I’ve been pondering videos and books by Nick Adams (the writer, not the Hemingway character). He wanders around northeastern Canada on old bikes. It sounds like he’s having a ball. I want some of that!
I’m no stranger to Canadian adventures, I used to run off on week-long canoe trips up there. Unfortunately, I’m no longer up to paddling weeks at a time. My planned replacement (a tiny but tough homebuilt sailboat) has been a source of humility. (Don’t get me wrong, it has also been an absolute blast. I love the thing. If at all possible everyone should build and sail their own boat. But it’s not a plug and play replacement for a canoe.)
What I mean by humility is that waterborne camping (such as by canoe OR sailboat) is one skill, building a boat is another, and sailing is a third. I’m not studly enough to manage all three at once… yet. Add a fishing pole and I’m a one man clown car of tangled lines. I can paddle with pinpoint precision, but under sail there’s just too much chaos. No worries. I love my little boat and I it’s trying its very best to teach me sailing. I may someday level up and sail past lakebound horizons.
An important note about “lakebound horizons”: you might be thinking of a lake as a discrete manageable chunk of water but that’s not the case in the eastern half (!) of Canada. You might be swayed by postcards and pretty views. You might even picture a lake or three linked by a navigable river. Probably you imagine lakeshore homes, resorts, and marinas. But there’s a whole different dimension of “lake” you probably haven’t seen.
The Laurentian Shield is a vast geographic feature covering most of Manitoba, Quebec, and Ontario. If you’ve got a real hankering for adventure you can add half of the Northwest Territory, Nunavit (reached mostly by air), and Labrador. This is some of the oldest rock on earth. It was curbstomped during the last ice age resulting in a water/land mix I’ve not seen elsewhere.
God’s Belt Sander of Doom made “the shield” unique and vast. Sometimes there’s so much open and easily traversed water that the land starts looking like an archipelago. Other times it’s soaked into peat bogs that will sink anything heavier than a rabbit. Technically the whole area is land but that’s not true at all. Unless you’re a moose you ‘aint crossing many areas on foot and even less so by wheeled vehicle. The funky terrain allowed my canoe equipped self to do some cool things. You can inch, lake to lake, poking past swamps and bogs, across the Laurentian Shield as far as your muscle and courage go. It’s amazing! I’ve done it and it was awesome! Oh yeah, did I mention this is all sparsely populated (if populated at all). You’re on your own out there! Knowing the scale of the challenge, I don’t feel too lame that I’m not yet “conquering” it with my 8’ plywood boat.
Back in the realm of what’s more immediately possible; there’s a thin, sparse, gossamer, network of roads in (some) of the Laurentian Shield. Roads start out “normal density” south along the border and gradually fade out as you go north; eventually ice roads and floatplanes rule. I have a motorcycle and wanderlust. I’ve been spreading out big maps of Canada and staring at those thin lines. There’s a whole lotta’ nothing out there and I love nothin’. I don’t care if it’s a blistering desert, a murky swamp, a frozen lake, an empty prairie, a stony mountain… all I want to do is go where the people aren’t. The Laurentian Shield is just sitting there… with all the nothin’ I could ever want! ROAD TRIP!
Pondering places so remote and vast that it’s hard to describe, I break down infinity into three “road classes”.
First comes “the end of pavement”. That’s my bucket list destination #1. It should be easy!
For the most part you can’t get to the Arctic Ocean on wheels. Thus, there are many “ends of pavement” up there in the infinity. None of the paved roads need particularly exquisite equipment. Any reliable vehicle will do (at least in the summer). Where there’s pavement there is at least the possibility you’ll find a bar that sells hamburgers, infrequent but adequate gas stations, and (with some planning) crappy overpriced hotels. I have my sights set on riding my “new” Honda Pacific Coast 800, happily named “Marshmallow Fluff” to the end of pavement; ideally while camping to save on lodging expense.
Next comes “the end of the road”. That’s the end of the dirt road that usually comes many miles after the end of pavement. That’s bucket list destination #2. It’s not incredibly hard but it’s not to be done without thinking it over.
Sometimes there might be “town” up there, but often not. You’re almost certainly going to need to bring a tent or plan ahead to be back on pavement by sunset because hotels are scant. Surprisingly, this isn’t super off road terrain. 4X4 is handy but (in summer) most of the main dirt roads are sorta’ OK. They’re used for heavy hauling; log trucks and such. If a Kenworth can run 50,000 pounds of pulp on the road, your Toyota will probably be fine. Nick Adams, who has more experience than most and more balls than many, wanders these places with ridiculously obsolete motorcycles. Well played sir!
But there’s a caveat; remoteness has a risk all it’s own. I’m not trying to exaggerate but in our modern world of cell phones and streetlights most people have literally never seen remote like this. Once you go beyond pavement, you’re officially “working without a net”.
Services range from nonexistent to rare. Don’t even ask about cellular reception. And even if you could call someone with a SatPhone, are you going to wait a week for help to come? In that case, imagine the level of favor you’ve just requested! “Yo dude, come drive for days and a million miles to the ass end of nowhere because I blew out a tie rod end.”
Whatever you drive into those places has to come out under it’s own power!
Think about your daily driver; it’s flawless until it croaks but then what? Your average SUV can do most of those roads but how “fixable” is it? Anyone can swap a spare tire, but do you have two? Suppose you turn the key and hear nothing but “click”? Anyone with a lick of sense has a jump start pack but what if the issue is some mysterious firmware disaster you can’t fix with your tools and knowledge? Think of any modern fuel injected, technology laden, computer on wheels having a small “kerfuffle”… but picture the location of the breakdown as being on the moon.
Nobody is going to tow your ass home from “bucket list destination #2”. It’s worth thinking about. Nick Adams rode his PC800 in these realms but I’m far too chickenshit to do that on mine.
It’s standard advice to say “don’t go up there solo”. It certainly would be convenient to have a couple vehicles in convoy. But, of course, people go there solo. They live there for goodness sake. I intend to be solo when/if the time comes.
My vehicular options are a mixed bag. My truck is tough and adequate but it’s big. Maybe too big. It doesn’t have a winch. A shovel and a rope can retrieve a light Jeep out of a place that would become my heavy Dually’s grave. Also the Dodge is technology heavy. It has been reliable (for some definition of reliable), but if it decides to throw a fit in the hinterland I’m doomed. I might as well make a cabin and live there because I’ll never get it home.
I have a better “adventure” 4×4. It’s built for doing stupid things and I used it for that purpose in a different life. But it’s old and I’m still working on some “restomod” details.
My Yamaha TW200, Honey Badger, would gladly drive dirt all day. It’s tough and gloriously primitive. I can fix whatever breaks with a rock or a zip tie. And it’s cheap. Even if it winds up abandoned… it’s not like I sunk a $30k diesel in a swamp. The drawback is that I’d have to tow it at least to the end of pavement and the little bike would beat me senseless on a long ride; it’s not a smooth riding tour bike.
End result? I’m stayin’ off dirt for now.
Bucket list #3 is where shit gets real. Often, the dirt road ends at a lake. In the summer the lake’s a lake. In the winter, the lake becomes a road. I’m not even considering ice roads for the moment. Every now and then I think of snowmobiles and daydream; but that’s a special level of stupid I haven’t embraced yet.
If there is a point to all this, I’ll get to it in my next post.
“He died doing what he loved”…Mrs. Curmudgeon
Let’s hope I don’t go that far, but it could happen to anyone who wanders.
Understand that with an EPIRB, you are never really alone!
Yeah, they are made for boats, but they work ANYWHERE outside of a cave or tunnel!
I have a SpotX. It’s not unlike an EPRIB. I call for help from anywhere. But short of a medical evacuation I’m more or less going to have to muddle through on my own.