Denouement (with an introduction, if you are new to this blog)

Introduction

The vagaries of blog composition are predicated on the expectation that there is a large audience of active followers. Those people are enthralled by the story, waiting for any and all updates, and so will want to be able to come to the blog and see the newest post first.

While it is my sincere hope that you are indeed enthralled by what follows, I made a conscious choice to hold off on any sort of social media blasting about this tale while I went. After all: this grand trek of mine, which saw me successfully achieve my aims of hitting all the US states AND all the Canadian provinces, in a row, by myself, in a camping rig I designed and fabricated myself… I was a busy man. No need to dilute the chance at intensive introspection and an unparalleled catalyst for growth in mind, body, and spirit… by lashing myself to a schedule for posting things online. The blog is now (3/5/2019) done, more than 3.5 months after returning. Without hesitation, the best choice in my life may have been the intentional delay of composing and polishing this chronicle only AFTER I was back home from the grand trek.

So, given that this was all written in short order and after the fact, you will want to start in 1 of 2 places:

• Interested in the why/what/how of my conjuring up the dreams for this trip? Want to learn more about exactly what prompted my design choices in the camping rig, or why I settled on the vehicle I got? Go here, to the actual beginning of the blog.
• Not into the technical nitty gritty, or just absolutely itching to soak in the stories of going, well, everywhere in a row? Go here, to Day 1 for the grand trek itself.

Either way, just know that the only thing I don’t like about this blog’s visual theme… is the VERY subtle “next post button.” I suggest using one of the links above, as it will only load a post at a time (which is vital, especially if on a cell phone, due to the number of images). Then, you scroll all the way down and look above the “Leave a Reply” box, you will see a tiny bit of of text with a rightward arrow – this is how to see the next post sequentially. As an example:

OK.

Having completed an introduction to navigating the walls of text and flurry of photos ahead of you, to help situate you with what happened at the beginning of all of this, that leads me to…

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… After The Fact (full photo album here)

1) The star of this blog, the truck itself, shall take the spotlight one more time. The DIY camping rig I put together had far surpassed even my most expansive hopes for it. Merely surviving the trip would have been great; all the more satisfying to return home and be ready to depart the next day with no qualms or gear-related concerns.

You shall understand my sadness at knowing, only a few days after returning, that I needed to jump on the fortuitous timing at hand and get the camping gear removed to give me back my normal truck again.

So… my Titan XD saddled up one last time in the trip mode, just with a trailer behind me:

In a symmetry which felt right, I ended the trip (2 days after returning) at the same warehouse where I had initially departed for the trip, on Day 1. In the same bay where the ridiculous bumpers got installed, at the warehouse where my friend Ethan works, I returned to again be the gracious recipient of their heavy industrial aid. Rather than the heart-rending efforts involved in unbolting and disassembling the constituent components of the camping platform, Ethan’s crew helped me with their forklift to remove the entire assembly at once…

… and set it down onto the trailer for very careful transportation home:

Simply put, then, the Titan XD, my trusty mechanical steed for such an intense number of miles… had run the race and succeeded. In the weeks and months since I have returned, I always feel a swell of pride and satisfaction when I walked towards my truck. It is a battering ram, it is a tank, and most of it is proven. Just as my DIY designs delighted me each day on the trip.

My sentiments about my truck were totemic for a goodly portion of my sentiments in general, at trip’s end. I felt bittersweet, with so much filling my heart and soul, and also with such a profound letdown reflex hitting me like a hurricane made of bricks.

2) Returning to friends, family, work, and routine. Returning November 18th meant that I was returning right on time for Thanksgiving, which was generous with down time for most people from their jobs and thus a higher chance to catch up with me. At the same time, I was frankly struggling with the effort of settling back into any of the old routines. But I did all I could do – I tried and kept on trying.

Sometimes it was easy – just bring a can of beer from Nunavut, a gift from the master brewer, to share at the Thanksgiving table…

… but that was the exception. I found myself assaulted by noise first and foremost; and then second of all, by proximity to so many people. A lot of them I care deeply about, but I was coming back from a 4 month span where I could count my time in close proximity to people on 2 hands. There was something similarly stressful at work, once I had returned. People were warm and welcoming, openly excited to see me back in the office… but for the first time in my life, I had to gently tell people that I was simply overwhelmed by the breadth of social overload at hand, after so much time alone. Graciously, they all understood – but there is some lesson to the sensation of feeling overwhelmed by social contact for the first time in my life.

In the early days and weeks after my return, I have to admit that I struggled. Sometimes a lot, too. There was a big amount of adjusting to do, and frankly I was allowing myself no time to unpack my thoughts and feelings. This blog was the second step – my first was to do an insane amount of work getting all the innumerable photos from the trip wrangled into organized format. This work took a great many dozens of hours over the 3 months it took to finish this blog.

At the same time – I was continually reaffirmed by coworkers and friends, and even some loose acquaintances… all reporting the same thing. They all looked at me and made a comment to the effect of “you look like you’re at peace” or “you’ve found peace” – and this sat right with me. I was not especially close to making sense of my whole trek. But my gut reaction confirmed their appraisal of my countenance. Then, as now, I still could not tell you exactly which mile marker or highway intersection or mountain peak did it… but I found myself a sizable chunk of peace while traveling. Returning and the discomfort which accompanied it… this only further highlighted the value of the time away, in the wilderness, spent interrogating my spirit about the questions too deep for words. I encountered a quote in a book I read on the trek, about the Drake Equation (considering the possibility of alien civilizations in the universe) and there was a poignant passage explaining how this explanatory equation

“Before Drake, the scientific consideration of exo-civilizations was unfocused. What existed was a mix of unconnected musings in scientific journals, books, and popular articles. There was no structure for building a coherent program of study, either through theory or observations. By breaking the big question into seven smaller questions, Drake crafted a useful way to think about the problem that also left scientists something they could work on. It gave them something to do.”

So: in driving and thinking and driving and sleeping and hiking and driving… I too had broken the big questions beyond words into smaller, more manageable unanswerable questions. From such an unlikely turn of events, and without any plan to achieving it, I had nevertheless found peace.

3) An eye to the horizon and the future ahead.

Vehicular satisfaction and pride in my DIY prowess; underscored by the background hum of an ever-deeper peace.

Imagine my delight at being able to share one other aspect to how the trip had caused me to grow. Along with all the other crap packed into and onto the truck, I had departed Ohio with a pair of mighty big questions. I was consumed, really, with years spent on each of them:

• What am I meant to do with my life, in terms of my sense of calling?
• Where am I meant to go and live, even in the shorter term (either in support of or in spite of the question of vocation)?

I had the tiniest sliver of hope that I might come back 4 months later and have at least a slight improvement on my ability to answer one of those questions, or even just a glimmer of a direction to pursue.

Within 20 days of departure, I had reached and explored a goodly portion of Alaska, and I had absolutely fallen in love with the place. People had joked up front about my struggling to leave, but it had played out just like that. I continued on the trip, slowly feeling the ardor of an Alaskan trajectory slip away into the fog of old emotion. You’ll imagine my surprise, therefore, when my plane flight back from Iqaluit to Ottawa, I was struck out of nowhere by the most intense feeling of confirmation about Alaska. Iqaluit has a few key attributes shared with Fairbanks (intense climate, ruggedly self-reliant people, and more besides). Those modalities resonated enough to slap me across the face and heart, and I was able to deplane with my carry-on in my hand and my heart filled to the brim with affirmation.

If for no other reason, then, I will confirm this some 3 months later… the trip was worth all of the hassle and cost solely to learn and accept that in the shorter term, I *need* to move to Alaska. I do not think it will be forever; quite the opposite, I think I will soak in a few years and be ready to reengage with the noise of the world I need to escape for a time. But there is the simplified diamond found in the rough of so many miles.

The executive summary for this whole blog, because it is the heart of the trip? I have a calling in my heart and soul to live in Alaska in the near future, because it is a place where my daily life would be filled with the adventure and scale of silence and wilderness which feeds my spirit.

Along the way I was asked if I would do it again or differently – of course there would be changes. But yes, I very much intend on a worthy sequel trek in my future. That is a different blog post, on a different travel blog. For now, I have finished. This is the end, my friends. It is my sincere hope that you have enjoyed the journey with me.

To end this blog of a few hundred thousand words, I defer to the concise wisdom of a lonely construction size in French, encountered along rough roads in far north remote Quebec:

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Epilogue: (this space is reserved to link to the next trip blog to come, eventually.)

The Final Tally – Statistics of Note

A prolonged and potent deep breath in.

A very large deep breath out.

What, exactly, can I make of all of the preceding posts? Besides sore fingers from typing a whole lot, of course. I want to try and make some sense of the above in two major ways, and split them into a pair of posts. This one, the first summary of the overall trip, will focus more on tallying up those facts which, in their aggregated form, nearly beggar belief. I will split this into a few areas of interest.

1) Fuel and efficiency: I am a nut for these types of things, as this blog has likely made clear, but now it was time to sit down and figure out just how much I had paid the petroleum piper in tears and dollars.

• The Good: with over 10,000 lbs of weight for the majority of the trip, I had clocked in at an astonishingly solid 17.7 mpg as the overall average.
• The Bad: with a total of 33,325 miles driven on the trip, that was a total of 1888.783 gallons of fuel. That works out, given an average fuel cost of $3.478 per gallon.
• The Ugly: the math for the average does not matter, because I tracked all of it. This trip cost me a heart-stopping $6506.09 in fuel. I can confirm, in the months which have followed, that this trip was well worth these costs and all the others.
• Bonus: ignoring the pre-trip charting, take a look at the visualized efficiency of the trip:

2) By the numbers: this segment required more self-control than I wanted, but I really did try to distill down to the noteworthy and/or odd data points from the whole experience, when it comes to putting it all together at trip’s end:

Vehicular (general):

• 2014 Hyundai Sonata hybrids rented: 1
• Miles driven on Oahu, an island 44 miles long and 30 miles wide… and a coast 227 miles long: 395
• Ferries boarded and driven off of, without sinking in between: 3
• Planes boarded as part of 3 flights: 8

Vehicular (Titan XD):

• Miles driven: 33,325
• Flat tires: 0
• Instances of check engine lights: 5
• Instances of being trapped by mechanical failures: 0
• Rounds of required maintenance: 4
• Gallons of oil changed out: 9.75
• Moments of surviving seriously adverse driving conditions, in large part due to mechanical excellence, approximately: 50+

Lodging:

• Nights spent at an Airbnb: 6
• Nights spent boondocking: 27 (only 1 of which was in the cab of my truck, thankfully)
• Nights spent in a proper campground: 29
• Nights spent failing to sleep in a cabin on an oceangoing ferry: 1
• Nights spent in a hotel or motel: 24
• Nights spent in the home of old friends: 15
• Nights spent in the home of new friends, met along the way: 5
• Additional offers from other strangers of a place to stay, a free home-cooked meal, or the chance to do laundry: 5

Exploring:

• Continents explored, thoroughly: 1
• States which captured my heart, with an Alaskan shape: 1
• Time zones explored: 9 (including the 1/2 Newfoundland and Labrador Time Zone)
• Moments when the splendor of nature took my breath away and battered me with beauty: countless
• Instances of being taken aback by the endemic decency of human beings when you speak to them in person, or even just smile at a stranger: hundreds
• All other moments of interest and awe, cataloged throughout the preceding posts: nigh impossible to reduce into a number

Growing:

• Percentage of my lifelong capacity for eating freeze-dried food used up: 100%. I am 100% done with freeze-dried food.
• … Suffice to say: 4 months of trip may have seen me accumulate a second lifetime of wisdom and potential. See the next and final post for more.

3) Visualizing the trip as a whole: There is a HUGE level of satisfaction from building the data gained (earned?) on the trip, into fuel efficiency figures and interactive GPS maps. Google Maps is ridiculous, as I can use Google Earth’s satellite view to actually pin where my truck was parked at a hotel, or where the Arctic Ocean tour bus took us. Unfortunately, there is a limit to how many lines can be drawn onto a map. So, please enjoy as a consolation prize the chance to visualize the 4 major concerns I tracked (refueling points; camping points; hotel/Airbnb/private residences used for sleeping; and particular points of interests).

This map is one you can interact with, zooming in and out; you can also click on any point to see the significance of it:

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So much more I might say. Fair warning: I may well add a bullet point or two above, as time goes on and the trek further settles into my bones.

I’d like to think that this post captured the heart of the numbers at hand.

For the next (and final) post about this trip, I shall endeavor to enumerate those matters of the heart.

Day 109 – PA to OH. Punxsutawney Phil + Home Safely at Trip’s End

Sunday November 18th, 2018 (full photo album here)

I woke up, and we had a large breakfast after some all-important dog petting and corralling:

This was important because the truck needed some tender loving car, and also some hard love. The frustrating but hopeful reality… those check engine lights from the day before were all gone, we could not get them to come back, and could not narrow the lights and codes down to a source. [As explained in the previous post, this would not be fully resolved until January 2019.] At the time, it was positive – the truck seemed likely to make it home without hiccups, and that was great.

The pre-planned maintenance was the next order of business. I knew that the tires on my truck, with close to 67,000 miles on them, were VERY much in need of replacement. This process was made easier by Rick’s shop and the lift therein…

… but only when we got them off did I fully comprehend how bad the tread was, and on the inside edges in particular:

Not to put too fine a point on it: with all the weight I was carrying, and the intensity of those Canadian unpaved “roads” a week prior in Labrador… it is approaching miraculous that I did not have a flat tire on the entire trip. I had those extra 2 spare tires, so 2 weeks ahead of time I had Rick order 2 additional tires. We swapped those new tires onto the stock wheels, leaving me with 2 empty brand new wheels (plus the original, untouched spare tire), and then did a transmission fluid flush. The truck was ready for another grand trek. But I would have to settle for the relatively short road home to Ohio.

I wished Rick and his wife well and thanked them both again, deeply. I was looking at the sun disappearing over the horizon, and recognized that, try as I might to fight it, I would need to depart and therefore be on the final drive for my grand trek.

It seemed reasonable to capture a snapshot of those “mountains” closest to home, the foothills of the Appalachians, as I zoomed north and west:

I had the time and wherewithal to squeeze in one final thing to see, and it was a damned good one. After years of driving by it on my way to and from Washington DC for college, I was going to go and pay homage to the holy city of one of my favorite films of all time. I was going out of my way to visit Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsuatawny PA.

I knew, as the snow flew down over me and then the rain took over for its own shift… I knew I would get there far too late and without anything close to sufficient natural lighting to get a decent picture.

I did not care.

It took a bunch of tries, but I got a halfway decent photo in the drizzling sky’s tears, showing me with my color-matched sweatshirt and the official sign for the place:

Passers-by may have diagnosed me as crazy, as I ran back and forth to the camera to adjust it. They may well have been correct. I did not care. On the end of the trip which often felt as though it was going to keep going on forever and ever so long as I kept setting up that tent and then driving for hours the next day… I had visited the nexus of such eternal dispositions. I could go home, finally.

The final 3 hours of my trip passed by almost imperceptibly. The rain and fog intermixed themselves with sleet and sometimes a touch of snow.

 

On 11/18/2018, at exactly 10:35pm, I made it home safely. I reached this final stop with an odometer reading 67,831 miles; under my own power; with all of the gear still affixed to the truck, and some 4 months older and 40 years wiser. I was even nearly 45 lbs lighter than when I started. But these are all details, to be explored in the next summarizing post to come.

At that moment, I took a look at what I saw, and knew that I was home safely…

… and I had succeeded at my lofty, unreasonable goals.

Unpacking [of material goods, new ideas, worries and hopes] would happen later of course. For that moment, it was sufficient to take my CPAP and pajamas into the house with me. A bed and a desk awaited me, maybe a bit more dusty than when I departed…

… but things were different, somehow. Imperceptibly, in some ways and more blatant in others.

I was far too tired and scattered to do much of anything besides brush my teeth and then crawl into a bed NOT mounted atop a pickup truck.

I don’t think I needed to do too much more.

I had made it home, safe and sound. 109 days of trip, over 33,000 miles of driving. A continent explored, with a stroll into Mexico, all 13 provinces in Canada, and all 50 of the US states (with the federal District of Columbia thrown in for good measure!). Incredibly, I had set out to do something unreasonable and maybe unwise, and I had succeeded fully.

Behind me was a colorful and vibrant jaunt around the states AND the provinces.

Difficult to discern if I was walking from teethbrushing to bed with a newly earned swagger, or exhaustion-induced stumbling. I think the balance is tipped towards swagger, if the growing panache of my storytelling and conversations of the past months were any indication.

Analysis of any sort at the time was lost in a roiling sea of emotion.

I was home safely.

My grand trek was over and done.

Day 108 – NY to PA. 50 States Complete + Clocks Galore + Visiting a Friend

Saturday November 17, 2018 (full photo album here)

The blaring of my alarm to wake up hit like a truck; the recognition that this was the last full day of my grand trek… that hit like a second, larger, and more ornery truck.

Where in the hell had 107 days gone? What manner of magicks had transpired to transport me such an inordinate number of miles safely and with a tan gained and an aversion to freeze-dried food earned?

I knew the answer to ~none of these things.

I packed up and had a quick meal at a restaurant nearby. My early rise was a necessity, as I was going to try and make it to Columbia PA. More specifically, to the National Clock and Watch Museum.

There was an Exciting New Experience, though, before the successful arrival at the Museum.

On 11/17/2018 at 10:46am: I was 5 minutes away from the Pennsylvania border with New York. Therefore, I was 5 minutes away from successfully completing the original goal of my trip, to hit all 50 states in a row by myself. So, what happened? OF COURSE I had a Christmas tree’s worth of instrument cluster lights (check engine, ABS, traction control, and TPMS) all wink into being, casting their angry amber glow onto my disappointed visage. Gaze upon my instrument cluster woes and know despair:

The codes were accompanied by the engine revving a lot more, the transmission shifting very late given the highway speeds, and just making me uncomfortable with the notion of the unknown problem[s] happening as I hurtled south. At the same time: know as well that I was galvanized into perhaps the most resolute desire I will ever know in my life. Through gritted teeth (and equally gritted spirit), I could not help but shout in anger “I DON’T CARE IF THE TRUCK IS WRECKED AS A RESULT, I AM GOING TO ROLL ACROSS INTO PA UNDER MY OWN POWER.”

On 11/17/2018 at 10:51am: I rolled across the PA border under my own power, thus succeeding at the primary goal of my trip…

No kindly old lady was present to offer me a sewn Revolutionary War flag, but it was good to have made it into PA. It was better to have a welcome center and rest stop mere minutes later, to be able to get out and visually inspect the engine bay and underneath the truck; and also to scan for codes. That could wait.

First, I added the final sticker, Pennsylvania, to the tailgate:

This completed the United States…

… and thus balanced out the day prior’s completion of Canadian exploration in sticker form:

What a juxtaposition of emotions, in that snow- and slush-infested parking lot. SO EXCITED at having succeeded against all odds. And yet *SO INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATED* to have such a slew of problems pop up, still so far from home. ……. and yet and yet, I was thankful as all hell at this level of problems [editor: or, more accurately these implied problems] occurring within the USA and not, say, merely 5 or 6 days earlier on the intensely challenging Trans-Labrador Highway in the middle of nowhere in Canada.

Thankfully, my mechanic buddy Rick was able to talk me through a few other potential diagnostic options, all of which I tried. Two lines of conclusion:

• AT THE TIME: it is almost certainly a transmission or driveline-related sensor, passing faulty data, and the data is so far outside of the normal range that the engine computer AND transmission computer have put themselves into a limp mode. No way of visually diagnosing this, and my code reader gave me clues but nothing concrete. The truck was very likely to continue to run poorly (revving too high, delayed shifts, etc), but it would work well enough to safely make it.
• 3 MONTHS LATER, IN JANUARY 2019: in retrospect, and to make a very long and frustrating process worse… it turned to be the right rear wheel speed sensor, being intermittently faulty. It caused a total of 11 check engine and ABS codes, all because the truck was smart enough to know that “there is no way that one wheel is spinning at 120mph when the others are at 65mph” and also smart enough to protect itself by reducing the complexity of the systems in operation. It just wasn’t smart enough to recognize that the intermittent nature of the problem was that specific sensor (so it took a LOT of diagnostic sleuthing to figure the damned thing out).

Sigh.

I made my decision – I would drive as far as I could to my next stop. It would be just as expensive to be towed to Cleveland from northeast PA as it would be from southeast (in the worst case scenario). So I did it.

I rushed south until I was parking in the lot outside the National Clock and Watch Museum. I resolved to see as much as I could, and enjoy it. Many other pictures in the day’s album/enjoy the highlights below:

• Ancient timepieces, including those based on water drips:

• More grandfather clocks from more centuries than you ever thought possible:

• One of a kind clock-related novelties such as the so-called Eighth Wonder of the World:

• … there was a LOT more besides. I was dazzled by learning details of everything from the way in which daylight savings time emerged; to the realities of train conductors influencing time zones, and lot more besides. If ever you have the chance, please do go and visit that grand museum.

This was my last public venue visited on the trip, and I think it was rather fitting to have it be an edifice dedicated to time. My trek had seen me sample the varieties of time, many I had known before in my life, but also many new ones besides. Boredom can take on contours and dimensions which are mesmerizing. And, even so, I had discovered that some of the most productive times in my life were enabled by that level of extended boredom. Driving along the splendor of nature for such a long time that it almost became mundane were rendered all the more poignant when I rounded a curve and involuntarily sat up straighter in my seat, struggling to incorporate the newest unbelievable beauty into my disbelieving eyes. I cannot fully explain it (neither at the end of the trip in 11/2018, nor at time of writing this post in 3/2019). But nevertheless, it was the leavening of time spent, time to soak in, time survived. This trip was my own safari through time and a chance to better understand my willingness to accept the strictures of it. The trek had of course involving me traveling through a LOT of space, mile upon mile upon mile.

And those miles were not quite done. I got onto the road, and took the time to soak in the final sunset, in my last state, on the last full day of the trip away from home:

Speaking of my mechanic buddy Rick, earlier? It was to his house, in Waynesboro PA, where I was headed to that final evening of the trip. I was going to visit him, his wife, and their beloved dogs.

Eventually, I rolled into their driveway, and with a great sense of relief turned my truck off for the second time that day. I went inside, out of the cold, and was warmed by their hospitality and the symbol of their house as my having made it… somewhere. I was not yet home, and I still had undiagnosed truck concerns. But I had made it to a place I knew, with people I care about and who looked after me. It helps that Rick is a master mechanic, who would be able to lend me a second set of eyes on the problems afoot.

I had made it.

I got to bunk indoors, which was much obliged (with such a cold night, so much exhaustion leading to a thoroughly ragged immune system, and home life to soon try to reenter). Sleep came rather quickly, and I was glad of it. I did not want to worry about the trip ending, but rather just live into the time as it was unfolding.

I had made it.

Day 107 – NU to ON to NY. Flying South + Finishing all of Canada + 49 States Down…

Friday November 16th, 2018 (full photo album here)

[Editor’s note – as described in the previous post, I had actually squeezed in a LOT to the morning before departure from Iqaluit. I will still catalog a few of things here, but to get the whole story you will need to read Day 106 as well]

Up and at ’em.

Rachel was gracious enough to pick me up and take me around to various sites, from the “Road to Nowhere” to the other and unlabeled road to nowhere, both of which disappeared into a white and snowy wasteland. I could live there for the rest of my life, in some ways. We zipped around and she even got in a stop at her final work site for her business trip.

Then, it was time to drive to the airport, take in the sub-Arctic rainbow over the runway…

… and head inside the terminal. With only 2 gates, there was not a lot of space for Inuit artwork, but they made judicious use of the larger flat surfaces with excellent works:

Only 2 gates = only a handful of television screens with flight information – it was officially chilly all across Nunavut that morning!

With the sea frozen, and especially with the idiocy of teenage arsonists having burned down the food warehouse, the only way to bring in supplies (the modified front portion of the passenger planes, turned into an easy-access cargo hold) was higher priority than getting us paying customers onto the plane. Still, it was pretty cool to watch the hatch open like the gull-wing door on a DeLorean:

Maybe the most important moment in Canada for me was next – I got to wear shorts in around -15 degree F wind-chill, as I walked to the plane on the tarmac. Rachel surreptitiously snapped evidence of my (stylish) boots-and-shorts combo, and I got the satisfaction of Inuit people and Canadians shoveling their jaws off the asphalt when they saw me in that bitter and cold wind. Perfect:

My seat turned out to be right behind the cargo bay, and that wall was surprisingly poorly insulated. My cojones in wearing shorts for the walk made for an unpleasant flight, but there were two consolation prizes. Neither of them took the sting out of the highway robbery pricing for tickets to fly, but the warmed and gooey chocolate chip cookie was good…

… and the hot chocolate was great:

Even better – my seat was by itself so I was able to lean over and get some FANTASTIC photographs of the barren wilderness in its splendor and glory:

Eventually, that flight heading straight south reached Ottawa International Airport and my chilly legs were afforded a chance to debark. I walked into the terminal from the tarmac (always a weird experience) and gathered up my belongings. I wished Rachel the very best, trying my best to convey my gratitude at her having driven me to the places I would not have reached otherwise (and for becoming my friend). With a hug, she was off towards her next flight to get home. I was off towards the parking lot.

Or, rather, I tried to go that way. “Young man! YOUNG MAN!!” I turned, discerning from the voice that at 30 years of age, I could still qualify for that moniker. I turned around and eyed the source of that call. An elderly Inuit woman, who I recognized as someone who had been on the flight down from Iqaluit, caught up with me. She looked me right in the eye, and in perhaps the most unexpected pagan blessing I will ever receive, she told me the following:

“Young man, you should thank whichever hunter caught the seal you ate,” she explained, looking down from my eyes at my still bare legs, then back up at my eyes. “That hunter was very good, as you ate the flesh of that seal and gained its strength and spirit. That is the only way you could handle the cold, in those short pants.”

I was taken aback, and for a split second I suspect that my confusion played across my face. It was abundantly clear to me that she was entirely sincere – her religious explanation for my incomprehensible choice in wearing shorts was her best guess at trying to understand. In one fell swoop, I got a pagan omen in favor of my ever growing sense that perhaps I should move to Alaska for a few years in the shorter term (to make use of my inner spirit of the seal, you see); and also was blindsided once again by the satisfaction which is possible from interacting with a total stranger in a positive way without any sort of saccharine reference to social media likes or following or other disingenuous “connection” which is not really there.

What is life, if not a series of brief encounters by chance? Invigorating, then, to just have a chance meeting and a smile at the joy of those positive times in life which can be neither planned for nor expected.

I recovered from my confusion, and thanked her for her kind words indeed. I wished her well in the comparative warmth of Ottawa.

Then I walked outside and ran into “neither planned for nor expected” many inches of snow had fallen and encrusted my truck. This time, unlike up in Labrador, I did not have a hotel concierge to loan me a broom to try and clear the truck…

… so one of many tools crammed into the truck came to my rescue. A tiny and flimsy cheap handheld broom (for use with dustpan), to Bob Ross my way out of snowy truck encrustation:

My work of art took a while, but I got it done. I always do.

The truck was warmed up enough to put a very satisfying address into the GPS. The home country. But after such a long day of Nunavut adventuring; a chilly flight; and an Inuit blessing in an international airport… I was going to drive back down into those United States.

First, though, I *completed* the Canadian map on my tailgate, adding both Ontario and Nunavut. What a rush:

The next “rush” was me, following the speed limit all the way down to the border with New York state. Google Maps (what I ended up switching to, after a construction traffic snarl) was nice enough to offer me a personal welcome as I blazed back across to the land of franchises, litigation, and decency-gridlocked-by-headache.

The US of A:

The exhaustion, on schedule, had set in. I was in no shape to look for a campground but I did at a fuel stop. Nothing free near me, it was past midnight and I was burned too many times in the south by “show up and hope to pay in the morning, to find a locked gate barring my entry” so that option was out. I did that unpleasant calculus of “too tired to keep going, but no hotel near me, but need to make distance” – by this point in the trip, I was an expert. The equation spit out “somehow make it to the La Quinta of Johnson City, NY” and so I did it.

The night clerk was friendly, looked about half as tired as I felt, and inquisitive as to what brought me to Johnson City at such a late hour. I think I mumbled something semi-intelligible, it may have even been in English. I couldn’t tell you what it was. That room in my memory is a blur, as I stumbled in, set up my CPAP on muscle memory alone (my vision was faulty by that point) and I passed out, 1500 miles from where I woke up.

Day 106 – Relaxing in Iqaluit, Nunavut

Thursday November 15, 2018 (full photo album here)

1) The whole truth of the day: I was beat to hell tired. I spent the vast majority of it in bed, reading and relaxing. Only in the evening did I meet up with Rachel for dinner and then checking out the Nunavut Brewing Company (NuBrewCo):

Not only was I in the second furthest north brewing company in the world… I ended up making friends with the master brewer, also Mike (and also from Ohio) along with Rachel, and we had a grand time talking about the vagaries of brewing in such intensely cold climate and so forth:

2) Additionally, to keep tomorrow’s post from being too long, I will add some things discovered the next morning here, in bullet form:

• A daytime view of Iqaluit:

• Seeing the sad evidence of a couple of idiot teenagers who had decided to commit arson and burn down the primary food warehouse for the whole city AFTER the bay froze over and thus created a supply crisis for the balance of the winter ahead:

• Seeing the insane cost of food (in Canadian dollars, mind you, likely further elevated by the arson-induced shortage:

• Various soul-gripping experiences of the beauty of snow on what is, by rainfall, a snowy, treeless, desert of an island:

• A very quick jaunt over to the Road to Nowhere which is aptly named, as you can see…

… and braving some damned cold weather to get these photos, too:

• Admiring the outside of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly, with the yellow/red/white provincial flag…

… alongside the various tribal national flags of the constituent First Nation peoples within Nunavut:

• An abbreviated speed-run of a glimpse inside the legislative building, including gorgeous scrimshaw onto caribou antlers…

… a regal sword fashioned out of a narwhal tusk…

… and the center of the council chamber having a toboggan, with each delegate’s chair featuring traditional Inuit materials, such as sealskin and caribou leather:

• The sad reality of the town junkyard as emblematic for the problems facing Iqaluit, without any recycling program and waste (including hazards) being generated on the island and then left in place (or worse, leaking into the earth). Weird, what kinds of trash we create but never have to think about because we do not have to see or think about where we live (as we do not see junkyards):

 

Now, a set of facts or details learned along the way, also in bullet form as I crammed in so much while in Iqaluit:

• First Air and Canadian North are both Inuit owned and going to merge. They used a price war to kill off a new company (approved to create a competing airline) with $600 tickets vs First Air and Canadian North charging $1800. This pricing stranglehold by the monopolistic airlines are prime causal factors in the incredibly high cost of living in Iqaluit. Sadly, the high prices charged (to try and help the Inuit, by bringing in as much cash as possible) are also causal in the poorer Inuit being trapped in their cities and hamlets, unable to get out into the rest of Canada.
• In nearly all of Nunavut’s other cities besides Iqaluit, the cost of a medevac is well over $30,000. Yikes.
• Ridiculous red tape is endemic, with Facebook business ads requiring 6 months pre-approval to get posted without penalty.
• The province of Nunavut was created with the best mineral and natural resource rights being afforded to the Inuit tribes. This very fair ideal is tempered by the fact that the intense remoteness and lack of infrastructure prevent the vast majority of them from being worked.
• The entire province has no roads to the outside world, no deepwater ports, and only a narrow window when shallow draft ships can reach Iqaluit… so resupply and growth are strictly regimented by the realities of the natural world, and not human intentions.
• A small set of Inuit people were functionally abandoned in the Arctic by the Canadian military as part of the “High Arctic relocation” in an effort to assert Canadian ownership over the Arctic regions nearest the country.
• … so many other moments and stories and encounters. This life we live, and the people all around us… we are so very blessed.

 

My second day, my only full day, came to a close in frigid Iqaluit. Nunavut is 1/5 of Canada’s landmass, and it had an equivalently huge impact on my mind and spirit. I will say more in the post for tomorrow, as Day 107 is when I had the revelation hit me. But I will close with another story of the local lived experience.

From 4 different sources, I heard it told that the handful of men who had survived hand-to-hand combat with polar bears in local communities reported the same thing, in their own words. Boiled down, they all reported that at a certain point in that terrifying experience, they recognized in a primal way that the only way they would survive and perhaps win was to become the polar bear. Take on the aspect of the polar bear, assume its spirit, and best that unstoppable force with the equally unstoppable force within their core.

I have always been capable of being a work horse and applying myself indomitably to a task or specific goal. The intense and grueling pace of this trek had, at some point along the way, seen me take this on as my own spirit.

I might have been a hard worker before this trip of self-discovery, growth, meditation, and high fuel costs.

After the trip? I would be, in my own way, as unstoppable as the polar bear in hand-to-paw combat.

Day 105 – ON to NU. Frozen Doors + Frozen North

Wednesday November 14, 2018 (full photo album here)

Prepped and packed the night before, I took a quick shower, had some granola for breakfast, and then ran out to the truck. The night had been very cold indeed and so the doors were a bit frozen shut.

Or, rather, 3 of them were. WHAT a morning to find out that the driver’s rear door, internally to the mechanism, had *seriously* frozen. More specifically, it had frozen open after I wrenched the door open. Or, as the problem was called on my old Volkswagen, I had a terribly bad case of “door bonk” and at the most terribly awful time.

I jerry-rigged the door mostly shut and crept over to the front desk. “I need to check out but also do you have a hair dryer at the desk which I can use with the extension cord in my truck???” They did me one better – OF COURSE they have a heavy duty, high-output heatgun at the front desk of their glitzy hotel:

NOT a great start to the day.

But the door internals thawed without the door melting, and the door got closed and didn’t bonk back open. I was a very zippy little gargantuan truck weaving through slower traffic to get to a parking lot at the Ottawa International Airport.

I rushed inside and went through security, checking a bag and eventually finding my way to the proper terminal and gate.

A deep breath, followed by a big old grin. My unpleasantly overpriced monopolistic flight was not to my liking, but their choice of symbol and slogan worked its marketing magic on me: “Canadian North… Seriously North.” The flight eventually got underway – after walking on the tarmac to steps, old-school.

I was seated next to a young lady, Rachel, who I ended up befriending in the course of our shared flight. Rachel is a civil engineer, and she was flying up to do work on one of the new hotels going into Iqualuit. We spent the 4 hours and change in discussion about all manner of things, and had a grand old time. She graciously offered to drive me to my Airbnb (and if timing allowed, elsewhere on Baffin Island’s largest city). This was a huge and unexpected boon – and so I was even more excited when we landed and got to walk off the plane, with the afternoon sub-Arctic sun setting already at 3pm:

 

Rachel’s friends and clients in town had left a company truck for her use, so we climbed into a GMC Yukon (a new vehicle to me, having visited and indeed crossed the Yukon River and Yukon Territory!) and let it warm up, adorable license plate and all:

As warm as it was going to get from idling, we were off. Only the most official signs in town were trilingual, and that included the overachieving stop sign out of the airport parking lot, sporting English, French, and Inuktitut [written Inuit, in this case both transliterated into English and in its natural form]:

That first glimpse of town was not a fluke, because by law the town’s buildings must incorporate bright colors on the exterior. This is part of a strategy to combat the intensity of seasonal affective disorder in a place where the sun was absent for such long hours in the winter:

We looped around up to the Airbnb and Rachel dropped me off – the house was an interesting design, sort of a sub-Arctic Italian flag-inspired building…

… with the required lifted foundation, to keep it off the permafrost and thus prevent heat from bleeding out and wrecking the environment…

I met one daughter of the host’s family, and she was very gracious and helpful. She even gave me a lift around and down the hill, leaving me at my request at the cemetery so I could walk by some of the houses and see a different street in town (it is ~8000 residents total, making “neighborhoods” miniaturized). I walked along the cemetery…

… hiked out onto the breakwater to regard frozen Frobisher Bay…

… and was a bit frozen myself when I reached the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum. The only proper museum in Nunavut, I saw and learned a lot, in a space split between showcasing traditional Inuit culture, history, and practice… and then an art gallery for local Inuit artists. A sampling of what I saw and learned:

• A list of communities in Nunavut with English, Inuktitut, and transliterated Inuktitut names:

• A very small but breathtakingly beautiful collection of various Inuit clothing and gear:

• Various details of Inuit mythology, including a beautiful creation story (which appeals to me as a yeti, as well as aesthetically):

• Learning about the Inukshuk, the ubiquitous rock figures erected by Inuit hunters to remember the best places to hunt:

• Enjoying the contours and flavor of the Inuit seasons and how they count time:

• The local art gallery itself, all highly overpriced but also the only real non-subsistence industry for many of the poorest inhabitants of the city (and, really, the province):

I highly recommend visiting if ever you find yourself in chilly Iqaluit, and you will not be disappointed by all you get to learn.

The afternoon sun was fast departing for parts far to the south, and so the nightlife in Iqaluit was more the “late afternoon life.” I walked a bit, weirded out by medium construction ongoing in pitch dark (before realizing it was merely 4:00pm). I stopped by another surrogate home for myself, the Arctic Survival Store…

… and then went across the street to the eponymous Snack for, well, a snack! It was painfully, ridiculously overpriced, but it was a good introduction to the company town sort of lifestyle where costs were inflated but constant. A lot of the realities in Iqaluit, I learned quickly the first day there, simply do not meet up with the norm anywhere else.

I hiked up the hill and back to my lodging for the night. The view of the town was worth the effort and frigid exertion, I can say with certainty:

^ the red light above is on the water tank for the house. No sewers or water pipes in town as it would disturb the permafrost and be prohibitively expensive. It is all trucked in and out from each house and business as needed, and the light system helps the trucks know where to stop.

I got inside the house and over into my own private room…

… the accommodations were fantastic but paled in comparison with the awesome family there. We sat down at their kitchen table and spent a solid 3 hours of discussion. No one looked at their phones, their 14 year old daughter was engaged and excited to be socializing. We looked each other in the eyes, we all embraced the topics as they came and shared a distaste for the lack of genuine engagement in the world around us. I was already feeling strongly in favor of a place like Iqaluit in my future (more on that in a subsequent post). But I went back into my room as the discussion came to a halt, and again soaked in the view of Iqaluit nestled alongside the icy Frobisher Bay:

A long day of travel and hiking and socializing and new friends. All worth the costs of fuel and time and intense effort to make it up to the last Canadian province, and allowing me to finish the country off for my trip’s purposes?

You bet your ass it was worth it.

Day 104 – QC to ON. A small ferry + a large driving day

Tuesday November 13, 2018 (full photo album here)

A slow start to the day, embracing a bit of extra sleep. I rolled out and stopped by the Canadian institution they call Tim Horton’s for a farmer’s breakfast wrap and a Coke. An oddly blended American and Canadian fast-breaking assortment of bad choices!

The further I got towards the St Lawrence River, the more signs I saw – including the suitably understated Canadian shorthand for “the road ahead is worse than your typical World War I no man’s land artillery cratered-field”:

A very long day of driving followed that brief bout of laughter. The first half was a wintry mess, which did not lend itself well to many photos. Some time later, I found myself suddenly arriving at Tadoussac and taking the free ferry. My Quebecois interlocutors were SO HAPPY when I spoke French to them, and helped guide me to a spot on the open deck (off to the right of frame):

I used the facilities and stretched my legs inside, a bit uncertain about the seemingly calm water which might be concealing U-boats or icebergs or the like…

Back into the truck and gingerly off the ferry onto land. Back into a wintry mess of roads and tangled traffic in unexpected places. Then of course the fun (and terror) of only remembering that “Vitesse” is French for “speed” and so the green signs with a stylized camera were speed camera warnings… and not weird scenic overlook signs. No ticket emailed home would be nice, but I was not holding my breath at the time – I know I passed at least 6 or 7 VERY slow drivers and my passing speed was likely over the limit. So it goes.

Then a sign whose translation was clear – “hold onto your butt”:

Eventually, after following the beautiful St Lawrence River for a great many miles, curving a bit inland… I found myself having a Subway “lunch” at 4:45pm. The girl working and I shared a laugh when between French and English, we both realized that Subway branding was not bilingual even if the rest of the menu was – so I ordered “un footlong avec poule.” Ha! Even the drink machine was fancy and French:

The winter mess of weather had calmed a bit as I ate, which meant I was able to engage in that most important of tasks, adding Quebec to the tableau on the tailgate:

It was ~11 hours after I had departed that morning, and I reached my second-to-last Canadian province, and crossed into Ontario.

I was exhausted and ready to be done driving, but nevertheless elated – I had made it. I was within sneezing distance of the Ottawa International Airport where I needed to be early the next day for a flight to Nunavut. In a few short days I had traversed the second half of Canada in some of the most adverse weather thinkable, by myself, on the most adverse roads possible (namely: the only, unpaved road)… in a rig of my own design…… on tires well beyond their useful life. I am not pulling a Boris, as I was not quite convinced of my invincibility. But gee golly did I feel good about achieving another of the ridiculous sub-goals necessary to achieve my overarching ridiculous goal.

I was a wreck of tired and overworked with driving, when I finally reached the Ramada nearest the airport. The melting heat inside the room was in stark contrast to the outside, it did not help with keeping me very focused, but I made myself do the dance of unload too much from the truck to repack it and make it suitable for airline travel… and then try to shove all those things back into the over-full truck.

But I did it. I was packed, I was prepped, I was back in the room and immediately out cold in that sauna/room.

What a rush, what a day.

Day 103 – NL to QC. Phone booths + Pioneers + Poutine

Monday November 12, 2018 (full photo album here)

The electric heater in the room had kicked back in with the resumption of hydroelectric power for the whole town of Labrador City, but the frigid northern Canadian latitude meant that I woke up to a mighty chilly room. A yeti in his natural environment, as it were!

The light dusting of snow and ice from the night before were no match for the power of… my bare hands (and a tiny scraping tool)! I got checked out of the hotel and once again had the Alaska-style experience of the past few days of driving – only having one road is a fun experience of not needing to even consider powering up a GPS. Just go “not the direction I came from the day prior” and confirm with a compass reading, like a sailor!

The day ahead would boast some of the worst “roads” of my entire trek, because “unpaved” was charitable. But it was incontrovertibly gorgeous:

In a day filled with many views and no firm boundaries, I did have one clear point of delineation: the end of the Labrador side of the Trans-Labrador Highway. A sign (which I couldn’t safely stop, on the snow and ice, to photograph) welcomed me into the far northern reaches of Quebec. As far as consolation prize photos go… an honest-to-goodness phonebooth for emergency calls…

… which dotted the landscape every so often as I went. There were some Quebecois flags, and then the road signs did the magical “suddenly only in French, even though every other province is intentional in having bilingual songs.” Sweet!

I had a good 7.5 hours to go, to make it all the way to Baie-Comeau where I would sleep for the night ahead.

It was worth every goddamned minute of dangerous and slippery and bumpy and otherwise non-ideal driving conditions, because remote Quebec in the early winter made my heart sing:

At a certain point I skirted around the edge of some town or perhaps industrial company town – a couple of trains were sitting in some rail sidings. To my sophomoric delight, many of the ore cars helpfully (coyly?) suggested to NOT HUMP…

… but that laugh did not protect me or my poor truck from the ridiculously rutted road at the nearest rail crossing, which did not look horrible at first glance:

Looks are deceiving in this case. Worse even than my intense offroading experience in Arizona, this rail crossing is where the truck actually bottomed out and I heard it AND felt it, so I got out to swear a bunch while checking for damage and to make sure that going further forward would not trap me (notice the suspension travel, front vs rear tires in their wheel wells):

The further south, the more the signs and fixtures got nicer/newer, and of course ALL FRENCH/ONLY FRENCH:

[Editor’s note – I realize now, editing this in February 2019, some 3 months after returning… I have not recently added one of those “sentences I never thought my life would include. This one might take the cake for the whole trip as emblematic.]

At some point, I reached one of the very few stops along my path where other humans dwell. Not many of them, mind, and in that typical remote Canadian outpost configuration – a gas station + motel + restaurant with maybe 2 other houses nearby. I stepped inside for a pit stop and after using the facilities got a cheeseburger on order. As I finished my order, an older gentleman with a Mainer’s accent asked me why I was doing surveying work in the winter. I was, to put it mildly, nonplussed – I asked for a bit more information. My interlocutor, Bobby, was in turn a bit surprised – he didn’t hide it either, explaining that with such a ridiculously outfitted truck I was either surveying or had a good story – or maybe even both. I gave him some of my story of the trek, and asked for his tale in turn, as I knew he was not a native of Quebec.

To make his private story short and staccato, he had decided some 30 years ago that he was fed up with the way the world was heading in a multiplicity of ways (sound familiar, like, say, the evolving views of this blog’s author perhaps?). He packed up and left Maine and his job on the ocean, and went north into Canada for a vacation. It was a vacation which turned into a log cabin carved out of an empty island in a lake created by a meteor impact millions of years ago. For the first full year of his life in this new log cabin he built by and for himself, he did not leave the island or talk to a single other human being. The cojones required for such a task are not to be underestimated (I can confirm there is a certain mental fortitude required to spend so much time all alone), but to do so on a (Canadian, frigid, boreal forested) desert island where fishing and foraging were the required orders of the day. His story went on (he met a lady, fell in love, got married, built a second cabin on the mainland, not an island, reducing transit frustrations significantly). He designed and built his own hydroelectric generator, adored his few friends in the sparsely-populated region, and most importantly of all.. he was fully cognizant through experience that most off-grid/preppers/those looking to escape civilization are romanticizing their endeavor. Fishing and foraging is great, but his fishing hooks eventually broke, and his berry-harvesting slowed as his knife dulled. He was not (and still is not) a blacksmith, so even living the off-the-grid dream, he was not truly off the grid. He never would be. Living up to his ideals AND eyes wide open about the reality not slotting into ideals all the time? Bobby impressed the hell out of me.

Then the “unbelievable sentence about my life” bit, as if the above chance meeting was not enough on its own. In Bobby, on the shoes of that meteor crater lake, I basically got to meet a ~35 year older version of my self and my long-held dreams of a similar off-the-grid reality. Along with a cheeseburger and a Pepsi, I got a heaping helping of Twilight Zone deja vu.

The astonishment only grows: I met my future-doppelganger AND had a fulfilling discussion… AND in the process, I think I may have actually interrogated my own dreams sufficiently to recognize that I have not yet given up on the state of the world sufficiently, to try and exit the hustle and the bustle in favor of the wilderness. Do not get me wrong – the wilderness is further cemented into my heart because of this trip. But holding my heart hostage is no longer accompanied by live plans to go fairly off-the-grid. LOTS of food for thought. And spirit.

Deep breath out.

I thanked Bobby for his time, and then he made the offer to show me a bit about the meteor crater lake. He explained how the summers are filled with visiting and giddy geologists exploring, and continued to regale me with choice tales of his adventure of a life. It became my time to depart, and I wished him the very best – I also got a mailing address some 7 hours away, as that was the nearest post service where his mail was sent. What a random chance and astonishing blessing to have met him.

Truck and Mike, overlooking the meteor crater lake:

I was cognizant of the slowly setting sun and the still-treacherous roads. So I was off and I was still absolutely adoring my surroundings:

Finally, the treacherous roads reached a whole new level of squiggle + up to 18% grade, and I took those curves MIGHTY slow…

… and then safely at the bottom, I turned around to take a good look at the largest buttressed dam in the world:

One of the electrical substations clustered around, and maybe the best photo I got all trip of how Canada manages to nestle heavy industry amongst the trees in a way which almost makes it almost seem a natural part of the environment:

Some time later, with the sun long set and the eyes becoming heavy, I rolled into Baie-Comeau. Refuelling was followed by stopping at Marco’s Pizza and ordering a small pizza and the necessary poutine on the side, to embrace Quebec. I shambled over to the Travelodge and got a room for the night. I didn’t even bother, at this point, with the formality of a fruitless search for a campground which would certainly be closed.

For my taking the easy path, I had three outcomes:

1. a very relaxing hot shower
2. a sour stomach because not all poutine is as delicious as one might like
3. a hearty full-body laugh at the necessity of hallway signs disallowing “hallway hockey”:

Excepting a small portion of the next day’s driving, I had survived the worst of the wilderness in Labrador and Quebec on unpaved and unplowed highways. I was well-pleased with myself, and also with having a hotel room which would have heat the entire night (as opposed to the night prior).

Sleep came quickly and deeply.

Day 102 – The Glorious Trans-Labrador Highway.

Sunday November 11, 2018 (full photo album here)

A historic, portentous day. Both for me (as I woke up after the tail end of a snowstorm rendering rough roads nigh impassable as it was snowing) and for the world, as it was the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. The truck was my first omen of the weather and roads ahead of me:

The second omen of the day, slightly less positive, was recognizing that in my hurry to pack and leave for the trip, I had a total of zero (0) snowbrush with me. And over 4 inches of snow on the truck. So: off to the continental breakfast area to start off with a free meal (and an unwelcome dosing of news of a certain President and the varied angry riling-up of people at his choices about the California wildfires and whatever other garrulous mutterings of the moment). I reaffirmed both my love for free breakfast and my intense, stomach-churning distaste for the way the world has become in reporting stories and goings-on.

I was able to borrow a push-broom from the hotel staff for the express purposes of cleaning off my truck (the desk clerk nearly passed out in shock at my reporting having driven to Happy Valley in November without a snow brush). I hiked back over, got the truck started and the small glacier of snow and ice removed, a layer at a time (another ill omen – scraping ice with the tiny backup handheld scraper). Being my father’s son, I am fairly obsessive about this task, to clean off every iota of snow before departing on the road – to minimize snow blowing up off the hood, to keep the lights clear and visible, and to avoid any noisy non-aerodynamic formations of snow. This I did and then checked out, giving them back a sodden push broom and my thanks.

My obsessive cleaning turned out to be a wise choice – the snow had not quite stopped, and I was immediately upon unplowed AND unpaved roads. With intermittent white-out conditions, and a few gusts of wind sufficiently zesty to push or pull the truck. Can’t imagine what that looks like? You don’t have to:

Are you thinking “well wait, where is the road, versus the grass, versus the turns and curves ahead in the trees?” Those are damned fine questions, my friends – I shared them all the live-long day. White-out conditions, meet white knuckles.

Slippery, wildly hazardous conditions, and almost no one else crazy enough to drive. I dunno – maybe none of THEM had a plane to Iqaluit to catch in a few days? Weirdos!

I settled in, cranking up the excellent Dune audiobook and enjoying that tale as I went. More than once, my heavy and planted truck skidded or slid along a corner as my tires were well beyond their useful lifespan – but that Titan was not going to be stopped by mere “completely dangerous driving conditions” of course.

After another of the interminable dancing frenzy of snowdrifts cleared, I saw a sign for Churchill Falls ahead – some time later, several chapters of Dune hence, and another furious tornado of snow parted to reveal the tiny Churchill Falls itself. I stopped to refuel and for “lunch” – Armistice Day sees most Canadian businesses closed, and the remote Labrador city in front of me was no exception. I settled for a freeze-dried meal of granola plus two bags of white cheddar popcorn purchased on site at the gas station in time – yum.

Nowhere close to done for the day, I resolved to make it to the capital, Labrador City. The temperature had dropped to 16 degrees F before wind-chill, and the wind was enough to see it drop below 0 easily. This fact melded with “Eastern Canada = ESPECIALLY closed on Armistice Day, beyond normal levels of fall/winter closure”… I was certain that my night would see me sleeping at a hotel.

Darkness was beginning to fall, and was the road improving? Survey says…

… no. Hard no.

So it goes. Eventually, my rolling headquarters arrived at Labrador’s headquarters, and I made use of the resumption of cellular coverage to search for hotel options. Very unfortunately for me, the only source of food was McDonald’s so I had an unsatisfying meal at the edge of town. Finished, I headed inwards and got a room at the only hotel which had a space – the Two Seasons Inn. I parked and slowly walked inside, exhausted, and after holding the door for an (atypically) scowling Canadian fellow, I discovered the source of his ire: a poster board.

More specifically: a poster board indicating that the hydroelectric dam servicing the town would need to be taken offline from 12-6am, and that meant that all power would be out, including the electric heaters in the hotel. Awesome!

I talked my way into a discount on the soon-to-be-chilly stay (and learned that a huge hockey tournament had ended the night before so the hotels were all still full up from visitors). I bundled up, cranked the heat too high, and got the room ready for the frost cocoon I would be sleeping in. A hot shower and I was ready to fall asleep very quickly indeed.

Even with all the rather dangerous driving behind me, I had fallen in love with the terrain of the Trans-Labrador Highway. It was going to be difficult to depart it the next day (mind you, after a bunch of hours of driving through remote Quebec).

Prior to losing power, I lost consciousness in my insulating swaddling. That was just fine by me.