I am walking east.
Cyclists cycle west.
I meet a total of sixty cyclists crossing Canada.
Most do not stop to chat.
They just keep their heads down
and their legs pumping.
I meet the first cyclist in Pancake Bay, Ontario,
a New Zealander who is cycling from Vancouver to St. John’s.
He is averaging a whopping 200 kms per day.
Whoa!
We chat about traffic, road conditions,
cell service, how we’re keeping our calories up,
how we’re charging our phones, where we sleep,
the numbness in our fingers from gripping handle bars,
and what can be expected ahead.
I’m inspired by him.
That day, I walk 75 kilometres.
Outside White River, Ontario, there is a man on a bicycle.
He is cycling from Vancouver to Fredericton.
We share a few travel stories and
compare notes on stealth camping,
phone charging, calorie consuming,
and all of the other topics important to cross-Canada travelers.
I ask him if he’s thought about cycling the extra five days
and going all the way to Halifax so that he can say
that he cycled across Canada.
But that’s not his thing.
He thinks it’s cooler to say he cycled home from Vancouver.
There’s an adventure for everyone.
North of Thunder Bay, Ontario,
I meet another man,
who is cycling from Victoria to St. John’s.
It’s been his dream for 35 years.
He retired early last year at the age of 56
and decided that Canada’s 150th anniversary
was the year to do it.
His wife is driving their vehicle with a trailer
and she’s delighted to be able to say
that she drove across Canada solo.
Ten minutes later, I meet a retired military fellow.
He and his wife are cycling from Victoria to Ottawa
to raise awareness for PTSD.
Outside Virden, Manitoba,
I meet a delightful retired couple from New Zealand.
The man is wearing sandals with cleats.
They have travelled to Canada for the sole purpose
of cycling across the country.
They invite me to come down to New Zealand
and walk across their country.
At the Saskatchewan border,
I meet a 68-year-old man from Australia.
He greets me with two Oreo cookies.
Immediately, he becomes my new best friend.
I quickly become aware that he is a bit eccentric.
He rides in sandals and wears long, colourful socks.
He has turned his bicycle helmet into an outback hat
by cutting out arcs of plastic and
attaching them to his helmet with cable ties.
His front and rear saddlebags are milk cartons.
He’s my kind of guy.
He has been semi-retired
since he was fifty years old and
has been traveling the world for 18 years on his bicycle.
We talk about almost everything –
road conditions, weather, routes, calories –
you name it.
He is partial to Walmart’s lemon meringue pie,
which he straps to his bicycle.
He says that by the time he wants to eat his pie,
it has slid to one end of the pie shell.
From the east, I walked the previous day
into a 31 km/hour headwind.
Coming from the west,
he says that he rode for 185 kms the previous day
and barely had to peddle.
It’s the most distance he has cycled in one day
in his entire life.
Ach, those prairie winds.
When he’s finished in Canada,
he will be heading to Vietnam with his bike.
Outside Regina, Saskatchewan,
I meet an immigrant from India
who arrived in Canada 16 years ago.
He’s cycling from Vancouver to St. John’s.
I ask him about his motivation.
I want to show Canada how much I appreciate it
for being so good to me these last 16 years.
What a great country!
East of Christina Lake, British Columbia,
I am walking through a snowstorm.
Icicles have formed on my eyelids.
Surprisingly, a woman cycles passes me,
wearing a snowsuit.
Her bicycle is packed for touring.
Without stopping, she looks back at me
all smiles and yells into the fierce wind:
We’re living our best lives, Baby! Woohoo!