| by: | Linda |
| date: | 15 November 2009, 12:33 PM |
| preliminary remark: | I started writing email updates about my Trans-Canada journey in Sault St Mary, ON. This is my fourth update written in Duncan, BC. |
Dear all,
Happy news and sad news. After almost 5 months of travelling for travelling’s sake, I finally arrived at the rainy west coast. A ferry brought me from Vancouver to Nanaimo, then upon my arrival on the island, a semi-truck hit my left arm while I was climbing a hill on a part of the highway that had no designed shoulder. No serious injury, just a few cuts and bruises and a big bump on my palm which prevent me from using the brake properly—here the use of the word ‘just’ is a deliberate choice. This is not the first injury that has been inflicted upon me due to biking, and is unlikely to be the last one.
Cyclists and pedestrians seem to be well respected by the islanders. The two ladies who descended from their vehicles to inquire about the severity of my injury were more enraged than I that the truck driver, unconscious of the collision, did not stop: one kept saying ‘I can’t believe this! No one stops for you! When I saw you you were lying on the ground (this is not true)!’; another witness insisted on reporting this tiny accident to RCMP and described every minute detail of the incident (she knew more than I did).
Many may wonder at why I remain cheerful still when it was two ambulance paramedics who first welcomed me to Vancouver Island, or why I did not demand for an apology on the part of the truck driver. At the time I decided to advocate green transportation by riding my bicycle and using public transit, I knew my decision was made at the hazard of incurring potential danger or substantial loss: that bus/train may be broken at anytime, that before a perfect solution can be devised for bicycles and cars to share roads that have paved shoulder, cyclists will always be more vulnerable to physical injury than car drivers. Having such (fatalist sounding, I admit) acknowledgment in mind, I can easily accepted the consequence that I have to miss the opportunity to venture into an ancient rain forest under the shadow of giant Douglas fir trees, since I cannot ride very fast or go for very long distance at present moment, and happily head towards my final destination—Victoria.
Many have inquired about how I managed to ride through Northern Ontario and the Prairies, I should herewith give a short account of my passage through what some people consider the most monotone part of the country.
— Honestly, I do not think this stretch of the highway is in any way worse or more desolate than some part of Newfoundland or Eastern Nova Scotia. Towns are scattered at about 100-150 km away from each other, though communities may be too insignificant to be noticeable. In English River, ON, for instance, there are only two permanent residents during the wintertime; I was lucky enough to be welcomed by a group of American fishermen who spent the last week of their summer in Canada. The last part of Ontario, between Thunder Bay and Kenora, proves to be no easier ride than my earlier passage through some of the biggest hills in Ontario, for I did not expect it to be as hilly and windy as it turned out to be—I was stupid enough to bike 150km/day for 3 consecutive days—therefore, unprepared to the mental challenge, I felt more frustrated after Thunder Bay. There someone told me about a song describing Northern Ontario as having only rocks and tress and water; to this list I think should be added mosquitoes—I have suffered enough from the frenetic attack of dozens of black flies that would creep over me if my speed was lower than 20km/h that I begin to question what immunological difference there exists between me and those who don’t feel a particle of itchiness after a bite.
Farmers are among my favourite group of human beings, for the simplicity and the friendliness they exhibit in their everyday action. One day in Manitoba I got two flat tires within an hour which forced me to stop by farms and there is always someone who, while I was trying to fix the problem, came out of the building asking if I should need any help. They let me use their washrooms, invited me to stay indoor for the many chilly nights and some even invited me to come back next summer. I have sometimes thought, if the Prairies landscape, which many describe as boring and ‘so flat that you can see your dog running for 3 days’, is not under-rated, then some highly touristic places may be over-rated. The sky is absolutely spectacular: only in the windswept Prairies could I behold the endless sky (sometimes I felt I was biking into the sun.). At times I should need entertainment to accompany my solo riding, I would recite a poem or sing a song aloud or practise the harmonica a cyclist gave me in Thunder Bay (good breathing exercise). I feel sorry for not being able to visit the rest of Saskatchewan due to bad weather.
— The general remark people make of biking as opposed to driving a car is ‘You see more of the country than us’. At first perplexed as to what this assertion mean, I have came to an agreement with another cyclist on that we do not see, but experience. It is not the amount of things seen, the total distance travelled, or the number of countries visited that matters to us, but the depth of all that we have experienced. I could visit more places without depth or stay in one tiny spot of the earth and perceive a great deal of details. Along the long stretch of the highway in Northern Ontario I saw countless plastic bottles filled with yellowish liquid—everyone can guess what it is—which irritated me, an environmentalist I consider myself, to the extend that I eventually stopped and photographed them. If I had been sitting in a vehicle, I would not notice how much along the Fraser Canyon, BC, crosses there were on the side of the road commemorating car accident victims. During my stay in Winnipeg, my host inquired if I had seen much of the city, I admitted of only seeing with depth the Franco-Manitoban writer Gabrielle Roy’s birthplace, where I spent the entire afternoon reading her letters and diaries and the many lovely messages other pilgrims left (in late October, the group of people maintaining the house flew to Montreal for a conference on Gabrielle Roy while I was in BC, they mistook my sister who attended the conference as I). This is the most enriching pilgrimage I have paid so far; my knowledge of Anne of Green Gables is too scant to enable me feeling the slightest affinity with the exhibited objects in the author’s childhood dwelling.
— I must be blessed after experiencing terrible snowstorm in Saskatchewan, for the weather eventually improved during my stay in Alberta and the Rockies. In Calgary I waited 4 days for the lingering snow to melt away before parting for Banff and thence rode through the Icefields Parkways to Jasper, ignoring the popular fact that the weather in Columbia Icefields is unpredictable all year round and the ever growing possibility of getting caught in snowstorms. Two groups of travellers helped me to transport my camping gears to the next stop to palliate the pain from which I might otherwise suffer if I was to climb the many huge hills with heavy weight on my trailer. The parkway was maintained in good condition, the ride interrupted by flurries only at the summit of Bow Pass (2067m in elevation), and of course, the view absolutely breathtaking. (I had to reached Clearwater, BC, where I was forced to delay my journey due to the snowfall, to experience real winter condition.)
The scene reminds me of a drawing of a mountain peak I made years ago, based on a quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
But you, O Zarathustra, wanted to see the ground and background of all things; hence you must climb over yourself—upward, up until even your stars are under you!
At the sight of a gigantic mountain peak covered by snow in front of me as I climbed higher and higher in elevation, somehow a feeling of unreality crept over me: it was as if I had entered into my drawing. Perhaps those who have experienced the momentary shock a natural wonder can induce in their mind will understand my feeling better. I stood in stunned silence, enthralled by the tremendous immensity of the icefields, until cold air finally urged me to keep on moving.
At the summit of Bow Pass I did not want to have picture of me taken, despite the many insistences on the part of other visitors who are more exited about my journey than I. For them, and for the majority people I have encountered, it is unthinkable that one who has striven to reach the summit does not crave to linger longer to savour the thrilling rapture resulted from conquering the super peak of a mountain pass, that I have no strong desire to stand on the top of the peak looking down the valley and all that below me lies. They cannot understand why I am not proud of my endeavour and I cannot understand why they should think me brave (I suppose our minds are wired in different manners that we cannot understand each others). Is it really out of the ordinary that I cannot drive a particle of delight in thinking of myself as having accomplished something of superhuman strength when I know many before me have accomplishment the same—if not actually more marvellous—feat and many after me shall come? If I had been of proud and dignified nature I would have to fly over the rainbow only to learn the disenchanted conviction that no man has ever been endowed with the strength which moved earth and heaven.
Well, I will see if I become proud of myself once my journey, longer than I expected, comes to an end in Victoria.
Linda
LINDA’S ARTWORLD 