Bikely map

Waking up, breaking camp, and getting ready to go, I had a pleasant surprise: The fellow who owned the ranch across the road from my campsite was just on his way in/out for a morning visit, and being a friendly person, decided to invite me into town for breakfast. Apparently, about a week earlier, he’d also taken a long-distance pedesrian from France (pulling a wagon with his provisions since last summer) walker out for breakfast, and said pedestrian had made the local paper.

Getting back to his ranch (where I’d left my bike during breakfast), we took a picture (on his camera) of him wearing my bike helmet and holding my bike to send off to his son in Alberta with a note “I’m coming to visit” (as a joke; he placed a lot of value in humour and we both cracked a few good jokes over breakfast). I continued along Highway 48 (once again, I was taking an alternate route to the Trans-Canada), and took a few more pictures as the terrain gradually changed to the familiar appearance of the shield.

There were also some nice shots of lakes (the surest sign of the shield) that I didn’t take in Manitoba, since all the views were from the bottoms of little valleys, and I wanted to save my momentum to get back up the other side, rather than lose it just to take a picture.

So I made it back to the Trans-Canada, and continued on into Ontario

..so long Manitoba:

and because just one wecome sign doesn’t seem to be enough for Ontario:

(though with all the flooding I’d been hearing about, I was surprised to see that the forest fire hazard had already climbed back to “moderate”)

Of course, once in Ontario, I was provided with ample opportunity to document that I really had made it to the shield (and all its abundant lakes)

and roadways blasted through granite

(Note the wide paved shoulder with the rumble strip. Although there are still roadways closer to the quality that I had expected, Ontario does seem to have been coming along with its highway construction, and there were no roadways that were at all uncomfortable or dangerous to bicycle along until about 20km past Dryden).

Getting into Kenora, I had a good opportunity to take a nice picture of the Lake of the Woods

as well as an opportunity to question whether or not I had actually left Western Canada yet

(apparently until a good bit of the way past Dryden, Manitoban cottagers (particularly from Winnipeg) outnumber Ontarian cottagers (and locals) by a large enough margin that there’s still a distinctly Manitoban character to the place (confirmed by some of the assertions from locals in conversations arising e.g. from asking for directions).

Eventually, having to pick up some mail at the post office in town the next day, I settled into a campground for the night.