Apologies for the lack of postings this week (I know, just a lame Twain quote is all you got). Work is finally catching up to me and, until the day this blog pays, then you, dear reader, will have to suffer the odd “outage” from time to time.
This weekend, my wife and I are driving up to meet her relatives in Kirkland Lake [there should be much more fiction written about this town, btw – ed]. To the average person, one who doesn’t live near Ontario, this doesn’t sound like much. So, let me put it into perspective for you:
It’s about a 7.5 hour drive from Toronto. That’s a long trek in my books, especially considering that it’s just for the weekend (thankfully a long weekend up here). However, I’ve always wanted to see Northern Ontario – I mean the real Northern Ontario, not driving 3 hours to a cottage in Haliburton, but waaay the hell up north. I’m sure it will be a beautiful drive (after the first hour of anonymous suburban/industrial wasteland). I look forward to fresh air, clear skies (particularly at night), rocky terrain, and – my favourite – wildlife.
Going to northerly parts of Canada (in particular the real real North: Yukon, Nuvavut) is truly the only way to get a strong sense of how characteristic (and, plainly, how rough) our environment is. In cities like Toronto it’s hard to get a perspective on the greater (arguably better) parts of this country. It is for this reason, driven by childhood memories of sitting in the back of my parents’ car while we drove from Alberta to Vancouver BC, or from Brantford through New Brunswick, that I feel it’s worth turning into a car-zombie for a short while (long drives will do that) if only to experience what Canada is truly, nakedly, like.
And yes, I will have my camera. And I promise to post more photos in general.
Have a splendid weekend.
Fascinating. I have never, ever had a single thought about Northern Canada. I love reading about different bloggers’ geographic locations. Mine is so boring I could cry.
7.5 hours is a long drive by any standards! Hope you have a wonderful time up there 🙂
Found you through your comment on Shelly’s blog, and I love 7+ hour road trips and the far-away-ness I find.
Only down here, I end up in Chihuahuan desert not the tundra. Would love to see your pix. Enjoy the cool for us who site sweltering down south!