The high-pitched strains of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons beat in the background, as I crooned along to “Sherrry, Sherry Bayabaabbby … Can you come out tonight”, the joys of closed windows, and no-one beside me as I strained for the high notes. The ‘Soo’ arrived in no time.
My life ahead unfolded as I reached the Delta, which would also become pretty familiar. The hotel sits on the edge of a major waterway in Canada. At another time this major hub, Sault Ste. Marie, was the primary link east-west in Canada. Trains loading and unloading at the beginning of the greatest of the lakes in the world, Superior. Across the water, rumbling with the rapids of St. Mary’s River, Michigan’s Sault Ste Marie can be seen. The region is home to two major Indigenous First Nations, Garden River and Batchewana, families now divided on either side of the international border. Joe was there to meet me, long greying braid, clean shaven, warm smile. He greeted me with a big hug. We had never met before. As we sipped our coffee, the high-pitched tones of Frankie Valli faded to the background, and Joe shared stories of his mom and aunties and his roots in Garden River. Over the next five years he would be a friend and guide on my way in Northern Ontario. I could feel my anxieties, that came with this new job, slip away.
Then it was time to meet the head haunchos at the school. As I learned sharing a table with these colleagues would not be common. The roads across the north are indeed long and winding and travelling the ups and downs through rural and remote communities by small plane or back roads was not the most convenient way to meet. Long before it was popular the school had embraced electronic meetings. I would soon learn the virtues of virtual.
Two days later I was back in the car and headed out on the last leg of my journey to Thunder Bay. When I hit the highway, I popped in Gordon Lightfoot and listened to the story of the Edmond Fitzgerald,
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake they call, ‘Gitche Gumee’ …”
I stopped for coffee at Wawa and a pic by the Big Goose, to send to Rod, Justin and Dale. Back on the road, I noticed the white Ford pickup, wasn’t he behind me? The fun of long distant travel on the one highway that crosses our country is that you meet, without meeting, the other long haulers. I am sure I saw that pickup earlier in the morning. Up ahead was the semi that I had been using as my guide; I felt part of a small caravan of vehicles heading across the country and sighed that I was now only going halfway. I passed the white pickup again, as we cut through the deep boreal forest.
At the Trading Post, in the middle of nowhere, I stopped to grab an ‘Oh Henry’, my go to junk food. It has nuts as well as chocolate and sugar, I imagine it is somehow healthy. The Trading Post is also just the most wonderful place to stop. I had been there before on another long trip with Dale and the boys. I love these kinds of places, you can gas up, buy a t-shirt, get some art, and buy your groceries, what’s not to like. Some junk, but now and then you find some gems, like the wood-carved miniature ball cap.
