Back on the road, the sun was now high in the sky, but Lightfoot toned on, “In the early morning rain … I’m a long way from home …”
I reflected back on my decision to take this job and move to Thunder Bay. Dale and I had been together for over forty years. Our sons, Rod and Justin, were both on their own making their way in the world. Rod out west and Justin in the east. Dale and I were settled in Ottawa, sort of central and sort of settled. My job there hadn’t panned out and it was as though the position in Northern Ontario was made for me, and here I was a long way from home or so it would seem. But if a few hundred kilometers could break the team it would have happened years earlier, this was just a new opportunity for all four of us to explore yet another part of the country. Dale would be visiting in a few days and we would explore Thunder Bay together before he went back to his work in Ottawa.
As I rolled along in the sunshine, the forest opened to the amazing vista of Lake Superior, stunning. I pulled over at the rest stop and parked facing the lake. Brilliantly blue, the vastness of the expanse of water is amazing, in the distance an island can be seen and the borders show forest on all sides. I am reminded of my home, not Ottawa, but Halifax. Lake Superior was to become my ocean while I lived in Thunder Bay and I stopped at this spot on every drive. I noticed the white pickup had also stopped. A young guy, maybe just out of his teens, stepped out of the truck, we nodded hello. As he snapped a few photos, I asked how far he was going.
“To the coast,” he said.
“Wow, what’s up? Just a summer trip?”
He hesitated, ever so briefly, then with a smile, “I am starting a course in mountain guiding. I have never been this far west.”
“Want me to take your photo, with the Lake in the back? You can send it to your Mom.”
“Would you, she would love that.”
Photo snapped, I wished him well, as we each got back in our vehicles. We continued to jockey positions on the road, sometimes he was in front sometimes behind. I think the last I saw of him was around Marathon, where I stopped for pizza. I often wonder how his adventure turned out.
Terry Fox memorial close to Thunder Bay.
Lake Superior is spectacularly large and it stays with you all the way to Thunder Bay. As I neared the city, I made one last stop. On a hill overlooking the lake, sits a monument to Canada’s hero, Terry Fox. I had touched my toe in the Atlantic Ocean where Terry began his Marathon of Hope and now I pulled over to honour the spot where Terry ended that journey. The view is so Canadian, water, rock and forest. The immensity of this country and what he had set out to do is exemplified in the scene from the monument. It is worth a trip to Thunder Bay just to drive out to this spot, stand by that monument and look out on Lake Superior. I took a moment, focused my camera to capture Terry and the Sleeping Giant behind him in the distance – two iconic and solitary souls.
Back in the car I was only a few kilometers from my Thunder Bay apartment. I pulled into my designated spot, stepped out and stretched my legs. Several of my new neighbors gave me a wave from their balconies. Time to unpack for good and settle-in to a new job, new community and new friends.
View towards Thunder Bay from Mount McKay.
