Travelogue: Days 11-13
Here are four things that I already knew, but that assertively reinforced themselves during these three days in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay.
Trains are magic. Many kids go through a train phase. Mine was more of an era than just a phase: it started with Thomas the Tank Engine and my grandfather's model railway set, and peaked with a train trip across the Rockies when I was 14. My kids, though they're definitely pas their train phases, still bust out the Brio wooden train sets every once in a while to build complex cities in the basement.
But I think all four of use were feeling the magic when we hopped on the Agawa Canyon Train Tour in Sault Ste. Marie on day 11 of our cross-country trip. The train, an out-and-back route that reaches more than 150km north from The Soo, is kind of a throwback; the passenger cars are (deliberately, I think) not modernized, although perfectly comfortable, and you can almost imagine yourself back in the golden age of rail travel, if only your phone wasn't in your pocket and you had a fancier hat.
The fall colours weren't fully out yet, but reds and oranges and yellows were definitely making themselves known.
The journey is a whole-day affair, boarding at 7:30am and returning to the same station at 5:30pm. You stop at Agawa Canyon Park for an hour and a half to wander around, see some waterfalls, and try not to be desensitized to the beauty all around you. It's not cheap, but it's highly recommended.
Ontario is enormous. Day 12 of our trip was a day spent on the road, driving from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder bay, a distance of about 700km. That's a long distance, but it's only about a third of Ontario's full width from east to west. If you were to take the Trans-Canada Highway from the Quebec border all the way to Manitoba, you'd cover more than 2100km. That's about the same distance as Paris to Athens, or New York to Dallas. All in the same province. The eastern leg of our own cross-Canada road trip pales in comparison to Ontario's width: from Toronto to Charlottetown is a relatively piddling 1700km.
Northern Ontario is spectacular. And by "northern Ontario" I don't mean Muskoka or Haliburton. Those places are definitely pretty, but they are to northern Ontario what Triple-A hockey is to the NHL.
That 700km drive from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay was breathtaking in some spots, and it just kept going and going and going. If we didn't have a hotel waiting for us in Thunder Bay, I might have stopped at every single scenic lookout and we would've taken 48 hours to make the trip.
In the end our only pit stops were Wawa to get a picture with the goose, the town of Marathon to visit Pebble Beach, and the Terry Fox Memorial just outside of Thunder Bay in anticipation of our participation in the Terry Fox Run the following day. Which brings me to the fourth and final thing I already knew:
Terry Fox is the distillation of everything that is good about Canada.
On day 13 of our trip, we participated in the Terry Fox Run in Thunder Bay. Having just seen the memorial, and knowing that this was where his run ended but his movement began, it was a powerful and meaningful experience.
Working as a teacher for 20 years, I've participated in school-run Terry Fox events every year, and every year I tear up when they show one of those inspirational Terry Fox videos at assembly. I've never quite been sure why it affects me so deeply; I've never lost a loved one to cancer, and I was a baby when he did his actual run so I have no memory of following him in real time.
I think it comes down to his selflessness. Of doing something incredibly difficult, step by literal step, and taking any chance he got to talk about the need to help others.
Every time I see one of those archival interviews with him, I think that he was what Canada aspires to be: hard-working, polite, thoughtful, unpretentious, inclusive.
It made me even more excited to continue driving west tomorrow, into the half of Canada that Terry never made it to. Don't get me wrong; I'm not for a second implying that our cross-Canada fundraising trip is anything like his was. But Terry's unbelievable courage has the paradoxical effect of making you feel humbled and motivated to make any difference you can.
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Before you go...if you believe in the power of play (and if you're here you probably do) please consider donating to our cross-Canada road trip by clicking here. It would mean a lot!
