Canada Journey into Winter Part 3

Ontario to the Eastern Sea

The journey to the Atlantic continues. We wake up in Thunder Bay and never have I seen so much of snow! Cars are buried, their roofs just a bulge under the grime-covered drifts. Inhabitants who have dug themselves out have white-walled driveways leading to the cleared roadways. Half-covered houses have snow-walled paths to front doors. Although there are not many people on the streets, stores are open and life goes on. In Vancouver, just a few inches of the white stuff shuts down the city. I get off the train and take a short walk around the cleared area of the station. It is very cold but invigorating after being inside for almost three days.

After breakfast the conductor informs us that we are now using the Canadian Pacific tracks. Yet again we are taking the southern route, as there has been a freight train wreck on the C.N. tracks. Unfortunately, not everyone got the message. One young man who we befriended didn't hear of the change, which meant the train would not be going to his stop. When we told him, he was shocked. Via had to put him in a cab to take him the 100 miles to his destination.

As we leave Thunder Bay, we see that the scenery has changed. The terrain is hillier, with expanses of deciduous and pine forests, with little or no underbrush. The snow is deep and the cliffs raw and jagged. The only life we see is the odd, hardy, blackbird, moving amongst the skinny, widely spaced trees. There is the deadly quiet of a snowfall, the only noise is the sound of steel on steel. The landscape is devoid of colour with not a human being in sight.

We get our first glimpse of the wide expanse of Lake Superior. It is like a frozen ocean, an icy landscape for miles and miles to the horizon. Along the shore, jagged chunks of ice are piled up, pushed out of the lake by expansion. On icy headlands, we see frozen waves surprised by the cold and destined to stay there till spring.

As we travel alongside the lake we see a hardy fisherman in a bright red toque, fishing through a hole in the ice. Then it's back into the raw landscape of forest, rocks and snow.

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