Dryden, Ontario

 

Not only does Canada have a Continental Divide, it also has an Arctic Divide, an east-west line that is the separation point of rivers running into Hudson Bay and on into the Arctic and rivers funneling into the Great Lakes.  It’s not as far north as one might suppose, as I crossed it yesterday, well from the Arctic Circle, though not its cold winds. A northerly dropped the temperature to the twenties with it just twenty-seven when I broke camp my first night north of the Arctic Divide.  The cold wind even brought a few late afternoon snow flurries.

I couldn’t have been happier when I came upon a picnic area with heated rest rooms and a pair of electric outlets.  With towns few and far between in this wilderness area it’d been several hours before I’d come upon a place offering warmth to stop and rest and eat. I was hoping such rest areas would be a feature of this main artery that continues on to Winnipeg and Vancouver, but the only rest area in the next one hundred miles merely offered latrines.  That was a bummer, what with the temperature just above freezing.

It takes a long time for the sun to raise the temperature, barely one degree per hour.  It wasn’t until after noon when it edged above freezing.  Any billboard in the distance is a welcome site, as they often announce an inn or cafe and how many kilometers further it might be. It’s usually twenty or more kilometers, but at least it gives me something to look forward to.  

One sign offered cabins for twenty-five dollars per person.  I’d have seized upon that if it had come at the end of the day.  One resort on a lake advertised “water-proof cabins.”  Others advertised air-conditioning and WiFi.  I did come upon a solitary rustic motel near dusk several days ago.  There were no cars parked in front of its eight rooms, so I feared it might not be open.  The woman in the office said rooms went for $101 including tax.  I asked if she’d take $70.  She testily snapped, “I’ll take $101,”  evidently tired of others asking for a discount.  So I had a pleasant night in my tent and was $70 richer and she $70 poorer.  It just meant I had to wait until late the next afternoon for WiFi and the chance to add some charge to my devices and batteries other than what my generator hub could provide.

With two sleeping bags, or more a sleeping bag and a zippered blanket, as the Marlboro bag essentially amounts to, I do not fear subfreezing temperatures, though I did have to put on a sweater during the coldest night.  My gloves aren’t much good when the temperature dips below forty, forcing me to put plastic bags over them.  But no more, as the road offered up a pair of large worker’s gloves with reflective bands that fit over my gloves.  As always, the road provides. 

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Even though I’m traveling on a main artery,  the service stations can be seventy-five miles or more apart.  Signs warn “Check your fuel level, Limited services.”   Half the traffic is 18-wheelers.  The road is only two lanes wide, but there is usually an ample shoulder for me and the truckers generally pass wide.  Every ten miles or so a sign announces an upcoming passing lane that extends for a mile or so. The speed limit is a sane fifty-six miles per hour (ninety kilometers) and a stiff fine of ten thousand dollars and the immediate impounding of one’s vehicle should one exceed the limit by thirty one miles per hour (fifty kilometers) to eighty-seven miles per hour.  Needless to say, motorists abide by the speed limit. 

The terrain is hilly so the road has few straightaways as it follows the contours of the forested land.  It is so lightly settled it has been proposed as a repository for nuclear wastes, an issue that also generates signs.

Other signs warn of moose. 

Dryden with a population of 8,000 is the first genuine town I’ve come upon in over two hundred miles since Thunder Bay.  Ignace with 1,000 residents has been the only other with more than a handful of residents.  It had the first franchise food outlet since Thunder Bay, a Subway.  It didn’t offer WiFi so I had to find some place else for my break.  

I was shocked to learn there was a library a block away.  I didn’t have to ask if it had WiFi, as a sign on the door gave the WiFi password (letsjustread) for those who come by when the library is closed.  I had two days of podcasts to download and another attempt to add photos to my last blog post, which the previous WiFi wasn’t strong enough to do.  I thought I was going to have a couple hundred  miles without a library between Thunder Bay and Dryden, so it was totally unexpected—one I won’t soon forget.  It felt toasty warm, but the thermometer on my cyclometer reported its temperature was only sixty-three degrees.

I continued until dark getting to within forty-eight miles of Dryden, the same distance I’d left myself the previous two days from my campsite to the next outpost.  With the prevailing westerly, k that could take five or six hours, a long start to the day.  I’m not much more than one hundred miles north of the border, but I feel as if I’m on the fringes of civilization, not a bad feeling at all.