a bike seat for a Trans-Canada ride—I have to admit:

Yes. I’m used to a pretty soft life.

How could I possibly handle the distances? The climbs? The discomfort of living in a tiny tent for so many days?

And how could I, God forbid, endure perhaps the greatest hardship of all…drinking instant coffee with instant oatmeal for breakfast?

My sore joints and aging body are never going to magically get better. This is the outlook we are given in this third stage of life.

Corporate LG, this kind of “Life” doesn’t sound very Good.

Shouldn’t life be about pushing beyond our comfort levels?

Isn’t conquering something—despite the struggle, the discomfort and the pain—really what life is supposed to be about?

In an earlier post, I expressed my doubts about whether I could even make it through the British Columbia stage of my journey.

Would I conquer the mountains, or would they conquer me?

The graph at the top of this blog illustrates the challenge. It shows the relentless number of climbs—the serious gut punches—you have to take on this s journey.

Too often, a climb of only six kilometres—and some were as long as 20 kilometres—would take more than an hour. The combination of steep grades and the weight of my bike meant that sometimes I couldn’t average more than 6 km/h on the way up.

I learned one main rule for this journey:

Never stop until you reach the top.

Unless, of course, you have to stop to remove a layer of clothing because you’re sweating too much.

If you stop on a climb, you only prolong the suffering. And restarting on a steep climb is a bitch.

So how do you get yourself to the top?

I found three tricks that helped.

1. Mindfulness.

Get into the moment.

Don’t look up. Don’t look back.

Just get the damn crank turned over.

You can still hear the rivers rushing beside you and the songbirds singing in the trees. It’s actually quite beautiful.

That is, if you can ignore the fact that your legs are screaming at you.

Forty minutes later, or whenever your legs start telling you they simply can’t go any further, you have to find another way.

2. Trick yourself.

Pick a point ahead that you know you can reach.

Get there.

Just before you do, pick another point.

Get there.

Then another.

And another.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It works—until even that little mental trick stops working.

Then the question becomes:

How much more pain can I endure?

3. Remind myself that my son won the Puy de Dôme stage of the Tour de France!

This monster of a hill I’m on is just a molehill.

My legs laugh and remind me that I am 30 years older, 40 pounds heavier, and most definitely not an athlete.

So, two out of three tricks kind of worked.

What eventually worked best was a combination of #1 and #2—staying in the moment, focusing on the next achievable point—while remembering all the words of encouragement I had received, the donations people had made, my friends and loved ones cheering me on, and, most importantly, Dianne and her journey.

So, did I conquer the mountains?

Did I conquer the giants?

No.

They allowed me passage.

But not before they beat the shit out of me and hammered into me some lessons I will never forget.

And perhaps, along the way, they dared me to think about what new challenges I might set for myself if I actually made it through this journey.

Then I think about Dianne.

In her final days, Dianne’s existence was hell.

Each day seemed to bring new pain in a new place. She struggled to find comfort. And she knew that the next morning, at 10 a.m., with the grace of Medical Assistance in Dying, her journey would come to an end.

Deanna and I sat with her.

There were long pauses.

Most of what needed to be said had already been said.

Then, after one particularly long silence, Dianne was holding Deanna’s hand. She looked intently into Deanna’s eyes and said:

“Life is Good.”

There was sobbing.

There were tears.

“Life IS Good.”