Into the Far North: or, our trip to Canada

I've been to both of the continental divides in the US, and now I've been to the exact spot where water flows to the north.  About halfway on our drive from Toronto up to Timmins, this marker denotes a place of great separation, tectonic and, to Feathermaye and myself, far far removed from things one sees on a regular basis...things Texas folk might see anyhow. 

Although we attempted to predetermine the little differences between how things are done in Canada and the US, we did run into a few that we could not anticipate.  Those commercials for Visa, for example...the only card you'll ever need works in about ninety percent of the places we went.  There were a few, like the bowling ally and a couple of cash only stores, that it just would not work.  Most told us it was simply a difference in the technology that is yet to be updated in some of the more removed parts of Canada.  Although I doubt folks in Timmins feel all that removed, they are, in fact, a long way from the massive grid that most of us live within and take for granted, like an island of modern set off in a place where only the rough and ready dare to live.  They laughed at my comparison, because the REAL bush, as they call it, lies off further north, where the roads become gravel, then not at all, and only the bush pilots can get you up there. 

Other little differences were noted: cigarettes are different up there...no Marlboro or Camel or any other familiar name.  Although McDonald's is everywhere, Starbucks has a lot of competition from Tim Horton's.    We found it as good, if not a little better, and a little cheaper.  Feathermaye's biggest complaint was that whenever she went in a store for her crack...er, Diet Coke, they were always somewhat warm, even right out of the cooler.  And, of course, you'll generally find far more hot tea than iced.

When my daughter moved there and married her Canadian, I was not sure what to think, other than: well, she IS my daughter, with the same sense of adventure that I have, so what else would you expect?  Just before she turned eighteen, she announced her plans to get out into the big, wide world, then set off and did exactly that.

Punkie is a people person.  Leave it to her to find lots of folks who just seem to want her around all the time.  We met nearly all the in-laws and they each took time to tell us just how much they love her, and love having her there.  Had I not known otherwise, I might have guessed that she had been there her entire life, except for the times when her southern accent slips out, especially when she says: Daddy…

Rhyan is a fine young man and a natural smart-ass, who saves his ammunition for just the right moment to let go with a fusillade of funny.  He has this half grin that is nearly always going and if you say something off hand, he’ll take note and fire it right back atcha later, usually after a glass or two of wine have gone down and you’re too loose to do any sort of mental battle.  Helpless, you have no recourse but to sit there and laugh.  Of course, he was always ready to answer one of my many questions about the area, the people and life in the far north.

They laugh when I say ‘far north’, because they do not consider themselves to be that far up.  There are far colder, far more removed places that are much farther north than they are, however, that is as far north as this blogger has ever been, and when it hits the low thirties (that’s like 5-6 Celsius—I think) in June, you know your southern, born and bred ass is on an extreme adventure.

Everywhere we went, we saw evidence of the former ice age, where glaciers gouged out rock formations and left behind chains of lakes and rivers.   (Yes, that's a bush plane setting down nicely on this lake that we lunched beside)

Have to say, I loved the light.  The Caribbean light is pink, while Texas is white hot.  But even above the great lakes (like our side trip up to Kapuskasing, a popular ice fishing local) the light is a long, languid Indian yellow that floats over the bush (what southerners call woods) and paints sights that I could not turn my eye away from.  Shoot, before we left, I ended up sitting at Punkie and Rhyan’s dining table, painting a lake-scape, just to attempt to capture the colors in the steel-gray waters of the many lakes that dot the entire area, and how they capture the blue of a Canadian summer sky.

To the fine family members that welcomed Feathermaye and myself into their homes, life anywhere else seems like a lot of trouble that is easily avoided by staying where they are.  I can’t blame them.  It is a different life, centered around a long, and often brutal winter, at least it would so seem to me.  However, Erin’s mother-n-law Joce, pointed out to me how the winter up in ‘the Kap’—as they call it—is a very dry cold.  “It can be 40 below and you would sweat with more than t’ree layers on, eh!”

For now, I’m taking her word for it. 

Feathermaye and I want to spend a three month winter up there and have scratched out our plans.  I have a few ‘terror in the cold’ stories that have taken root since the trip (which only ended yesterday) and can’t wait to get up there in the midst of the dark, dangerous cold so I can be precise with details one might not consider without having been there first hand. 

I loved the voices of the people I met, from family to store clerks, the English language has a marvelous ring as it comes from the Canadian tongue, especially the French Canadians, which many of Rhyan’s family in fact are.  Like Cajuns of the far nort’, they have a sing-song cadence that I could have just sat and listened to for days.

All blogs must come to an end, and this one, unfortunately, must as well.  I could go on, and probably will on another occasion.  Enjoy the pictures, only a few of many more that are up for view to all my many facebook friends.