Sunday morning, I got up about an hour too early - I had neglected to change my clocks since departing from Thunder Bay the day prior.

I had a chance to go out to Little Falls in the morning mist. BTW - did you know that Atikokan is the Canoeing Capital of Canada? Quetico Provincial Park has 1400 kms of paddling routes and there are over 500 lakes within the amazing 4700 sq km area the park occupies. (There’s nothing west of Thunder Bay…?)

At 10 am, I met up with my morning tourguide, Gayle Green. We set out for one of the old open pit mine sites, which was closed in 1978. Check out how nature has been programmed to regenerate itself:

Gayle took me around town afterwards and gave me a really indepth look into the history of this resource community. Atikokan’s population continues to dwindle - and the upcoming closure of a nearby coal burning plant will likely mean another 200 people go elsewhere. But who knows - maybe mining will open up again?

Here’s the Honda Insight I had been looking forward to seeing:

Here’s Gayle and her boyfriend Allen Martyn:

I thanked Gayle for the tour, and by 11 am, I had to be on the road for Winnipeg, with stops in Kenora and Keewatin en route. You can be sure I will return to this area sometime.

I left Marathon today right on schedule. I stopped by Neys Provincial Park, but it was closed. I took this picture nearby:

Hwy 17 wasn’t that busy, just the usual transports trying to keep on schedule. I had to move out of the way a couple times. My next stop would be in Terrace Bay for about 15 minutes - I went to the beach this time.

The waves from Lake Superior were crashing into the shore.

On the way back to the highway to fuel up, I couldn’t resist stopping at the golf course!

I found my way through Rossport, and then Thunder Bay. A stop at the A&W for a swiss veggie burger also revealed several newspaper articles on the panic that hit Ontario regarding gasoline supply. Hamilton topped out at $2.15 per litre. Hmm… An article about climate change and the US reluctance to pay any attention to Kyoto made for an interesting read. There was also an article about some official Ontario tourist guide making ZERO reference to any place west of Thunder Bay. How timely. I’m heading into the heartland of the ‘other half’ of Ontario now.

Pushing on towards the Hwy 17 and 11 junction, came across a sign that was perplexing at first:

Apparently, ‘MOM’ refers to ‘Manitoba, Ontario and Minnesota’. Hardly a vehicle was on the road. I was talking on the phone to my friend Mark for a couple of minutes when I saw a sign mentioning something about an Arctic Watershed sign coming up. Odd… and 1 km later, there it was…

There’s nothing west of Thunder Bay…

I was humoured to see some signs officially marking what I initially thought was a 4×4 route nearby at N 48:40.424 W 90:47.009

Turns out these are snowmobile routes.

I pulled into Atikokan around 7:15 pm, checked into my lodging and verified I had internet, and then went downtown to have a pizza. I’ve been offered a tour of a few spots around town in the am. My car was quite a curiousity for the kids who were having a birthday party. And apparently, there is a Honda Insight here I may get a chance to see.

There’s nothing west of Thunder Bay…

I stayed at the Marathon Harbour Inn Friday night. Nice place. One of the first things I noticed was that the water pressure was very high, and the showerheads were non-adjustable, and probably somewhere around 7 gpm (gallons per minute) or more.

It just so happened that I had one Niagara Conservation showerhead with me, that I had received while in St Johns. Having previously received one in a package from Abbotsford & Mission Water Conservation, I knew this was an exceptional product.

So I offered Sandra the showerhead, and installed it in one of the rooms Saturday morning, just as I was getting ready to leave. Here’s Sandra showing the old non-adjustable showerhead with the new fully adjustable 9 jet Turbo Massage showerhead.

Why?

Because this low-flow showerhead will reduce the energy consumption related to heating the water by about 65%. And that’s potentially a lot of money even for a 16 unit motel.

Sandra estimates the propane cost is $400 per month. I’ll guess that 50% of this is related to showers. So that’s $200 per month. 65% of that is $130 - so switching the showerheads will save $130 in the first month alone, and pay for the showerheads! And 1 year later, $1500 will have been saved, as well as several tonnes of GHG…

So, the 16 Showerhead Challenge is on. I’ll be watching to see what happens at the Marathon Harbour Inn.

Sneak preview photos - driving impressions and further information to follow…

All pictures taken Thursday in Ottawa. Huge thanks to John Neufeld and Brian Bond, who are both Environmental Engineers for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Program.

Friday, 6:45 PM

I’ve arrived in Marathon, ON, a town of 4700 people situated on the north shore of Lake Superior 300 kms east of Thunder Bay, and 400 kms west of Sault Ste. Marie. I will spend the night here and work on the website. Saturday doesn’t involve too much driving, and so I’ll likely stay here until noon hour. (more…)

Thursday morning, I departed from Boucherville with Marie. Destination: Ottawa. It took a couple hours to get through Montreal. It was ‘car free day’. Nevermind ‘day’, how about just ‘car free’?

I had to race to make 10 am in Ottawa. I was meeting John Neufeld and Brian Bond who work with the Advanced Technology Vehicles Program. Upon arrival, I had a chance to see the smart forfour cdi and take it for a drive. More on that later.

After grabbing a Tim Horton’s coffee, the three of us went to the Canada Science and Technology Museum. There we were met by Garth Wilson, Curator, and Maureen McEvoy, Director - Public Affairs. I was treated to a vry interesting tour of the More Than A Machine: Motor Vehicles in Canada, 1900-1930 exhibit. One interesting piece was this 1910 Baker ‘Electric Runabout’:

After viewing the exhibit, we were taken to a nearby museum warehouse to see the undisputed oldest car in Canada. I had a chance to drive the Audi A2, and let Garth Wilson take my car, since he’d never driven a smart. Truth be known, Garth is a One-Tonne Challenge champ since he rides a bike mostly, and doesn’t even own a car. While at the warehouse, I had a discussion with Garth about the processes and activities that go into creating a remarkable museum inventory.

Once we finished at the museum warehouse, Brian, John and I went to the University of Ottawa in our three diesel cars. There we took part in the ‘car free day’ event and answered questions. I gave out some One-Tonne Challenge t-shirts and brochures. A live DJ was there, and I did two short interviews over the loudspeakers.

Once it neared 3 pm, and Brian had already departed, John and I went to a local gas station that sells biodiesel. There I filled up ASTM certified B20.

Folks were quite interested to talk to us about our cars. Once we finished that, we went back to the ATVP facility, and I had a chance to do some more looking around at the inventory.

Today I got up late - somewhere around nine. I had a muffin and some Shaklee protein powder for breakfast and worked on some odds and ends. Laundry too.

Marie and I then headed out for Dorval so that I could visit Michel De Garie. Michel is the purchaser for Satau, a natural and organic foods distributor since 1981, catering strictly to independent (and ‘values’ driven) stores in Ottawa, Quebec and the Maritimes. Satau was a customer of mine when I was handling transportation and logistics for a company I worked for in the late 90’s - DSL Distribution. Michel purchased product from Nature’s Path Foods, for whom DSL did the warehousing.

I had worked with Michel to create an efficient and ecologically sensitive supply chain strategy - which involved combining one load of high density beverage product from Oregon with one load of lighter density cereal product from Delta, BC. I arranged for manipulation of the two separate loads into one 53 foot high-cube intermodal container – allowing the products to travel together for the 4800 kilometre journey from Vancouver, BC to Dorval, QC via CN Rail – thus reducing energy consumption, and the creation of greenhouse gases - and saving money to top it off. (more…)

Two additional days have been added to the itinerary. It will now end in Vancouver on Saturday October 1, with a stop in Abbotsford on Friday September 30th.

This will allow a visit to Ottawa this Thursday morning to tour the Museum of Science and Technology, and take part in an event at the University of Ottawa at noon. I will be meeting with John Neufeld of Transport Canada’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Program (ATVP). (I will do an article on this exciting program later tonight. ATVP was instrumental in getting the smart fortwo into Canada.)

Events during the final ten days are not yet arranged, with the exception of Ottawa.

It’s lunchtime, and I’m in Boucherville, safe - having been nearly hit by lightening on Route 20. I was driving into the eye of the storm, and at one point, lightening struck the asphalt in the fast lane about 20 metres ahead of me - creating a great ball of sparks and electricity.

Quebec City was dropped entirely. Other than staying overnight there for about 9 hours, I didn’t see or do anything. I cancelled my tour of the old part this morning, and came straight to Boucherville, not even showering or eating or grabbing a cup of coffee. C’est la vie.

I will hibernate here for at least 24 hours before doing anything other than sleeping, and catching up on with posts and articles.

I’m in Quebec City, finally. A dozen hours late. The Nordik Express spent 9 extra hours in Harrington Harbour en route to Natashquan. And Route 138 is terribly slow in places I find. Spent the better part of this evening driving in the dark, and missing much of the St Lawrence Seaway.

It’s now 12:08 am Tuesday, and I will do very little in the way of updating on the site until I take a full day off in Montreal. I may have to sequester myself somewhere.