Hinton, Alberta
Edson
Niton Junction
Nojack
Cynthia (Cynthia RV Park & Campground)

Saturday, August 29th, 2009 (69.0 miles)

Cynthia
Drayton Valley
Alsike
Breton
Winfield (Winfields Lions Pioneer Park)

Sunday, August 30th, 2009 (0.0 miles)

Winfield

Monday, August 31st, 2009 (73.3 miles)

Winfield
Village at Pigeon Lake
Falun
Wetaskiwin
Bittern Lake
Camrose (Valleyview Campground)

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 (74.1 miles)

Camrose
Kinsella
Irma

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 (72.6 miles)

Irma
Fabyan
Wainwright
ENTER Saskatchewan
Marsden
Neilburg (Museum Campground)

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 (70.3 miles)

Neilburg
Cut Knife
Battleford
North Battleford

Friday, September 4th, 2009 (66.8 miles)

North Battleford
Denholm
Maymont
Radisson
Langham (Riverview RV Park)

Saturday, September 5th, 2009 (60.1 miles)

Langham
Saskatoon
Clavet
Elstow
Painted Rock Campground (8km west of Colonsay)

Sunday, September 6th, 2009 (44.9 miles, brutal headwinds)

Painted Rock Campground
Colonsay
Viscount
Plunkett
Guernsey
Lanigan (Lions Campground)

Monday, September 7th, 2009 (71.1 miles)

Lanigan
Dafoe
Wynyard
Mozart
Elfros
Leslie
Foam Lake (Foam Lake Campground)

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 (67.3 miles)

Foam Lake
Sheho
Insinger
Theodore
Springside
Yorkton
Cherrydale Golf Club & Campground

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 (74.3 miles)

Cherrydale Golf Club
ENTER Manitoba
Roblin
Grandview (Grandview City Park)

Thursday, September 10th, 2009 (82.5 miles)

Grandview
Gilbert Plains
Dauphin
Ste. Rose du Lac
McCreary

Friday, September 11th, 2009 (102.0 miles)

McCreary
Riding Mountain
Neepawa
Gladstone
Woodside
Portage La Prairie (Island Campground)

Saturday, September 12th, 2009 (70.3 miles)

Portage La Prairie
Elie
Winnipeg
Dugald (Dugald Community Center Field)

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 (121.4 miles)

Dugald
Vivian
Ste. Rita
Elma
Rennie
West Hawk Lake
ENTER Ontario
Kenora (Travelodge)

Monday, September 14th, 2009 (16.8 miles)

Kenora
Picnic area a short way outside Kenora

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 (mileage not recorded)

Outside Kenora
Vermillion Bay
Minnitaki
Oxdrift
Dryden (NW Campground & RV Park)

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 (90.6 miles)

Dryden
Wabigoon
Dinorwic
Borups Corners
Ignace
(Pipeline right-of-way about 20 miles east of Ignace)

Thursday, September 17th, 2009 (111.4 miles)

Pipeline right-of-way
English River
Upsala
Shabaqua Corners
Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park

Friday, September 18th, 2009 (81.4 miles)

Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park
Thunder Bay
Dorian
(Birchland Tent & RV about 8 miles west of Nipigon)

Saturday, September 19th, 2009 (38.2 miles)

Birchland Tent & RV
Nipgon
Gravel River Motel (about 10 miles west of Rossport)

Sunday, September 20th, 2009 (87.2 miles)

Gravel River Motel
Pays Plat
Schreiber
Terrace Bay
Marathon (Marathon Campground…and mercury dump!)

Monday, September 21st, 2009 (60.1 miles)

Marathon
White River (Continental Motel with dad and Mathieu)

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 (77.8 miles)

White River
Wawa
(Rabbit Blanket Campground in Lake Superior Provincial Park)

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 (110.1 miles)

Rabbit Blanket
Heyden (Mountain Ash Motel with dad)

Thursday, September 24th, 2009 (40.0 miles)

Heyden
Sault Ste. Marie
(a few miles outside Sault Ste. Marie on Highway 17)

Friday, September 25th, 2009 (77.8 miles)

Roadside on Highway 17
Desbarats
Bruce Mines
Thessalon
Sowerby
Iron Bridge
Blind River
Algoma Mills
Spragge
(Serpent River Campground)

Saturday, September 26th, 2009 (92.7 miles)

Serpent River Campground
Serpent River
Cutler
Spanish
Walford
Massey
Webbwood
McKerow
Nairn Centre
Whitefish
Naughton
Coniston (empty lot outside Coniston)

Sunday, September 27th, 2009 (73.7 miles)

Coniston
Wahnapitae
Markstay
Hagar
Verner
Sturgeon Falls
North Bay (Northgate Inn)

Monday, September 28th, 2009 (39.2 miles, very challenging winds)

Northbay
Rutherglen
Mattawa (Voyageur Motel)

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 (0.0 miles)

Mattawa

I’ve really struggled the past couple days to make mileage. A smidge over 70 miles each both Tuesday and Wednesday. Sitting at a touch over 60 miles today. It’s only 4pm, so I theoretically could bike another three hours and still have time to make camp and eat. That would put me minimally at 90 miles for the day…maybe more with any favorable conditions.

Favorable conditions are:

Strong legs.
Good wind.
Good pavement.
Moderate heat.

Over only one of those do I have any control. The wind, particularly, has not been working for me at all since I’ve been in Alberta or Saskatchewan, excluding Sunday, August 28th when I got a good tailwind out of Hinton to Cynthia, Alberta.

I’ve been eating a lot better on this trip than I did on my Atlanta to Alpine trek. But I’ve found that I need to focus on eating even better. It makes all the difference in the world. By the time I’m on the bike, energy bars, and bananas, and so on aren’t cutting it. It’s what I get in the meals which makes it work.

Here’s what I ate yesterday, more or less, and I feel like it was pretty effective as far as an eating day:

A veggie omelet
Brown toast and honey
Pan fries and ketchup
Coffee
Several bananas
Several blueberry granola bars
A walnut-maple ice cream cone
A half-liter of grapefruit juice
A handful of raisins
A half-liter of 2% milk
A half-liter of V-8 juice
A half-liter of orange juice
A handful of popcorn cabbage (brussel sprouts)
A pair of large carrots
A tin of sardines in mustard sauce
Several spoonfuls of peanut-butter
A package of ramen noodles
A bowl of rice and quinoa in chicken broth with several cloves of garlic
Lots of water

Largest Tomahawk in the World, Cut Knife, Saskatchewan

Consequently, I felt very strong this morning and had 30 miles in within the first two hours. Stopped for lunch at a diner in Cut Knife (home of the World’s Largest Tomahawk), and then slorged against the wind and the heat for the next thirty miles. I should really figure out how to travel at night.

Wait, no, enjoy the heat, Winter is coming.

And screw 90 miles today. I’ve got free internet access, on a reasonably fast computer, with no one waiting behind me (knock on wood), and no apparent time limit. Let’s see if I can catch up on some blog posting.

The campground is centrally located along this long strip.  The campground is part of series of community/municipal buildings.  Starting on the lower side of the tracks is the campground, then a church, next a curling rink (station, court?), next a community center, library, skatepark, and some ballfields.  The campground has a lot of potential because of the central location and because it is still fairly heavily wooded (lending both privacy and a feeling of escape).  The facilities are dilapidated (broken fixtures and bathrooms which are reminiscent of the sort of ones populated by heroin users on Capitol Hill in Seattle).  But the city is in the process of constructing a set of sparkling new washrooms including showers.  The price is no bargain at CAN$20 per night.  (But in the grand scheme of things for Canada, this is okay.  It just busts my budget.  The cheapest legitimate campground I’ve found was CAN$14/night.  Seen a couple at CAN$17.  But most are CAN$20 or higher.  With national parks running at CAN$22.50/night and many places inexplicably trying to charge CAN$27 before tax for places of varying quality.)

So, this seems like a good enough deal to me.  I’ll plunk down here for two nights, take care of business, rest my now leathery bum, let the bruises which are my hands heal, shower at the Esso Travel Centre, and search for animal chin….um, internet connections.

I pay my money into a box, set up my encampment, and go out and about.  When I return, I am greeted by the camphosts (Ron and Jan).  ”Are you the guy traveling by bicycle?”  I am.  ”Do you have a lock for it?”

Apparently for about a week-and-a-half, some unidentified perps (thought to be teens, but unknown), have been stealing coolers of alcohol from the campground.  They come for a few nights in a row.  Then not at all.  Then back again.  Last night (the night before I camped there), they stole a cooler, slashed the tires on the camphost’s car, broke some windows in the community center, and stole a bicycle (which was later recovered a few blocks away).  At “stole a bicycle” my heart rises to my throat.  This is pretty much as bad in my book as making foie gras by force feeding human babies to kittens.  Granted, when I reach NYC, my bike will be a total loss…instantly parted out, stripped bare, and melted down in front of the first bottega I’m foolish enough/obliged to leave it.  But if I lose my bike now, my journey is pretty much over.  Maybe I can Greyhound or hitch the rest of the way (my shins raise themselves in praise at the thought), but the bike trip is over.

I spent the night with my bike locked up, tied to my tent, carefully laid trip-wires surrounding the site, infrared satellites scanning the campground, me awaking at any noise.  Meanwhile Ron, camphost, has designed his own snare.  I don’t want to give it away in case our quarry is reading this blog post.  (Don’t rule it out, they obviously have low tastes.)  Let’s just say it involves an ordinary cooler and a thick coating of sticky tar.

Needless to say.

It was.

Restful.

Tonight, I think, I’ll do it again.

So yeah, that’s a shame.  (That I’m not smart enough to move on when threatened.)  But the real shame here is these stoopid kids.  This town, in the axis between lumber, coal, petroleum, and strip-chain, has dint to broaden its horizons by offering itself a library, a community center, some productive areas for the youth to focus their energies, a nice campground…and these stoopid kids can’t but destroy it.  Unfortunate.

Tyler and Mel of the Hinton Voice

The following brief interlude of blog-postings is courtesy of Tyler Waugh and Mel Ewasiuk of The Hinton Voice: Hinton’s Locally Owned Weekly Newspaper. The Hinton Voice is a recent start-up local paper. The paper is staffed by former employees of “the other” local paper. The other local paper had been bought up by a major newspaper corporation and used the recession as an excuse to centralized some of their production AKA de-localize it. An undesirable chain of events for local news. Staffers from the other paper started their own effort just a month-and-a-half-ago and appear to be thriving…focusing on local news from a local angle.

Tyler picked up my blog posting on Google announcing my arrival in Hinton and invited me up to give my “observations and aspirations”. While I’m sure I will struggle with both observations and aspirations, I’m happy to use their internet connection. (A few staff members are off filming the release/relocation of a bear and her cubs, so there is a free computer here.)  Thank you Hinton Voice.

Bellingham
Sudden Valley
Sedro-Wooley
Marblemount
Newhalem
Gorge Creek Campground (Free National Park campground just outside Diablo)

Monday, August 17, 2009 (73.6 miles)

Gorge Creek Campground
Rainy Pass (4600′)
Washington Pass (5477′)
Winthrop
Pearrygin State Park

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 (90.1 miles), Hot 102ºF

Pearrygin State Park
Winthrop
Twisp
Loup Loup Pass (4020′)
Okanogan
Omak
Riverside
Tonasket
Oroville
Osoyous Lake Veterans Memorial State Park

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 (29.4 miles)

Osoyous Lake Veterans Memorial State Park
Oroville
US-Canadian Border
Oroville
US-Canadian Border
Enter British Columbia,  Canada
Osoyoos, British Columbia
Oliver (Belair Cedar Motel)

Thursday, August 20, 2009 (112.1 miles), 38.5ºC

Oliver
Okanagan Falls
Penticton
Summerland
Kelowna
Vernon
Empty lot 2 miles north of Vernon which someone has been using as an illegal trash dump.

Friday, August 21, 2009 (90.9 miles)

Empty lot
Falkland
Monte Lake
Monte Creek
Kamloops
Pine Grove Campground & RV Park

Saturday, August 22, 2009 (0.0 miles)

Pine Grove Campground & RV Park

Sunday, August 23, 2009 (120.3 miles)

Pine Grove Campground & RV Park
McLure Ferry
Barriere
Little Fort
Clearwater
Avola
Blue River
Blue River Campground

Monday, August 24, 2009 (56.5 miles)

Blue River Campground
Valemount
Wild Creek Campground

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 (78.7 miles)

Valemount
Cross continental divide
Enter Alberta
Enter Jasper National Park
Jasper, Alberta
Whistlers Campground in Jasper National Park

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 (55.0 miles)

Whistlers Campground
Jasper
Pocahantas
Hinton
Hinton Centre Campground

Thursday, August 27, 2009 (0.0 miles)

Hinton

I’ve made it as far as Hinton, Alberta.  A few clicks east of Jasper National Park.  Just time for a brief post because I know some of you are probably worried about my continued existence.

I’ve been plagued by hitting the Canadian Rockies during the tourist season….the tail-end of the tourist season, but still roaring along.  In fact, all of Canada seems to be in full tourist mode.  Fruit stands and winery tours in the Okanagon.  White water rafting, ATVing, gondola rides in the Rockies.  RVs and Germans everywhere.  The result has been over-inflated prices everywhere.  I feel like every campsite, fruit stand, convenience store, laundromat, restaurant, library, national and provincial park is a medieval German fiefdom, trying to make it’s living by taxing commerce along the Rhine.

The result, some pretty castles, but slow, expensive travel.

Even the libraries here charge for internet access.  I paid one loonie for fifteen minutes of goodness here.  So if your email goes unanswered, you understand why.  Probably a crucial mistake was not buying a netbook.  Seems there are lots of locations with free Wi-Fi access, but few libraries or anywhere else willing to give out any other internet access.  Unfortunately, I got soaked at the border by Canadian authorities to purchase some worthless health insurance.  So netbooks and/or Canadian cell phones are likely out.  More on this later.

[Aside:  If you think maybe that libraries *should* charge for internet access, let me say this.  In Jasper, earlier today, they wanted CAN$2.50 for 30 minutes of internet delight.  Not that kind of fool, I turned it down.  I then asked them what they had in the way of poetry.  The librarian, after recovering from the initial shock, directed me to their poetry section.  An anthology of poetry which had been read publicly by Dylan Thomas (actually, a pretty good anthology), a couple of Shakespeare's major plays, and the "Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare".....that's it.  So, really, what is the function of a library again?]

Anyhow, I am well, and have many pictures and stories to share.  Hopefully I’ll find an opportunity tomorrow.  I think I might be on the good side of the Tourism office in Hinton, so maybe I can bogart their internet for an extended period tomorrow.  Will take an extra day here and then set out east.