Once known as the King's Highway 17, Highway 17 is the primary route of the Trans Canada Hwy through Ontario. The distance from the Manitoba border to the western terminus of Highway 417 is 1,964.0 km. The highway remains Ontario's primary investment in the Trans Canada Highway. Ontario had the most highway to build. Canada 101 ought to require Canadians to travel around the Great Lakes for one long, long, long drive through the Canadian Shield. I was fortunate to drive, bus, and ride my motorcycle around the Great Lakes 11 times starting in 1974 with Harvey's Run when I was 12 years old.
The driving and the emotional stress of leaving Rhonda and Kim in Winnipeg had taken its toll on all of us. We were a homeless family of 5, in the Black Valiant following the home on wheels for horses, following the Dodge Truck on Harvey's Run. We stopped just inside of Ontario. We parked the Dodge with the horse home on wheels on a abandoned strip of logging road on the side of the Trans Canada Highway. We unloaded the horses in the black wilderness in our unofficial campground. We pitched a tent, and it rained that night as Leo, Lorraine, and I slept in the tent. I slept, some? Winnipeg DDA would sell their DDA women downtown on the skid, and the righteous would enjoy their 'feel good' stupidity by picking on a Star Trek fan by cancelling his personalized licence plate ASIMIL8. Just how mentally fragile are the DDA in Manitoba? This is the sort of respect the forest and ice people get from the primitive hunter gatherer DDA, since we saved them from dying so young (21 hunter gatherer average age). The fragile ways may have been brought on by inbreeding in their primitive hunter gatherer lives with stuck DNA turning into DDA. I just can't imagine Star Trek going over the head of poplar tree monkeys. Then, I just can't believe Star Trek is too complicated for the DDA!
The Borg star trek character said 'Resistance is futile' and 'You will be assimilated'.
The trees grew on the rock with so little soil. Logging was the primary business in this forest, as is the case in most Canadian Forest. You just needed to look at the logging trucks winding the road to lumber and pulp and paper mills. Harvey and Leo unhooked the horse trailer from the truck, and I was volunteered / conscripted into going back to Watrous SK with Harvey to pick up the people home on wheels with the Dodge Truck. Canada had several conscription crisis's in 1917 and 1944, however my last night on the ground in a wet puddle set my individual rights on conscription on the side burner. I wanted the home on wheels!
I was conscripted. Harvey and I began the drive west on the Trans Canada / Yellowhead highway back to Watrous in the Dodge, and I saw the transition from the Canadian Shield to the Canadian Prairies in the daylight for the first time. The transition of the Shield to the Prairie is similar to the transition of the Boreal Forest to Prairie. There are Inlets and Peninsulas as the shield meets the Manitoba prairie in an abrupt transformation as rocks turn to soil. In the late afternoon, Harvey and I drove into Watrous SK, after 10 hours on the road. Harvey and I hitched the home on wheels to the Dodge, and after 10 hours on the road, Harvey's Run returned with the home on wheels to the homeless in Ontario.
We arrived at the campsite in Ontario around 3:00 AM in the morning. I sleep in the home on wheels for people, and Harvey planned his next leg of Harvey's Run in the morning. I picked blueberries on the Canadian Shield that day. There's just something about the wild berries which makes them better. Wild strawberries in the forest are naturally sweet. Before hybrids, genetically modified, chemical fertilizer, depleted aquifers, and global warming, strawberries used to be sweet without copious amounts of sugar. Is it the chase or is it the berry? It is the berry! Lorraine was our groom, and we would have been lost without her patience and knowledge of the horses.
The town drunks son from the prairie could skip a stone from lake to lake. The map in the glove compartment showed a lot of lakes waiting for their skipping. Leo tried fishing with no luck. Harvey's Run was ready to leave again, after a few hours. Harvey's Run left 14 year old Lorraine with the horses, and she guarded the horse home on wheels on the Northern Ontario logging road. Harvey and Leo rode in the Dodge Truck pulling the people home on wheels dutifully followed by my mother driving the Black Valiant. Harvey's Run continued east on the # 17 Highway / Trans Canada Highway.
I've traveled this 250 km stretch through Clearwater Bay, Keewatin and Vermillion Bay many times before today. In 1988, I continued east on the # 17 Highway / Trans Canada Highway towards Ottawa. I had been on the road for 12 hours now, and the stars were shining in this sparsely populated land. I had 1100 km on the odometer, and I would travel the next 400 km in the darkness through some very ruff land. The # 17 Highway / Trans Canada Highway with very little shoulder room was dry and well paved. I cranked CKDR FM, as I drove east. In 1974, Harvey's Run went north on the #105 Highway on the east side of Vermillion 14 years ago.
The Trans Canada Hwy in Northern Ontario is characterized by hundreds of 2 - 15 meter rock cuts through stone. These rock cuts are surrounded by lakes, trees, bogs, valleys, peaks, and more rock cuts. This black mamba is the longest, snakiest, road in Ontario, and its the bite is often fatal in bumper to bumper traffic. The black mamba snakes back on itself, wreathing, rising, turning, rolling its way through the Canadian Shield. Waldhof, Oxdrift, Dryden, Wabigoon Lake, Wabigoon, Borups Corners, Ignace, English River, Raith, Finmark, Sunshine, Moskomon, and Kakabeka Falls drifted by in the night. Finally, I made it to the outskirts of Thunder Bay on the shores of Lake Superior before sunrise. The Canadian Shield had not changed.
Harvey's Run had made a detour north to Ear Falls ON from Vermillion Bay. In 1974, Ear Falls ON was a welcome rest for the family of 5 with a home on wheels. Ear Falls dug roots in the Fur Trade like the rest of Canada from 1680 - 1880s. For every village, town, and city in Canada our history is fur then forest. Aboriginals were the primary ingredient for killing fur bearing animals. Aboriginals also used their education from Residential Schools to find jobs in logging, lumber, pulp and paper mills. These were the transitional jobs after the dead harvest.
The developmentally delayed Aboriginals populated these uninhabited lands, first. These lands were uninhabited before the Aboriginals were "defined" in 1867 by the Canadian Government in those official papers called Confederation. The history of the Aboriginal would be hunter gatherer, fur trader, and logging, lumber, pulp and paper. There was little farming land, and I was quite impressed with the differences in lifestyle from dirt farming in Saskatchewan. As is the case in all of Canada, the town grew roots fertilized by those nervous fur bearing animals. The dead harvest, again.
Trade. Once again, the dead harvest was the currency of the Aboriginals. Once again, the nervous fur bearing animals would pay the price for the rapid advancement of the stone age Aboriginals in Ear Falls. The Hudson's Bay Company was on the scene a la "Pro Pelle Cutem". Once again, these skins were found on backs, heads, arms, and legs of man and woman in Europe. The Hudson Bay motto haunted those nervous fur bearing animals.
It's not pretty. Then, the truth seldom feels as good as the really, really, big lies people tell. The Hudson's Bay Post post turned Ear Falls into a village before the The Red Lake and The Woman Lake Gold Rush of 1926 - 27. Ear Falls and Goldpines became the major freighting centres for the north during the dash for cash in the gold rush. Goldpines and Ear Falls lost their freighting base after 1947, when the #105 Highway was completed to Red Lake.
Harvey's Run planned to feed on the Red Lake gold vein in 1974, so he backed the home on wheels into a camping spot at Gold Pines Camp just outside of Ear Falls. We unpacked the Black Valiant. I went exploring the Gold Pines Camp. Harvey left for the back run to pick up Lorraine, the horses, and the horse home on wheels with the Dodge Truck. I was not conscripted. I watched the Dodge Truck christen the trail with blue smoke as it laboured out of camp.
Gold Pines Camp in Ear Falls is on the edge of Lac Seul. The aboriginals called the lake "Obe-She-Ko-Ka". The early French fur traders "discovered" the lake to be "Lac Seulment" meaning Lake Alone in French. The English "discovered" their colony, and they changed the name to Lac Seul. The third christening was not so, French. Lac Seul. Aboriginals forgot their original name, and they adopted the English words for their First Nation. This huge lake is known for its giant "Pickerel" or Walleye for the rest of the world. I fished of the dock catching 4 Northern Pikes or Jacks which weighed about 15 kilos in an hour.
Harvey arrived returned to the Trans Canada Hwy campsite near the Manitoba border for Lorraine, the horses, and the horse home on wheels. Harvey and Lorraine hitched up the horses, and they returned with the horses in their home on wheels, to Gold Pines. The next day I learned more about my new fishing hole.
Lac Seul is 1658 km2, 55 meters deep, with over 4500 km of shoreline. The sun's reflection off the water catches the eye of even the most near sighted Bald Eagles flying over Northwestern Ontario. The Eagles fish Lac Seul, and they hatch along the shoreline. Those who couldn't catch fish told their stories in the "Liars Club" at Golden Pine Camp. The town of Ear falls is situated on the southerly end of the lake.
The 800 Ear Falls residents had a Bank, Post Office, Grocery Stores, Craft Shop, Town Library, Medical Centre, Canadian Legion, Hiking Trails, Golf Course, Churches, Sportsplex, and a Museum. Harvey's Run was here to get some gold which could be found further north. The 5 key gold producers in the area found their gold near breaks in the rock with volcanic sediment. The ancient volcanoes left footprints of "hydrothermal alteration". The Red Lake gold district is considered to be a Classic Green Stone Gold Belt.
There would be many scientists which claimed that volcanoes were part of some ice age or another during my life as the town drunks son. The town drunks son saw and heard of many Volcanoes, before and after I the towns drunks son met the Little Whore from Clavet who ratted out the Hells Angels, the Mexican Cartel, the South American Cartel, and the Mob in Montreal. The reality is the Volcano event is to small to cause an ice age. If you think about it, the magna pressure causes a Volcano to 'erupt'. So if one volcano goes, even if in a series of volcanoes, the pressure to set off any nearby volcano is reduced. That is why I have never seen 'proximate' volcanoes blow out. That is also why I know volcanoes do not set off ice ages. The correlation of the Volcano with the Asteroid is very strong, however the impact sets the volcano off in a greater distance due to the impact velocity. You see when a big mother hits, like the Gulf of Mexico, that mother is going to punch the crust into the magna so hard as to set off volcano within the impact range of the magna. That's why many white coats will sell the volcano , when in fact it was the punch that blew off multiple Volcano after the asteroid hit. Other than that, Volcanoes like this a nothing more than local events. I know white coats mistake correlation with causation for the man on top. The satellite shot is more of a bit of blue smoke out of your backside in the video from space.
Many 1%er white coats will sell the volcano for global warming, when in fact it was the asteroid punch that blew off multiple Volcano's in a 'pressure area' after the asteroid hit.
The surveys point out that the Achaean Green Stone Belt is a series of meta volcanic and meta sedimentary rocks. "Rocks" meant something to the small town drunks son from the rock city village of St. Brieux. The gold came from veins in these rocks where there were "sequences of ultramafic to felsic volcanic sediments". I struggled with rock breaking talk, however I understood "there was gold in these 5 breaks" to the northeast and northwest around Red Lake.
There is gold, fishing, and plenty of rock on the Canadian Shield. Ear Falls in Northern Ontario was better than my job as the town drunks son in St. Brieux, 6 months ago. Ear Falls or "Otahwaka Powitek" as the Aboriginals called the Falls were interesting before the electrical damn went on the falls. Legend has it that the falls were haunted by the Spirit of the Beaver between the upper and lower falls. The aboriginals could see the beavers head and ears bobbing, swimming, and disappearing in the falls. I looked at the falls. I looked again. I reasoned that the Aboriginals were smoking a little to much sweet grass. There was sweet grass on the Canadian Shield?
Harvey tried working as an electrician at the Red Lake Gold Mine, 1 hours northwest of Ear Falls. We would have to take the school bus to Red Lake 5 days a week. Fortunately, Harvey wasn't quite finished running this summer. Harvey started to realize that the travel time for work and school was going to be a heavy toll. He could not find a place for the tiny old home on wheels in Red Lake. Suddenly, Harvey and my Mom decided they would leave the Gold Pines Camp in Ear Falls. I'm not sure if this sudden turn of events had anything to do with a gold heist.
Harvey's Run from the twins continued to a small town just west of Dryden Ontario called Oxdrift. Harvey hooked up the people home on wheels to the Dodge Truck, at the Gold Pines Camp. He left Lorraine with the horses and the home on wheels at Gold Pines Camp. Leo rode with Harvey in the truck as I rode with my mother in the Black Valiant for the 135 km run to Oxdrift. The people home on wheels dutifully followed the Dodge Truck to Oxdrift through a puff of blue smoke.
Harvey pulled the home on wheels past Perrault Falls and Vermillion Bay to the # 17 Trans Canada Highway. Mom and I followed through Waldhoff, Machin, and Minnitaki in the Black Valiant. We followed the people home on wheels through Oxdrift on the # 17 Trans Canada Highway, and we turned right off the highway onto Glengoland Road just east of Oxdrift. Harvey parked the old house trailer in a clearing on the edge of the road 1 km south of the # 17 Trans Canada Hwy. Time would tell that this would be marginally better than my town drunks son position.
I lived in an empty clearing in a peoples home on wheels on Glengoland Road in Northwestern Ontario. Later that day, Harvey returned with Lorraine, the horses, and their home on wheels. The Dodge Truck had a noticeable limp as it pulled the horse home on wheels into the empty clearing. The Dodge Truck was tired. In fact, Dodge was darn near dead. The truck had run on after being turned off. It was shutting down with a big puff of blue smoke. The hard oil drinking and blue smoking days of the old Dodge had come to an end. The bone yard would lean the old Dodge off leaded gasoline and its oil addiction.
Harvey's Run from the twin boys paused in Oxdrift, and I did not want my old job back as the town drunks son in St. Brieux SK. My life in Oxdrift Ontario would be simple. I lived in an clearing, in the bush, beside a gravel road, in an old house trailer, sharing a bed with my older brother. I was in the middle of nowhere, and I wished I was elsewhere. I missed Rhonda in Watrous. I missed Bernadette in Humboldt. I wished I was back in Humboldt. I will return to Harvey's Run in Oxdrift, later.
Northern Ontario, Fur Trade, Logging, Lumber, Pulp and Paper, and the Kings Highway dominate life for the last 125 years in Northern Ontario. In 1988, the Kings Highway had a well paved road had a very narrow shoulder. The road sliced through a lake on the left, a lake on the right, then a lake dead centre in front of the road. The road switches back on itself 290 degrees to find a hole shot through a rock cut 15 meters high. The live wriggling black mamba does this again, and again, and again for 350 km.
This fast-wriggling black mamba would be the most difficult Formula One Track in the world, if it were not a polite Canadian secret. In 1988, I had my grill pointed at Ottawa, after driving most of 12 hours straight. I continued past Glengoland Road to Ottawa. I drove past Dryden, Wabigoon, Ignace, Upsala, Raith, English River, Sunshine, Sistonens Corners, and Kakabeka Falls. Finally, I arrived in Thunder Bay with the short leg of the black mamba under my belt. I consider Kenora ON to Thunder Bay ON to be the short leg.
The Kings Highway worked its way east at Thunder Bay on the Terry Fox Courage Hwy. Lake Superior appears on my right, after I crawl past Thunder Bay. Lake Superior borders on the United States, and Canada. The Canadian section borders on the Province of Ontario while the American section borders on Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. At 82,100 km2 in area, Lake Superior is the largest lake on Earth. At 11,600 km3 in volume Lake Superior is the 3rd largest lake on Earth. I consider Thunder Bay ON to Sault Ste. Marie to be the long leg.
The Lake Superior numbers can best be understood by driving the northern route over the top of Lake Superior. Thunder Bay, Hurkett, Nipigon, Gravel River Provincial Nature Reserve, Rossport, Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, Schreiber, Terrace Bay, Prairie River Mouth Provincial Park, White Lake Provincial Park, White River, Obatanga Provincial Park, Lake Superior Provincial Park, Pancake Bay Provincial Park, Havilland, Heyden, and finally Sault Ste. Marie is the longest drive in Canada. Period. This run takes 13 hours for the race car enthusiasts, who regularly decorate the grill of a logging truck. It takes me 15 hours for the 1,172 km whether I'm being chased by the ratting, raping Clan from Clavet or Not.
The next leg is the drive through Sault Ste. Marie, Desbarats, Bruce Mines, Sherwood, Sowerby, Iron Bridge, and Blind River. I was as blind as any forest and ice person. I actually believed a little global warming was a 'good thing'. I'm sure, I was not alone among the forest and ice people. However, we lived in the coldest country on planet Earth. We deserve a little slack for ignoring the global warming thing in the beginning. We would never have imagined that just a little warmer in our cold, cold, country was going to bake 800 million people in a southern circumference on planet earth. You see, directly north of Blind River ON is Grise Fiord, and the climate is extremely cold. Grise Fiord or Inuktitut Aujuittuq is a 'place that never thaws'. The Inuit hamlet in the Qikiqtaaluk Region survives on hunting meat to live. Agriculture in our north is impossible for these 100 or so residents in the land of forest and ice. Grise Fiord is the largest community on Ellesmere Island. The island is one of the coldest inhabited places in the world. The average annual temperature is -16.5 C. In comparison, Russia is a tropical country compared to our land of forest and ice.
Image Credit Ballygrant Boy Ballygrant Boy
The very northern tip of Russia is Komsomolets Island, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. That very northern tip is only a few degrees north of Grise Ford. However our land of forest and ice goes much farther north. Alert Bay on Ellesmere Island is farther north than the very northern tip of Russia. Also, most of our land of forest and ice is above the 49th parallel. Russia has land extending south of the 49th parallel along the Black Sea and the Caspien Sea. Russia also has land extending south of the 49th parallel along the Sea of Japan. These two areas compare roughly in size to eastern Quebec and Ontario land below the 49th parallel. Finally, Russia is wide and flat. The land of forest and ice is narrower and taller, and we have much more land mass above 70 degrees north. This all adds up to the coldest country on planet earth. Once again, we deserve a little slack for ignoring the global warming thing in the beginning. We would have never imagined not being able to tell the difference between Grise Fiord Canada and Qaanaaq, Greenland.
Image Credit www.sepeb.com www.sepeb.com
The forest and ice people know the land of forest and ice. We are the coldest most northerly people on planet earth. Today, it was still the early days of the change, as I continued through Webbwood, Espanola, Walden, West Nipissing and finally North Bay is relatively easy and quick. Finally, driving from North Bay through Mattawa, Deux Rievieres, Bisset Creek, Stonecliffe, Rolphton, Deep River, Petawawa, Cobden, Renfrew, Arnprior, Kinburn, Kanata, Nepean into Ottawa is a piece of cake as the terrain gets easier in the south. The total trip took 44 hours with a little sleep at a rest stop on the side of the Trans Canada. The 2,878 km drive left me in downtown for the first time in my life. I needed a job. The buzz was the Summer Olympics.
I hoped I would never meet the ratting, raping, Clan from Clavet again. Years later, I would be explaining to the Cartels, The Hells Angels, and the Mob how I met the Clan from Clavet in 1980 at my place in Star Trailer Court in Saskatoon. I knew the Clan from Clavet was playing both sides of the law. What could I have done about that? I was a parking lot manager / construction guy. I figured the Rebels would survive the Clan from Clavet.
The Clan from Clavet sold drugs, whores, and heroine on 20th street in Saskatoon. Their relationship with the Saskatoon Police Department was tight on information. That's the way the Little Whore from Clavet was raised, and that's the way her parents would play their game for the rest of her life. I was glad to be rid of the Clan from Clavet in Saskatoon. The Little Whore from Clavet and her family could tell people whatever they wanted about Becky.
Her family wouldn't have me around to blame when their ratting raping business went wrong. BJ and her brothers would have to find another fall guy for their ratting raping lifestyle. They could rat out competing street gangs, and they could live with the consequences. The "dead harvest" for the The Clan from Clavet was their competition. They sold their competition for "currency". That "currency" bought them immunity and fink money from many busts. They used these free passes to build their family and gang.
The Little Whore from Clavet was using her own house to keep an eye on the Rebels. She was a party girl who was hard done by according to the Clan from Clavet. Yet, this virgin with white panties sets up shop across the street from the biggest gang in Northern Saskatchewan. Becky moves from 20th street in with Penny and the native whores to Idylwyld Drive in Saskatoon. She moves across the street from the Rebels and down the street from the man she claims raped her?
I hoped I would never see the ratting rapping Clan from Clavet, again.
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