Journey Mercies

Yesterday we had lunch at a tear duct in the Eye of Quebec.  It's a big eye.  You don't need a detailed map to spot it.  But it can't be a very old map.  The Eye only opened in the 1960's.  Before that it was as invisible to the map-gazer's view as it's quintuplet sister in Manitoba. A long time ago, as one theory holds, a large rock was tumbling through space when it broke up into a string of smaller large rocks. These meteorites slammed into the earth from Manitoba to the Ukraine.  When the five-kilometer-wide piece hit Quebec, debris sprayed up and then landed again to form Mount Babel in the center.   The Eye of Quebec is the sixth largest meteorite crater on earth - 100 kilometers in diameter.  But, till recently, went unnoticed by the average Guy. It wasn't until a hydroelectric dam was built and Manicouagan Reservoir formed a moat around Mt. Babel that the eye popped open. The day we left Manitoba on our loop around Canada, my sister I...

It's a long drive across Labrador but every once in a while Patty would punctuate the silence with an observation: So. Many. Trees. Does Canada supply, like, most of the world's oxygen? Our wedding verse says 'the trees shall clap their hands.'  That's quite an ovation. No wonder there's a pine tree on Labrador's flag. There must be infinity trees. That last comment finally made me pull off the road into a turn-out.  I'm good enough at math to know there couldn't be THAT many.  Definitely no more than half an infinity.  But there was only one way to find out.  Count them.  First I donned the bug suit I bought down the road.  Between black flies, mozzies and bulldogs, there was approaching infinity predators.  I paced out a plot 10 x 10 meters and counted 112 trees.  A quick Google search got me the area of Labrador.  With a glance at the map I could subtract the area covered by lakes and tundra.  I'm sure there's a margin of error b...

Every Monday evening back at home, my son Sim and daughter-in-law Jess come over to watch an episode of Alone.  In the show, ten people video themselves trying to out-survive the others by living off the land.  Sim has asked me if I would like to try challenging myself like that. I do enjoy bushcraft. As a twenty-year-old I tried my hand at starting a fire using a bow drill.  With a lot of trial and error - using different kinds of wood and getting the notch in the fire board just right - I finally got ignition.  Another time I attempted the same thing with ice.  I'm not lying.  I froze some water in a bowl and then sculpted it with a warm hand to get as close to a magnifying-lens shape as possible.  I focused the suns rays and actually managed to get some smoke.  If it's true that 'where's there's smoke there's fire' then, yes, I have started a fire with water. I was really hoping that we could finish our latest season of Alone - the one that too...

When seeking guidance from God before committing to this journey, I remembered a text from my friend James Bear, Anishinaabe elder from Brokenhead and fellow follower of Jesus.  It was soon after the US Presidential election.  He closed our conversation with:  I interpreted Jim's text-ese to mean Okay. Take care.  Pray for Canada.  Celebrate Canada.   I've thought of that text a number of times along the way, especially when choosing a place to set up camp at the end of a day of prayer on the road.  I didn't just want a place to crash.  I wanted a place that would celebrate Canada. Probably about half of our camping spots have been 'boondocking.'  Even boondocking on the Loblaw parking lot in downtown Toronto was somehow significant but I think my favorite spot so far was right beside a lighthouse in Nova Scotia.  During the night if I'd wake up I could see the rhythmic flashing of the light but when I got up before dawn, it had stopped....

Bucket List Item 1: See a Dog What are the odds of one province giving its name to two breeds of dogs?  100%.  Newfoundland and Labrador.  What are the odds of spotting your favorite breed in its natural habitat?  Approaching 0% as we get nearer the ferry that will take us off the Rock and over to Labrador.  There have been a number of famous Newfies in history.  Nana in Peter Pan.  A Newfoundland saved Napoleon from drowning.  Seaman the Newfie accompanied Lewis and Clarke on their Corps of Discovery.  And in Newfoundland itself stories abound of daring sea rescues by their eponymous dog. In our short time on the island I've been analyzing every dog I've seen as to its pedigree.  Not a single Newfie. So where are they? Bucket List Item 2: Eat Traditional Food Ever since we were in Newfoundland eight years ago we've been hankerin' for fish and brewis.  We asked a local and he said that Facebook made traditional food pretty hard to f...

There once was a traveler from Winnipeg, Who drove east through a land quite gigantic. When he got to Cape Spear, he said "It seems clear, That I'm further from home than from Limerick." Cape Spear is as far east as you can get in North America.  We actually passed western France on the way.  Okay, just the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, but I'm sticking to my claim.   We arrived on Canada Day Eve and when Patty and I sang O Canada at the tip of the continent, there was only one creature further east than us.  A seal pup lay listening about two feet from the Atlantic.  We serenaded it with the second verse as well: O Canada! Where pines and maples grow. Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow. How dear to us thy broad domain, f rom East to Western Sea, Thou land of hope for all who seek! Thou True North, strong and free! We camped in our motorhome right there at the Cape and woke up on Canada Day to some classic Newfoundland fog and the mou...

This morning we got off the overnight ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland - the longest of five on our journey so far.  We had set up a little encampment at the very front of the ferry where we'd have a great view of the sunrise.  I found out that our ferry-neighbors were from Wisconsin.  I told them about our journey, and how we were trying to stay tight to the edge of Canada to surround it with prayer.  I described myself as someone who avoids big highways if he can find a slow windy road through little villages.  Immediately the Wisconsin wife pointed at her husband.  It seems he was a kindred spirit.  I got the sense that she wasn't quite as thrilled as he was about the road less traveled by. I had characteristically chosen a route off the Trans-Canada that would get us from the Newfoundland ferry terminal to Cape Spear the 'scenic' way.  But I almost regretted it.  Not very far in it turned to gravel - washboardy gravel that seemed li...