Adaptive Curmudgeon

We never got to the end of pavement. We had a great time but driving many miles requires a consumption of vacation time I couldn’t spare. Also it was getting expensive for hotels and gas. We probably would have gotten further if I didn’t insist of stopping to “take the dog for a walk” at every pretty view, neat tree, rock outcrop, and pine cone that piqued my interest. Lucky for me, Mrs. Curmudgeon is all sorts of patient. The dog loved the walks just like I did.

Like I said, I’ve been in (some of) this area before, but long ago and I was mostly canoeing. Part of this vacation’s scouting was assessing costs of a new approach. Staying on pavement saves labor but increases expenses. A decade ago I budgeted $50 a day if I was very super careful. That’s for a fishing license, fuel to get there, bourbon, pipe tobacco, and a hotel at the end and start of at least a week’s camping (with a modest meal at both ends too). Food for the week was dehydrated backpacking meals I’d already purchased and brought from home; reconstituted with filtered lake water… or fish. My budget ignores money pissed away on fishing lures and such. My camping gear (which I used hard) wasn’t free but I’m not uptight enough to figure depreciation. Politicians teach us that things like that are “off budget” and therefore didn’t actually happen.

Incidentally, even if you sit on a rock and eat mud you’ll burn a few bucks. I recall paying a fee for camping on Crown Land. It wasn’t much. It was like $7 or $10 a night. Who knows what it is now? (This is different than campground fees which are much higher but you get a lot more service.) I paid the fee even if all I did was sleep in the dirt under a pine tree. I consider myself a guest and obey the rules of whatever country I’m in.

I’m 99% sure nobody would give me shit if I just camped without paperwork. Nobody in Canada ever asked for “my papers”; unlike Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota(!). BWCAW is run by the Forest Service and I personally experienced douchebags in the middle of buttfuck nowhere asking for my paperwork. (Which I had, but resented presenting.)

America’s various agencies like the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and some State Forests offer free dispersed camping (which is amazing and I can’t imagine how much that pisses off dickheads in DC). I don’t know if you can camp for free on National Park land but your car sure as hell isn’t getting into the Park without them taking a cut.

Another note on budgets; Timmys for the win! We faced “frontier pricing” at various locations and I’m not complaining but one Tim Hortons seemingly broke the pattern. It was about the same price as anywhere. Timmys isn’t my favorite but it won’t kill ‘ya either. Good to know.

We took a different route home, which was just as interesting. There was no sign warning me of “no services” but holy crap was there nothing! You know how college professors (and the kids they’ve indoctrinated) spent the last 50 years bitching about overpopulation? Well drop their ass where it’s 80 km in all directions to find so much as a fencepost and they’ll calm down right quick.

The route was paved and easily driven but super empty. There were stretches of well over 100 kilometers without so much as an outhouse. We’d found ample viewspots with picnic tables (or campgrounds which also have picnic tables and such) on other roads but not this road. Grudgingly we pulled over to make sandwiches on random unnamed muddy logging routes.

Since I was scouting for future adventures, I might as well cover a TMI discovery; call it the “dump index”.

On one of the routes that had absolutely Jack squat in terms of services (specifically there were no outhouses) I stopped to take a dump. No worries, I have a trowel and all that. I hiked a mighty 100 yards off the main route and had the most peaceful of dumps. It was a glorious moment in tune with nature.

I pass without a trace and when I was done a team of trackers would never know I’d been there but that’s me and not everyone. As I was walking back, I spied a little bit of TP just off the logging trail and much closer to pavement. This sparked my interest and I looked for telltale signs whenever we stopped. Here’s my determination:

If you’re on a paved road with no outhouses whatsoever, someone has crapped on every spot where you can park a vehicle.

Now you know.

Nor did fellow travelers do the “pass without trace” method a wilderness weirdo like me employs. I could charitably assume there was three feet of snow over frozen ground when they left their mark, but just as likely they were merely lazy. I’m guessing they took three strides out of their vehicle, dropped trou, and crapped like fuckin’ animals. I’m not making it up. I base my assumption on observation. People suck.

The reason I mention this is they crapped all over places that could be future “not hotels”. I could (if I were so inclined) roll a motorcycle (even a street bike) a bit off the pavement and spend the night without anyone caring. It’s probably even legal if I paid the Crown Land fee. However, if it’s dark and late and one were tired, they might camp too close to the pavement. If so, they’re going to discover the next morning that someone else has been there before and they weren’t so careful to dig a cathole as me. Just at thing to know.

None of this applies if you’re far from the road. Walk 50 yards and it might as well be primordial untrammeled wilderness. I don’t know if dirt roads have less traffic and thus less TP sprinkled about; it seems likely.

I didn’t take any pictures but we saw lots of critters. A porcupine waddled in front of our car and absolutely refused to give way. I swerved and came to a full stop because the little bastard was right in my tire-line. I doubt a porcupine will invariably cause a flat but it’s certainly possible they might.

There were little turtles, must be the right season. Herons and other water related birds too. It makes sense because there were many little pockets of water that probably haven’t been fished in years. Some might freeze down and therefore hold few fish. Others might be plenty deep enough and have a lunker just begging to be caught and cooked.

The dog and I wandered down a snowmobile trail and poked around one area looking for fish (I didn’t have my fishing pole though). All I “caught” were a few ticks. Tick-proof pants wont help if one gets in your beard! They didn’t bite me though.

Even though the ticks were out, the mosquitoes weren’t. It’s still early. I spied a few lingering patches of snow under some shady fir trees.

We saw a nice sleek bear right off the road. I was delighted. Every time I see a bear it makes me happy. The bear wasn’t happy to see us… it hauled ass out of there. Just a black bear. This wasn’t grizzly territory and far too south for polar bears (which seem riskier than grizzlies). I wasn’t armed. I’ve no idea what the rules for that are in Canada but the paperwork probably makes death by bear seem the easier choice. I’ve personally never worried about grizzlies anywhere east of Manitoba. YMMV.

We crossed the American border with no hassle at all. When the guy asked us if we’d bought anything I held up a Tim Hortons cup. I suppose nobody’s making much off my tourist expenditures. Once again, the dog was pissed off that the border patrol didn’t have a dog treat like Starbucks.

All in all it was a nice uneventful trip. I needed the chill and salute our northern neighbor for being (relatively) mellow.

We rolled on, and on, and on. Then we took a turn. Then we drove more. The weather looked threatening but never cut loose.

A few times I spied a Provincial campground. I briefly “explored” each one. These are my planned future alternative to hotels. After a few I declared that Canadian Provincial Parks were more primitive than American State Parks (not to mention National Parks which are so uptight I avoid them). I don’t mind “primitive”. (I camp in a tent not an RV so “full hookups” don’t impress me.) It’s just a thing to know. Do they sell firewood? Do they lock the outhouse out of season? Is there a water supply? Etc…

As soon as I’d formulated my theory, we stopped at another Provincial campground that was every bit as fancy as anything south of the border. Who knew?

Every “Checkpoint Charlie” entrance to campgrounds (primitive or not) was manned! In my limited experience (often off season) many American campgrounds have elaborate elaborate toll booths like it’s the border to Lichtenstein but (at least since Covid and possibly earlier) they’re unmanned. I assume it’s the modern weird American economy where staffing any enterprise is nearly impossible and too expensive even if you could find a person to do the job. It’s a lot like Walmart having 30 cash registers and three cashiers.

Not that I care, to me the dude in the booth does little more than an on-line reservation web page. But it’s nice to know details in case I come in too late or whatever. Painting with a broad brush, in Canada there was a guy to open the gate and in America the gate is unmanned but chained open. Either is fine. An exception is the US Park Service which seems to exist as a jobs program for people who piss me off.

We got to a town that was partway to one of my favorite canoe access points. We weren’t “at the end of pavement” but we were getting there. This was not quite the last “town” that is a “town” on the route but it was close. I remembered the town as clean and prosperous but that was years ago. This visit it looked rundown and shabby. The main hotel was large but undergoing construction. Half of it was shut down. The other half had 283,372,278 trucks from the CN train crews. Not a lot of tourists in this hotel. By “not a lot” I mean ” none”.

I cooled my jets in the car while Mrs. Curmudgeon checked in. It took forever. When she came back she explained that the power was down. She’d checked in using a laptop running on battery power. Making the magnetic key would have to wait until the power comes back up for that alternate computer. Also the person doing the check in had said “this is a First Nations town, why the heck would you visit here?”

We set out to find food. The other half of town had power. Sweet! Everything was closed. Yikes! I looked at a few likely restaurants. One had taped up a sign on the door; “Power went down and staff bailed instantly, good luck sucker.” OK, that’s not exactly what it said but you get it.

We found a place with an open door and power! The joint was hopping. Mrs. Curmudgeon ordered a salad and I ordered a small one-person pizza. Then, I looked at the prices on the menu and the numbers hurt me. I wonder how much we’d paid for a night’s lodging? Unlike the train service guys, my expenses are not reimbursed.

It’s time to discuss what I call “frontier pricing”. Shit on a frontier costs a fortune. This is a fact of life. If you explore fringes you need to accept it. Everyone has a story of how they went to Alaska and bought some thing and were surprised by the price. I did it too. I once bought a glass of milk for my kid near Denali National Park and it was mind blowing. But it was in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere and my kid wanted milk. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it was a place that has many moose but no cows. A guy needs to make allowances.

It’s easy to think 4 hours out of Anchorage is “remote” and I was “just in Canada” but that’s not fair. I was a billion miles from anywhere. If a pizza cost twice what I’m used to, who am I to complain?

I was looking forward to my double priced pizza. Then the power went down. Damn! Everyone in the building groaned.

I glanced at the owner, who was working his ass off. I hoped the pizza oven was gas powered. He shook his head. Damn! Several orders got canceled and some locals wandered home to cook in their house… assuming they had gas stoves. The owner offered to double our salad order and throw in some cold chicken. I was delighted. Who needs pizza anyway?

The other problem was that the power down meant no debit/credit cards. I had some Canadian bills but it was only $13, which would probably buy little more than a couple bottles of coke. I explained this to the owner, who was crestfallen to see a customer walk out.

Oh well, this is why I brought the chuckbox. I’d whip up something in no time! Mrs. Curmudgeon vetoed that idea. She was in no mood for “camping food”. She handed me a wad of US greenbacks. The owner lit up! He was more than happy to have foreign currency.

His staff of three were nice but utterly clueless. Without electricity they’d gone to zombie mode. I’ve never seen anything more closely approximating a human screen saver.

I went to the counter looking at the menu. People treat math like they treat a proctology exam but I had it handled. I was just going to do the math and tell the kid how much I owed:

“Let’s see, Mrs. Curmudgeon’s Caesar salad was $17. Multiply that by two because I’ll take a salad as well. Now you’ve got $34. What’s your tax here? Oh heck, I’ll just call it 10%. So now we’re up to $37.40. Throw in a bottle of water and a bottle of Coke and tax on that. Plus what do you charge for chicken?”

The kid at the counter was in physical pain. If he was put on earth with some particular purpose, it never did and never will include math.

I was trying to calm him down. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out and throw in a tip.”

The owner saw his teller-kid about to have organ failure. He shouted a random number. “Call it $50 even.”

That seemed fair enough. “I’ve got $10 Canadian and $40 American. I think the exchange rate is plenty for that to include a tip.”

The teller-kid started going pale. Two kinds of currency with two values? It was the end times!

The owner beamed: “Yes, that’ll be fine. American is worth a bit more.”

“It won’t be for long, we’re trying to ruin the greenback.”

“I’ve seen the news, you’re shooting your economy in the foot. We wonder about America sometimes.”

I handed the teller-kid $50 in mixed currency. “Spend it fast, it’ll be worthless sooner or later.”

The teller-kid held the money like it was going to bite him. He’d experienced arithmetic, ratios, the idea of fiat currency, and a hint at the dark voodoo that is arbitrage. I’d physically injured his mind. He’d need a week of eating CBD gummies to make the pain go away.

The owner pushed the kid aside, manually opened the till, and stuffed the money in it. He was a nice guy. I wasn’t necessarily getting screwed, I was paying frontier prices in the only building with food during the middle of a power outage. I could live with that.

Mrs. Curmudgeon wasn’t about to eat anything emerging from my chuckbox and desperately wanted vegetables so she agreed. At the same time she was mystified to see me handing over money without complaining. I always complain! However, I get frontier pricing and don’t mind it. As a contrast, paying for parking in Kenora pissed me off for a week. Mrs. Curmudgeon asked for the leftover cash (which was only a handful of ones). Sadly, I’d already put it in my wallet. Such a shame.

The salad was OK. Not great but not bad either.

Back at the hotel the power had come on again. It was not a pretty hotel but it it was clean and roomy.

Our giant, fluffy, photogenic dog was swarmed by happy fellas with accents from Bangalore. The workmen at the hotel were more likely to speak Hindi and eat vindaloo than talk about hockey and eat poutine. There were a couple Sikhs too.

Modern workforce or not, among the welders and truck drivers, I didn’t see a single female. The dudes were probably making bank and racking up overtime but also working with heavy equipment in the middle of a mud bog at the ass end of nowhere. Funny how you’ll hear endless bitching about 70% pay rates but complaints are uttered exclusively in air conditioned University settings. I’m pretty sure any skilled welder or heavy equipment operator would make bank in the hinterland. I know that virtually not a person alive would give a shit about genitalia.

The guys politely asked to take a picture with our dog and the dog basked in the attention. Our dog is probably on Pinterest or TikToc right now.

Last post coming up…

After a delightful breakfast, which I don’t know how much we paid for (but even Mrs. Curmudgeon was shocked), we left town. Eager to save money I bought some lunch meat. Everything in my chuckbox is “dry goods” but now I was messing around with ice in a cooler. What a PITA.

I also stopped at Canada Tire, because of course I did. I didn’t buy much. Canada Tire was a zoo, just like WalMart in the US (and there was also a WalMart across the street). I like Canada Tire. They used to have weird Canada Tire currency and I loved that! I think that’s over now. I miss it.

The novelty of Canadian crowds was more refreshing than mundane exposure to American “people of WalMart”. I should point out that everyone was quite civil and there were no thuggish shitheads causing drama; chalk one up to Canada’s more civilized bent. People were people and I’m not a people guy but it wasn’t awash in beings that looked like they’d teleported in from Jupiter. On the other hand I had to step around dogshit in one of the aisles. Since we were in civilized Canada, I assume the shit was from a dog.

I wanted to buy a collapsible fishing pole. None appealed to me. I was going to get a t-shirt but was overwhelmed by the crowd and forgot. I looked for paper maps but couldn’t find anything better than what I’d already bought on Amazon.

I did get bug spray. The season arrives soon. I noticed there was no permethrin? Oh lord, I hope my fellow rednecks in Canada have access to that miracle concoction! Permethrin is good stuff! (Don’t give me shit about herbal quack bug stuff… bugs up north are the big leagues. In particular citronella is bullshit. It does about as much good against Canadian bog mosquitoes as an orange peel will protect you against a rhino.) They did have the biggest selection of Thermacell I’d ever seen. I already have plenty of Thermacell refills.

Incidentally, I wear tick resistant permethrin treated jeans all the time. I think it helps. I take ticks seriously.

We headed out on what I perceived to be the main commercial highway that connects Kenora to… earth. All that plastic shit at Canada Tire had to come on a truck right?

As we rolled out on a highway I’d never seen before, I told Mrs. Curmudgeon “this is the main commercial shipping route, there ought to be gas stations and restaurants and stuff”.

Wrong!

Just outside of town was a sign. I didn’t take a picture but it said:

“Mr. Curmudgeon, make sure you have a full tank of gas because you won’t see fuck all for so many miles it’ll make your eyes bleed.”

I’m paraphrasing, but the sign wasn’t wrong. We didn’t see jack squat for hours. It was gorgeous though. Smooth pavement and nice views. I had a fine time. Somewhere out in the middle of that emptiness, we stopped at a pretty spot and made sandwiches.

I wonder if their main shipping is rail and not trucks? It really is empty out there. The US invested heavily in Interstate Highways and leaned into fleets of semis; or at least it did until it started throttling its own economy. Maybe this part of Canada leaned into trains; which are more efficient on long hauls?

We stopped at a blip on the map that interested me. This was one of many “turn here to plunge into the unknown” spots. A paved road split off straight into the forest. According to my map, the pavement goes X miles and terminates at town Y, which is so small that who knows what’s up there. The terminus is a lake and I think a vast ice road system builds from there, as in across the frozen lake and totally impassible in summer. Though I’ve never been there in winter so what do I know?

As for dirt roads there are a few offshoots of the pavement spur that look like log truck main haul routes, some of which skip from this paved dead-end to other paved dead-ends. There’s probably a spiderweb of smaller “feeder” dirt roads that snake out from the main dirt trunk through bogs and swamps and into various areas good for growing trees. On this mellow road trip, we were definitely not equipped to explore anything like that.

At the blip on the map there was one convenience store. One! People were buying shit like the world was on fire. There was literally nothing else available. The restrooms were in constant use. The pumps never stopped selling fuel. It was chaos. Somehow I expected a Tim Hortons at least.

I don’t know how many people live up on that paved spur and the associated hinterlands but I was at the bottleneck that led to it. Unless they’re getting into and out of there by plane (which is a possibility) or just never leave (another possibility) all of human civilization absolutely must pass this single overworked convenience store. Every gallon of gas, candy bar, spark plug, snowmobile, outboard motor, can of beer, and tampon in all of that big area has to come past this spot and meander up that road. Yet, there was almost no infrastructure.

I have spent many wilderness camping trips in Canada, but I never really thought about infrastructure. I paddled from nowhere to nowhere eating pike and sleeping in a tent. I wasn’t there to meet people. I scarcely thought about humans at all. This time I was people watching and it was a different vibe.

We decided to continue on. Still I ponder the mystery, “how do the people in that town up there get chicken nuggets”?

Approximately eleven million miles later we came to the first “big town” since Kenora. By big town I mean it had Canada Tire, restaurants, and hotels. This town I’d seen once before. Maybe a decade and a half ago I rolled through with a canoe on my truck’s roof. I remembered nothing of the town except it was a mill town and it had fuel. (I try hard to remember fuel stop locations.)

Mrs. Curmudgeon said “what do you mean ‘mill town’?” Then the wind shifted and the dog gave a snort and we all got a strong whiff of the paper making process. The chemical voodoo used to turn trees into paper stinks. I remember a mill town in Maine called Lincoln. We called it “Stinkin’ Lincoln”.

Now this isn’t all bad! It’s a renewable resource being made into a product people want and that’s a big deal. It’s literally the smell of commerce in a place where every dollar (or loonie) is needed and presumably appreciated.

We topped off fuel and kept rolling. Stay tuned…

We planned to go to Winnipeg but we looked at tourist stuff on-line. I don’t know who does the Winnipeg chamber of commerce or whatever but they made the place sound extremely boring; like “if I have to watch another YouTube video of the same three lame attractions I’ll set my computer on fire” boring. Maybe the place is awesome. I’ll never know.

I had high hopes for Kenora which was “just across from Manitoba”. That phrase is crazy stupid. Ever been to Texas? When someone in Texas says “it’s a little across the state” you know you’re in for a fucking marathon. Same with Kenora Ontario. We drove 292,273,376,200,028,521 miles… then another 100 kilometers because why the fuck not; all to get to Kenora.

I’d never been to Kenora. You know what’s on the outskirts of Kenora? Nothin’. There’s spruce, dirt, rocks, lakes, etc… but as far as human activity, it’s the year 1730 out there. This was the part of the trip I expected to be “suburban”! Whoops!

Kenora, has about 15,000 people but they’re doing their best to create all the bullshit of Manhattan by squeezing a commercial district into something like six city blocks. I was a country mouse, addled by the city traffic, in mere six blocks. Car horns honked and I was out of my league. We stopped at a hipster lookin’ microbrew and had to pay for parking. (I’m a rural cuss, I forgot that paid parking existed!) The parking kiosk had more technology than my home county. It happily billed my American debit card.

The tiny mini-Manhattan was awash in colors and activity. As with all such places I wondered where all the rich people come from. Or rather, all the people that look rich and demonstrate weird social habits to signal their elite status. On the one hand I get it but on the other hand they’re in… Kenora. The middle of nowhere where the main social activity is catching pike. How does a trendy elite happen… there?

Trying to embrace “urban living” I drank a stupidly over-hoppy IPA (hipsters and IPAs go together like saltwater and rust). I finally got that plate of poutine I’d been craving! The dog sat with us in the outside dining area of a fancy microbrewery and basked in the activity like a rock star. Everyone loved the fluffy dog. They inched around the grumpy owner until Mrs. Curmudgeon said “you can pet the dog, she doesn’t bite”. She never said “my husband doesn’t bite”. I suppose it was implied. But if any of them had reached for my poutine, I’d have taken a finger off!

Ever go on a trip and think the dog is more in the moment than you?

We spent the night at a hotel. Ever since the Bidenverse, prices have sent me into conniptions. I start sounding like Red Foxx from Sanford and Sons.

We’ve worked out a plan for when Mrs. Curmudgeon and I travel. She rents the hotel room and I avoid asking the price. “If I can’t read them, the numbers can’t hurt me.” It’s a joke in our household, and deeply embedded fiscal policy in both nations from this trip.

When I travel alone it’s a whole different ball game. I go to my natural fiscal level, which is slightly above sleeping on a park bench but hyperventilates at the cost of a Best Western. Ideally this means “free dispersed camping”. If I can’t swing that (and it’s hard if you don’t know the area) I’ll spring $25-$35 for a State Park and bitch about it for weeks.

That’s a long way of saying Kenora wasn’t cheap. Every fucking thing is expensive in America (especially given our inflation) and everything in Canada is worse. (Yes, I know about exchange rates.) The point is, if you live long enough in rural nowhere you lose that sense of money flowing away like vapor. I’m not used to it. Every microbrewed beer was priced like I was in the height of tourist season in Paris. Which is weird, because Kenora is really not that big at all.

I wanted to buy a tourist t-shirt. I approached a store. Through the window I spotted six man buns, a being with purple hair, and a woman who desperately needed a sandwich. She looked eager to tell me about yoga and crystal healing. I noped out of there and split.

Enough dumping on sweet innocent Kenora. We drive on in the next part.

For a recent mini-vacation Mrs. Curmudgeon surprised me with the idea “lets go to that ‘end of the road’ place you’ve been yammering about”. Whoa! Married all those years and she still surprises me!

There’s a hitch. Many moons ago she announced she no longer sleeps on dirt and also that she doesn’t ride on the back of my motorcycles. So my plans of rugged manly camping would be interpreted as “getting eaten by mosquitoes in the land of moose like an idiot”. I had to recalibrate.

Yet there she was, offering to go on one of my wild goose chases. She’s a keeper!

I dialed back a bit and we picked the tamest of options. Then, because time happens when I’m not paying attention, we were on the road before I realized what we were doing.

How shall I describe the places we went? Despite being a blogger I’ll keep specifics to myself. Partly in the interest of privacy and partly to protect my favorite spots. Every fisherman has the places they won’t tell anyone about.

How to tell a story that is fact free? It’s a challenge. I looked about for inspiration and saw it on TV. I’ll follow the example I saw there. Just keep in mind, I actually did the stuff. Unlike the dweebs on the boob tube who generally haven’t done fuck all and make up lies about it; I did the stuff. I may be obfuscating irrelevant details but I have legitimate and morally acceptable reasons for doing so.

After I was done kicking Corn Pop’s ass I drove my Corvette through my three home states and then on to the border with Manitoba…

…I was in my car, which is a very good car… the best of cars really. I and I thought, why shouldn’t I go to McDonalds, in Winnipeg. Why not? Winnepeg is a great place. Very great. Some say the greatest. They said they had ‘poutine’, which I think is metric French fries, but I don’t eat metric things. I said “no, as an American I want a diet coke and a cheeseburger”. And they made a cheeseburger but it was a bad cheeseburger. Disappointing cheeseburger. Sad really….

Ha ha ha… I can’t keep it up… I was going to do the whole story in Biden-ism and Trump-xaggeration but I laughed too much and couldn’t concentrate.

Lets face it, if either of the two main candidates tried to venture, on their own, to my favorite canoe access points on the Laurentian Shield… they’d both fuck up. One would die instantly and the other would bring a convoy of twenty assistants. We probably haven’t had a president capable of doing shit on his own since Teddy Roosevelt.

That’s part of the disappointment with the Boomeroids we face today, they’re reality impaired. They can’t operate independently in nature.

One needs supervision just to get through the day. He’d get confused and wander into the swamp where he’d sink. The press would claim sinking in swamps is a good thing and TicTok would post videos of famous actors sinking in swamps. “Sinking in swamps is the new hotness, look how all the stars are trying it!”

The other would give speeches to the spruce trees while the press bayed for his blood. The spruce trees would vote for him because the guy so damn good at speeches that he could talk conifers into motion. This would cause the press to set fire to every spruce in sight. “Trees are literally Hitler. The best way to protect the forest is to burn them to death. It’s the right thing to do.”

I’ll try again.

So there I was, avoiding thinking about politics at a picnic table adjacent to the US/Canadian border. Mrs. Curmudgeon had shit to do. I was on my own, just walking the dog and killing time. I had brought my “chuckbox” (which was taking far too much of the car’s cargo area but I’m paranoid about food). I grabbed a book, setup a lawn chair, and started brewing coffee. The skies were cloudy but it wasn’t raining.

There was a historic monument. I read it:

“A long time ago members of Tribe X and Political Group Y were here… hauling beaver pelts or some shit. Tribe A, affiliated with Political Group B showed up and killed everything. It happened here… we think, but we’re not sure… because everyone died. The assholes even peed on the pelts. (I made up that part.) This stone is to remember this shitty thing that happened for stupid reasons in this location or maybe somewhere else.”

I can shorten that a bit:

“People suck!”

I sat with my coffee reading “Curse of Capistrano” and it was pretty chill. Every few minutes cars would come in, sit there, and then leave. I had no idea what the hell they were doing. My phone doesn’t work in Canada. Maybe Americans were making a last call before facing disconnect?

Then I caught a whiff like Cheech and Chong had rolled Snoop Dog in a joint and smoked his ass. Whoa!

I’m not sure but I think pot is legal south of the border. Presumably it’s that modern “legal in the state but still mega-illegal in the nation” half-legality gray area that is now modern American life. As for our friends up north, I think it’s legal there too. (Which ruins the plot of Trailer Park Boys.)

Anyway, I think the 50 year old war on (some) drugs is vaguely and messily over on both sides of the border but carrying something across the line turns the clock back to 1980. I suppose the dudes from Miami Vice show up in fancy shirts to beat a confession out of you?

My drugs of choice are coffee, bourbon, and nature. I’ve no idea how it really goes with pot.

However, it’s my working theory that people were pulling up to the little picnic ground and doing a last minute “smoke everything in the car before we cross” safety check. I hope the vehicles had designated drivers!

I’m endlessly amused by the idea of people crossing the border while “legally” high as a kite (aside from the driver of course). In a different lifetime, I myself drove a station wagon full of underage drunks from Canada (where the drinking age was X) to America (where the drinking age was Y). I was stone cold sober of course! So maybe the pot thing is just the cycle of life?

I don’t like our strange new universe in which so many things are simultaneously legal and not. Perhaps that weirdness is nothing new and the past few centuries (?) of law as written is the anomaly:

“Is this thing I want to do legal?”

“It’s the year 1380 and the king is your distant cousin, so sure. Go for it.”

“What about this other thing?”

“The king is chill but the bishop hates that shit. He’ll secretly arrange to have your house burned down.” 

“How do I know what’s allowed?”

“You don’t!”

Is that not the end point of “lawfare”?

As for the rest of border weirdness, the whole “if they look like they’ve got Covid put ‘em up against the wall like they’re peasants in Stalin’s Russia” madness seems to have faded. Though it served a purpose on both sides of the line. It’ll surely return again. Don’t forget what happened. Remember!

When Mrs. Curmudgeon showed up we crossed with absolutely no drama. Our dog was disappointed to pull up to a “drive through” and not get a dog treat. The border was less interesting than getting drinks from Starbucks and it took about that long. This is how it used to be and I’m glad it returned… for now.

Part 3 comes next…

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.

This weekend, space weather was fortuitous for aurora borealis. I seized that opportunity.

I waited a few hours after sunset and turned off my pole light. (Most rural farms have a pole light, it’s almost a necessity. What’s interesting is that most pole lights are hardwired to photo-sensors without an “off switch”. I paid to have a switch installed. I don’t use it often but when I do it’s worth its weight in gold.)

With the light off, it was pitch black. The sky had only a tiny sliver of moon. Indeed the northern lights were happening. It wasn’t the biggest baddest display I’ve seen. The colors were washed out. But who am I to complain? All northern lights are delightful.

I have a theory that either God or nature (I sense overlap in the two) wants to help you. I’d had a hard week and needed to recharge. In retrospect, the best thing I could possibly do was park my ass in a dark yard on one of the first warm nights of the year and stare at the Universe. How convenient I was coaxed into that very situation!

I had the dog on a leash. Alas, our dog is more bonded with Mrs. Curmudgeon than me. The dog was baffled. It kept looking at me quizzically as if to say: “Why the hell are we sitting here in the dark? Have you finally cracked?”

I sat in my lawnchair sipping beer and letting stress ebb. Our barn cat showed up. First it knocked over my beer, because it’s a cat. I grabbed my auxiliary backup beer and shrugged. Then the damn beast hopped in my lap and clawed my balls, because it’s a cat. After that it settled down. My confused dog sniffed at the spilled beer. The dog definitely wondered what would cause an otherwise normal human to sit perfectly still and silent in the dark night like a brooding ape. I pet the dog to reassure it but didn’t try to explain.

It was a dark night with not a breath of wind. Too early for mosquitoes. I didn’t even see bats. The sky was pleasant. I watched the colors fade in and out and my mind left behind all those worries about plumbing and whatnot.

There’s a lot of “nature” in my immediate surroundings. I drink deeply of that well. It does me wonders. Few people will sit in the dark. Fewer still will sit by themselves. We are trained to be fearful children; grasping herd beings huddled in the safety of crowds. Folks are almost repelled when I tell them I camp, or hike, or fish, or hunt all by myself. It takes a certain kind of humility to turn away from the cell phone’s brightly lit debasement and embrace the true nature of the world.

Is it worth it? I think so. But I guess that’s up to each of us. If you open your mind to experience things but you might like what you learn. Or you might not. Regardless, you won’t know unless you try and almost nobody tries. If you’re fortunate enough to know a place free of traffic noise and urban light pollution give it a shot.

On this particular night, with the air so still and the skies flickering with a perturbed magnetosphere, the world felt timeless. There was the sense that anyone who sat perfectly still long enough would witness the Universe’s secrets. Such a being would have knowledge of the sort most folks don’t even know they lack. I suppose, a feature of having such knowledge is the inability to communicate it with less ethereal brethren.

Animals were moving about, but not the common ones such as deer. Deer stay put during the darkest of moonless nights. I heard a ruffed grouse beating a log somewhere. Owls were hooting, as if to warn the grouse they were hunting and all’s fair in the world of nature. Bears are not unheard of in my yard, but I haven’t seen one lately.

I fancied if I waited long enough I’d move through time. Would I see a mastodon? How about a glacier? Neither would seem out of place in my yard. In some ways a mastodon makes more sense for my yard than my damn maintenance prone Dodge. The ice age is distant and yet it is not. One could argue we’re removed from it by either an unfathomable span of time or just the ebbing of a few short moments. It depends on how well you know things. It was yesterday to a geologist and never happened to the unobservant. How hard do we really look at the world around us?

I caught the faint whiff of a skunk. I’d been sitting perfectly still and silent for a good long time. Can’t blame a skunk for not sussing out that I was there. I let my presence be known. “Damn fine night for blasting a skunk to bits.” I said it in a perfectly conversational tone. From whatever vector Mr. Skunk had been approaching, he vamoosed the way he came.

Just about then Mrs. Curmudgeon poked her head out of the door to see how the northern lights were. She sniffed the air, identified the scent, and retreated into the house like we had a velociraptor prowling in the darkness.

I stayed on post. The northern lights faded in and out. I tried taking photos with my cell phone, all of which looked like shit. The skies weren’t 100% clear so I saw fewer stars than under ideal conditions. I started counting satellites and lost count around 13. In the middle of this I saw a righteous shooting star. Nice!

In the distance, far far away, I heard some howling. I hear coyotes all the time but wolves only rarely. This time it was wolves. The difference isn’t subtle. They were far away but I don’t know how far. The sound of a wolf howl travels some unknowable distance. I wondered what that distance might be; a few miles, a dozen?

My dog is a breed meant for killing wolves. It’s a healthy young beast of a size to make good on its heritage. On the other hand it’s a loveable creampuff. It roused from its slumber, listened carefully to the howling, and then looked at me with definite purpose in its eyes. “Alright, this has gone far enough, haul your civilized ape butt out of that chair, take me inside, and give me a dog treat.”

Of the two of us, the apex predator is the bearded old dude and not the hulking young dog. Go figure. But maybe the dog had a point. I’d been out there for hours. Might as well turn in; to my dog’s immense relief.

By then the northern lights had faded. The cat, which had been snoozing and purring while I sat, clawed the shit out of me as I stood up… because cat. I lumbered a mere fifty yards yet through dimensions of experience to rest on a bed, in a house, surrounded by walls and electronics and payments, and a very relieved dog. I fell asleep quickly. I dreamed of it all; mammoths and wolves. Everything was illuminated by northern lights which are always beautiful; both in skies teeming with satellites and emptier ones. The latter glittering above silent glaciers.

I didn’t want to end on a downer, so here are a few photos:

It’s right there on the cover, three score and ten. But it’s not meant to be resignation. There’s a line though that limit and Adams won’t let himself be defined by such things. It’s a happy little book which I recommend.

After cleaning out the motorcycle’s bedonkadonk and stashing the manual and some tools, I grabbed the last thing I planned to carry. Nick Adams’ “Adventures on Borrowed Time”. It’s the second Nick Adams book I’ve bought. I was initially using his literature to test my “books on dead tree are better than e-books” theory but now it feeds my dream of a fun road trip. His books are simple, just road trips in Canada. Specifically, solo, remote, motorcycle rides… that’s precisely what I want to do! I’ll take encouragement whenever I find it.

I’ve spent many years wanting to “drive to the end of the road”, which is an unspecified but physical location you can find in literal existence in Ontario. The dream was derailed by other things, raising children, normal life, etc… It’s not like I’m filled with regret. I didn’t sit on my ass doing nothing! It’s just that the “end of the road” plan got pushed back multiple times. Most recently Canada’s shitstorm over Covid was (remarkably!) even worse than America’s spastic flailing. (Isn’t it weird that some places sucked even more than the land of arresting lone surfers and little arrows on the floor at the grocery store? I wouldn’t have thought anyone could get dumber than America but I was wrong. Canada went full gestapo, Australia built actual concentration camps, and New Zealand became an island prison. The Professor struggles in a society of Gilligan.) Even after things returned to normal (actually they never returned to normal and they never will) came the soaring cost of fuel. The Bidenverse tripled the cost of fuel and, even though that bothers me less than the political prisoners, it partially grounded my Dodge. And then came a personal loss.

But that’s the past and I’m thinking of the future. By now I was suited up and the PC800 was warmed up. This was only a springtime shakeout ride, nothing more than a sunny afternoon and a little over a hundred miles. The odds were in my favor.

I was thinking about Nick Adams’ introduction in his book. He talks about the biblical time allotted to us all (if we’re lucky); three score and ten. That’s the source of his title. His life can be considered to be on borrowed time; having lived beyond 70.

He implores his reader; “do it now, don’t put it off”. I can almost hear him crying out to his keyboard; “Don’t let your doubts scare you away from living while you’re still alive!” I agree.

As I wheeled the bike out of the crowded garage I noticed the plastic bag of mouse detritus. I’d tossed it on the ATV (itself a vehicle currently ignored). On a whim, I put down the kickstand. I’d tie up the bag and toss it in the Dodge’s cargo bed. Might as well facilitate the first step toward the landfill right?

As I tied the bag I saw it. A little piece of paper, thoroughly mouse chewed, a relic from just about a year ago. Hand scrawled notes; just words really. One word stood out; “biopsy”. I’d stashed that paper in the saddlebags sometime early last summer. Less than a year has passed since I wrote that note, yet it has been a very very very long time indeed. Even back then I knew a process had already begun. It was too long and too short and it invariably ended as it will for us all.

I found myself crumpled up on the ATV. I try to avoid mentioning sad things on my blog but I won’t ignore the truth of life. My burdens aren’t particularly heavy in the overall scheme of things. I handle them neither better nor worse than anyone else. For now, and perhaps for a long while to come, sometimes I wind up crumpled against a dusty ATV while my motorcycle cheerfully idles on its kickstand.

Three score and ten.

Eventually I took a deep breath and continued living.

I grieve, sometimes in the slow bittersweet growth of human existence and sometimes viciously; as when an unexpected gut punch hits comes out of nowhere. But, that too is ok. It’s part of living. I might as well, as Nick Adams so pleasantly suggests, ride.

And so I did.