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Finally! The report for the last day of my motorbike trip from Seattle to Toronto! Enjoy…

I leave Sault Ste. Marie at 6am to catch the 11:10am Chi-Cheemaun Ferry over Lake Superior to Tobermory.

The road isn’t interesting, but it was interesting to start riding in the dark and head into the sunrise. There were some cops here and there but they didn’t seem to care about speeders that day.

I enter Manitoulin Island, the roads here weren’t bad, and then finally reach the ferry dock at South Bay.

While waiting for the ferry, I have breakfast at one of the restaurants nearby. I then head back to my bike, and chat with a couple of other bikers. We talk about roads in Canada, and how BC is the best by far. In fact, when they do a cross country trip what they usually do is go through Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan as fast as possible, and spend most of their time in West Alberta and BC. Nothing compares to the mountainous roads of the west!

The ferry arrives, and I take a pic:

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Mohammad Zeitoun tells me to take my time from Thunder Bay to The Sault. “Whenever you see a sign for a scenic viewpoint, stop!”, he says. “After Sault Ste. Marie, you’re in for some boredom, so make sure you enjoy the part before The Sault!”, he continues.

So I take his advice and stop many times on the road between these two cities. And he’s right. Lake Superior makes the Trans Canada highway between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie VERY scenic. It’s the standard combination of big mass of water (Lake Superior), mountains (small, but still considered mountains), and forests. And once again, fall makes the forests very beautiful. The Trees were mostly red here.

Still doesn’t compare to Beautiful British Columbia though .

Lots of damn trucks too. Because I was stopping so much for the scenic viewpoints, I’d pass the same cars and trucks over and over again! Some of them even began to recognize me and pull to the side whenever I came from behind .

Here’s a pic from one of the beaches:

I stop at Schreiber for lunch. There’s several restaurants to choose from there. To pick a restaurant, I use my rule of “The more people eating at a restaurant, the better it is!”. As always, the rule doesn’t fail me. I forget the name of this restaurant, but it’s attached to a gas station and has wireless Internet. I have enchiladas there.

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Riding east on the Trans-Canada from Winnipeg, the landscape gradually changes from prairies to deciduous forests. Things start to get pretty immediately after entering Ontario (TC 17), especially with the trees putting on their colours for fall. Here’s a pic:

The roads weren’t doing it for me. People told me they’d get better in North Ontario, but they’re still nowhere near as good as West Canada. I even try to take some backroads, in search of aggressive curves, but it was all the same. You’d have to go dangerously fast to enjoy the gradual curves of Ontario.

There was a lot of traffic too, especially trucks, so I just took it easy and tried to enjoy the scenery.

From TC 17, I take Hwy 622 south to Atikokan. The road looks desolate, and its 135km long, so I decide to leave it temporarily and go fill up gas in the city of Igance 32kms away. The gas attendant confirms there were no gas stations on that road, so I’m glad of my decision.

I get back to 622. It’s very scenic, but again, the curves are wimpy. There’s nothing on the sides of this road but trees, and in the 135km stretch I only see three cars! It was the middle of nowhere, kind of depressing actually. Here’s a pic:

From Atikokan to Thunder Bay, I feel like a zombie, it was boring and I guess I just didn’t feel like riding much, but I had to.

I think on another day, I would’ve enjoyed that ride, because it was really scenic, with lakes and trees everywhere, but I wasn’t in the mood for scenery, I was in the mood for a good road, and that wasn’t there.

I reached Thunder Bay, go to the masjid and there’s one person (I think Malaysian) there who arrives at the same time I do. He’s very friendly and welcomes me.

I’m surprised there’s Muslims in Thunder Bay, but there is! It seems like Lakehead University brought them there — most of them were students or professors.

I have Iftar at the masjid, and I meet Mohammad Zeitoun, the president of the MSA. It turns out I know his brothers! Small world, again! For some reason I wasn’t in the happiest mood that day, I just wanted to be home, and I discover that I lost my GPS case which depresses me even more even though it’s no biggy. Zeitoun however manages to lift up my spirits!

The Thunder Bay masjid is ok, nothing special, though again, I was in a pessimistic mood so probably a bit biased! I was happy to go to sleep that night and get out of this city at the first crack of dawn.

Only two hours of riding that day but I manage to run out of gas, have a low speed crash, meet a variety of people from the Winnipeg Muslim Community, and get a Scholar of Quran Recitation into YouTube! Read on for my 9/22 Ride Report…

The Invisible City
I leave Brandon, MB a little late that morning, around 10:30am. The destination’s Thunder Bay, and I know I can’t make it there in one day so I take my time — two days is plenty of time to reach Thunder Bay.

The plan is to visit the Winnipeg masjid for Dhuhr prayer, continue towards Thunder Bay, and stay in whatever city I reach by 6pm. I like days like that, no destination to reach by a certain time, no commitments except to ride until you can’t ride no more.

I take the Trans Canada Hwy towards Winnipeg. More flatness. The weather is beautiful though. Sunny and clear skies. Right after the city of Portage La Prairie, I diverge from the Trans Canada and take the more peaceful hwy 26. Hwy 26 runs through farmlands and has very little traffic. It isn’t that twisty, but I still like it because of the vast flatness around me combined with the solitude. There is a fire nearby, and its smoke and smell envelop the whole area. Keeps me curious, trying to figure out its source. I later see it from afar when I get back to hwy 1 to take hwy 100 to South Winnipeg, couldn’t determine what was burning though (from the smell, seemed like wood).

On Hwy 100, my GPS tells me I have 10 miles left until I reach Winnipeg, but I don’t believe it because I see no downtown skyline. Winnipeg is a big city, isn’t it? There must be a skyline! And Manitoba is flat, I should be able to see the skyline many miles away! Later that day, I discover that Winnipeg has one of the most humble skylines ever. Judge for yourself:

Bikers are Brothers Too
While I was busy searching the horizon for a skyline, the vibration from my bike suddenly stops and I begin coasting on the highway as if I’m riding a bicycle! Surprised, I turn the throttle some more, but no response. I move to the rightmost lane and look at my instrument panel. All the lights are on as if I have yet to start the engine. I suspect that I ran out of gas, so I try to start the engine back again and it doesn’t, confirming my thoughts.

By now, I’m stopped on the shoulder. I check for how many miles I’ve gone on the tank, and it’s 145 miles. Yep! I’ve run out of gas! Normally I fill up at around 120 miles, but I’ve been getting really good mileage in the past few days, and I was so close to Winnipeg, that I figured I’ll just fill up when I reach it. My tank bag was also blocking the bike’s gas light, so I never noticed it blinking to warn me of low gas.

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Here’s the report from my stay in Regina and the scramble to get my tires replaced! I’m glad it’s all over…I wish I had the opportunity to explore Regina more and get to know the community there more deeply.

I was not in love with the city of Regina, but I really liked the Muslim community there. The majority of them were either doctors or university students. I also met 10 Moroccan chefs who were on a work/immigration contract with Canada. They were pretty cool, one of them used to work in a posh guest house in Morocco managed by Richard Branson’s sister. He had high praises for the Branson family and how respectful they are. The guest house would be visited by big shot movie stars filming in Morocco (Brad Pitt et al). So look out, these 10 Moroccan chefs may make Regina the Couscous capital of Canada one day!

I also met a doctor working for the health department that tracks communicable (contagious) diseases in Saskatchewan. I asked him what the biggest disease threat to Saskatchewan these days was, and it was the West Nile Virus, 1,000 people infected in the last year I believe. So spray yourself with mosquito repellent!

There’s a lot of people from North Africa here: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. I don’t know many people from that part of the world so I took the opportunity know them and get used to their Arabic dialect. And ofcourse, the masjid had the standard mix of South Asians and Shamis.

So first thing in the morning, Thunder City Sports calls me and lets me know they have tires appropriate for my bike. They’re Bridgestone Battlax BT014s, designed for aggressive street riding in all weather conditions (that’s me!). I never heard of people recommending Bridgestone tires for motorcycles though, and they were a little pricey (a little over $200 for each tire), so I decide to do more research and calling around. I did not have Internet access so I called (and woke up! ) a bunch of friends to search for reviews on the ‘net. The reviews for the Bridgestone tires were lukewarm, which made me call other dealers to see if I had other options for tires.

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I’m in the process of finishing and posting the ride reports for the rest of the trip. Here’s the one for 9/20. I wrote half of this while waiting in Regina to get my tires replaced, and the other half at the end of my trip in London, ON. What a day this was! Please excuse the poorer quality pics, I used my cell phone to take pics since my camera was temporarily not working due to the rain in the previous day. Problem after problem I had in this cursed land of Saskatchewan…

I left Maple Creek, Saskatchewan fairly early – around 7:30am. The weather eased up from yesterday, no rain, partly cloudy, but still cold. Cold is better than rain, so I was content. Kids were walking to school as I was leaving the town, they were looking at me, and I couldn’t help feel sorry for them, “What crime did these kids commit, to live in this ugly, small town in this cold deserted province?”, I wondered. Yeah, the miserable experience I had entering the province yesterday didn’t give me the best first impression.

A pic of the hotel I stayed in, it was called “The Commercial Hotel”, and I do not recommend it. The room was depressing, the heating was marginal, and the toilet did not work (and ofcourse, I discovered that when it was too late!):

This land is so flat and alien. I can’t believe I was in the mountains just a few days ago. The motto on the Saskatchewan license plates is “Land of the Living Skies”. They couldn’t say anything nice about the land, ’cause it’s dead, so instead, they point to the sky!

I avoid the Trans Canada highway and take the backroads south hoping for some escape from the flat lands. The guide I’ve been using for my trip, “These are a few of my favourite roads”, suggests Southern Saskatchewan as the nicest part of the province, so that’s where I go!

This is literally the middle of nowhere, humanity is as sparse as the trees here. It’s an eerie place. Here’s a pic from the beginning of the route (see how the road goes on forever into the horizon!) :

And a pic of the area:

I reach the small town of Eastend, fill up gas and have some freshly baked pastries. They discovered T. Rex. fossils near this town, so there is a museum and a digg sight nearby. I go check that out and talk to the lady there about the area. There’s some meteorite strikes near here too. It’s an eerie place, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ran into a live T. Rex!

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