A Night In The Woods

I have been back in the saddle for some weeks now and doing my best to catch-up as much as I can of my lost summer rides as the 2017 season draws to a close. I’m in the process of writing a blog post about transitioning from mobility scooter back to KLR, but decided to do a post about my Fall ride instead, as this is probably a more entertaining story, so excuse the somewhat out of chronological sequence post.

Doing a definitive Fall ride has become a bit of a tradition for me (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/10/planes-trains-and-motorcycles.html and http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2014/10/donnellys-sunset-point-cabins-adirondack.html ), the spectacle of the Autumn leaves in this part of the world still leaves me with a sense of awe. I love this time of year despite the melancholy it fills my soul with, I ache for the freshness of spring and a summer of riding ahead, but Fall has a charm that is difficult to describe. Anyway, it’s Saturday morning on Thanksgiving Weekend and I’m packing the KLR for a long weekend ride. For the benefit of my non-Canadian readers, we Canadians do Thanksgiving at a different date to our cousins down south.  Probably, more sensibly, to have better weather for this holiday, we do it on the second Monday in October, whereas they do it on the fourth Thursday in November. Other than this, it is the same basic idea, families get together to over-eat in a celebration of giving thanks for the harvest and for allowing the Europeans to overrun this continent.  In my family we are a little untraditional, so it’s just a day off work and the chance for each of us to do what we want to do and no requirement for anyone to spend the day in the kitchen. For me, if the weather’s good, that’s to be astride my steel and plastic green steed. According to the Weather Network, it’s going to be about as good as it gets. I have accommodation for tonight booked at Temiskaming Shores, on the headwater of the Ottawa River, beyond that, I have no real plans, only the intention of seeing the Fall spectacle.

 I strap a sleeping bag and tent onto the luggage rack as I usually do when going on a longish ride, it’s not that I have the slightest intention of actually camping, it’s a precaution. Just to be clear, at the end of a hard day’s riding there are a few things I want; a hot shower, change into clean clothes, a well-prepared dinner with a few double scotches and soda followed by a soft bed with fresh linen. I once came within a teaspoon of running out of gas at sunset in a wilderness area without cell phone reception, at the height of mosquito season, since then I’ve packed the tent and sleeping bag. There are a few other emergency and maintenance items that come along, first aid kit, bottles of water, knock-off Swiss knife, KLR basic toolkit, aerosol type inflator with puncture repair gunk, litre of engine oil and aerosol can of chain oil. I feel reasonably prepared.

 It’s a little cool and still some light rain falling when I set out, but this is forecast to clear and apart from some showers in the Temiskaming area later in the day, I should see more-or-less dry conditions. It’s later than I intended, but I have been waiting out the rain and generally farting around with inessential preparations, this is a personal weakness I need to work on. Once on the road it’s all focussed, there is no time for any off-the-beaten-track deviations from the route. If I’m going to get there before nightfall I’m going to have to move. The road is busy with cottage traffic, I guess people are trying to squeeze the last bit out of the cottage season, much the same as what I’m doing with motorcycling. This seasonal influence on our lives is something I had to get used to when I moved to Canada, there really are four distinct seasons, though I dispute they are all three months in length. Spring and Fall are two months at best and Summer and Winter are four. In Southern Ontario the difference between summer and winter temperatures are huge, probably on average about 30 degrees C, but between the hottest day and the coldest day it is in the order of 70 degrees. In South Africa the differential is much smaller and where I grew up near Johannesburg, wearing a T-shirt outside on an average winter afternoon was not unusual. I have digressed, as I get closer to the City of Barrie the traffic is slowing down and getting very congested. My frightfully expensive and sometimes near useless Tom Tom Rider GPS indicates that the traffic ahead has ground to a misery of stop, start and crawl forward. I take an alternative route which surprisingly has very light traffic, you would think that with GPS systems now almost ubiquitous, the alternative routes would be much busier as alternative routes get suggested to divers.  

I rejoin the motorway just north of Barrie on Highway 11 and start to see some semblance of autumn displays in the forests. Something went wrong with Fall this year, the leaves started turning colour as usual, then we had a week of sweltering hot weather and it was as if the pause button got hit. Even though we are back to normal seasonal temperatures, the trees seem to be in protest mode and this year’s spectacle is not a patch on the usual, at least here in Southern Ontario, which is why I am heading north in the hope of finding reds, oranges and yellows. Highway 11 takes me through Muskoka at a less than leisurely pace. Anyone that has followed these chronicles will know that Muskoka is one of my favourite areas to ride, twisty roads, lakes and forest and great places to eat. It is also cottage country central, which makes it a little busy at times. Now being one of those times, and the traffic only really eases up after I pass Huntsville. It’s been awhile since I have traveled on Highway 11 north of Muskoka, last time it was just a decent two-lane road, now it is dual motorway all the way to North Bay. Somewhat less scenic, but I make good progress and find myself in North Bay soon enough. My butt has gone to sleep and I’m a little desperate for a leg stretch and a cup of coffee, a bit over 300 km in a single stretch is pushing the envelope. Tim Hortons is the option of least resistance, and their coffee is at least always drinkable.

Temiskaming Shores is about 160 km north of North Bay, still on Highway 11, but now a more interesting road. There are plenty of nice sweeping twisties, the type that you can take without having to gear down, or slow down for that matter, and here at last I find Fall colours in absolute full glory at least for some of the way, as I get further north the maples give way to ash and evergreens and it’s less of the striking reds. It has been overcast with the occasional light rain since North Bay, but now the sun, low in the sky, breaks through and illuminates the world like a picture from my childhood bible. I think of stopping to take a photo, but a camera would probably not do it justice and in any event the effect is fickle, after a few minutes it is gone, only to appear momentarily again later. There is very little traffic and I settle into the ride enjoying every single second. Tired, hungry and happy I arrive at the Edgewater Motel as the last light of the day fades away. The motel is quite basic, but fully booked, so I am glad that I booked my place yesterday evening. The town, a few kilometers north along the lake, apparently does have a few restaurants, but they don’t look too promising and I’m dog tired, so I order a pizza from Pizza Pizza to be delivered, as it turned out, not too bad.

View from the Edgewater Motel

I’m awake, it’s five in the morning and the roosters from the farm across the road are also very much awake. I don’t really mind, it’s a sound that I associate with happy memories, but it’s too early to be setting off for the day, so I do some planning. I have mapped out a route that will take me over the Ottawa river into Quebec, through a wilderness area on a decent gravel road, go through a reserve called ZEC Dumoine and finish up crossing back into Ontario close to Rolphton. From Rolphton I’ll go south on the Trans-Canadian Highway to Pembroke where I’ll spend the night, then on Thanksgiving Monday I’ll wind my way home via the fantastic (for a motorcycle) roads of the Ontario Highlands. I program the Tom Tom GPS for the route to Rolphton and leave the motel by 7.30 heading into town for gas and breakfast at the inevitable Tim Hortons, there isn’t anything else open.

The first stretch is a short dogleg north following the Temiskaming Lake and crossing over into Quebec at the northern tip of the lake, then following the lakeshore south where it becomes the Ottawa River. I’m now riding through the fertile Ottawa valley, it’s flat open farmland and it’s super windy, gusty as fuck. The KLR is a light motorcycle, but fortunately I bring a bit of ballast to the party and manage to keep us mostly on the straight and narrow.

When I stop for a break I can see that the wind has whipped up some sizable waves on the river. I’m looking forward to riding through the forest where I’ll be protected from the wind. It’s mid-morning when I get to Temiscaming QC (not to be confused by the place I spent the night, this is a small town on the Quebec side and spelt slightly differently). I’ve travelled about 150 km, but decide to gas up even though I did not really need to, old habits die hard, since putting on the 26-litre tank my fear of running out of gas is just paranoid. From here I head off into the wilderness, and yes, the leaves are mostly living up to expectations.

For about sixty kilometers things go well, a little on the boring side perhaps, the road is a gravel road, but it is broad, straight and very well kept.

Still on the straight and broad

Then I come to an intersection and the Tom Tom seems to want me to follow an option that does not exist on the reality on the ground. Of course, the options are not signposted in any sensible way that an anglophile person, not familiar with the area, could possibly make sense of. I make a guess and within a few hundred metres the Tom Tom seems to affirm my guess and appears to get back with the program after ‘re-calculating’. It’s at this point that things go tits-up, but I don’t know it, the Tom Tom indicates that I must take a left, it doesn’t feel entirely right, but I follow instructions. The road is still reasonable, but a lot rougher than I expected. Then a short distance further it sends me on another left, then a right, or was that straight and the road took a left, and the road has deteriorated to a track that is suitable only for ATVs or serious 4x4 vehicles. Shit.

I know that I am well and truly lost and completely in the hands of the Tom Tom, fortunately it seems supremely confident of the route and indicates that my next turn is 25 km ahead, my destination is still Rolphton and my eta is 5.30 p.m. I push on, I have no choice. On a philosophical level I have always wanted to do a bit of real adventure riding and quite often take a route that includes some gravel roads, but deep down I always knew that this was no more than adventure riding lite. Little bit of dabbling, to the extent that when I put new tires on at the beginning of the season I choose significantly pavement oriented tire. This is all suddenly changed, now it is man and machine against nature, this is the real thing, this is what the KLR was designed for. I am going up or down steep hills on a track that has been almost completely washed away, effectively bolder-hopping on a bike, crossing actual flowing rivers, ramping over fallen trees and the scariest, riding through dark muddy pools forty feet wide and knee deep, concealing sharp rocks and deep holes. There are long stretches of deep soft sand and other stretches of treacherous slippery clay, at best I’m managing to cover 15 km in an hour, it is exhausting, damn hard work.

My biggest fear is that something will happen to render the bike immobile, trivial things like a puncture, dropping the bike in one of the dark muddy pools, electrical failure, blockage in the fuel line, coolant issues, the list goes on. I would be faced with a 50 to 100 km walk through a forest that I have no good idea as to what direction to take, wearing lousy boots for walking, and an ankle that is still in recovery mode. Finally, I reach the turn after 25 km of hard riding, but the hoped for broad nice road is shattered as I turn onto a track that if anything is worse than the one I have been riding. Next turn 15 km, well I am certainly getting the adventure riding I have said that I wanted to do, this is balls-to-the-wall adventure and there is no letting up. I am getting hungry now, but I haven’t got any food, my original plan was to have lunch in Rolphton, I have got a tin of diet Coke, so make a stop and have that instead of food. I realize quite how tired I am, this is physically and mentally exhausting, but I must admit it is fun. This is a type of riding that I’d like to do more of, but not by accident like today, properly planned and not alone, this is dangerous and being alone makes me feel especially vulnerable.

I am starting to be concerned about the accuracy of Tom Tom’s maps. Every now and again the little blue arrow that represents my place in the universe is tracking through forest instead of on the road and sometimes it shows roads crossing my path that don’t materialize and once or twice I come to a cross-road that does not exist in the virtual world of the Tom Tom. My problem is that I have

Little blue arrow

blundered into a forest criss-crossed by a labyrinth of narrow tracks and I’m forced to rely on a seriously out-of-date map and guided by a Boy Scout called Tom Tom that evidently didn’t manage to win the map reading badge… stressful! Nonetheless I do seem to be getting somewhere, and when I look at the route view on the Tom Tom, I am getting closer to the point where I’ll cross over the Ottawa river and get onto the Trans-Canadian Highway. Comforting visions of dinner, hot shower and slipping between clean sheets.

Finally, I am less than a kilometre from the crossing and I can see on the GPS screen the virtual image of the route crossing a body of water that can only be the Ottawa River. It is nearly 5 p.m. and my relief is palpable. Palpable, but short lived, as I arrive at the crossing I discover it is not a bridge, but a ferry, and clearly a ferry that is no longer in operation, from the look of the rusting hulk it has not operated for a very long time. I can hear the roar of traffic on the Trans-Canadian Highway, probably 500 metres away, but there is just no way that I’ll be getting over this river to join in that happy stream of vehicles. I try to program into the Tom Tom destinations that will take me out of the forest, but no go, all destinations demand that I first cross the river at this point, Deux-Rivières ferry crossing. I check Google Maps, fortunately there is cell phone signal here, and discover that Google Maps also thinks that the ferry is operational. I decide to ride back the way I came and hope that the Tom Tom will recalculate a route that will take me out of the forest, but barely go a kilometre when my good sense and sanity prevail. I turn around and ride back to the crossing. I have no food, but would not be short on water, I have a tent, a sleeping bag, cellphone reception, a fully charged laptop, a bottle of Scotch and a knock-off Swiss Army knife, I will survive.

I decide to camp on the ferry itself, the ferry has two broad strips of timber running from front to back (stern to aft perhaps), no doubt for the cars to drive on, back in the days. These look like they will be warmer to sleep on that the cold earth. I let my wife know where I am and set-up camp in time to witness a stunning sunset with a ‘glass’ of Scotch in my hand (aka Diet Coke can with the top cut off with the pocket knife). The plan is to figure a route out of the forest using Google Maps on my

laptop in the morning, the Tom Tom will not be programmed, technology got me into this, and technology will get me out of it, but it is a task I relegate to tomorrow. Right now, as I work my way down the bottle of Scotch, I realise how fantastic it is to be where I am. The moon is not yet up, the night is cloudless and for literally the first time in years, maybe even a decade, I get to see the stars clearly. There is almost no light and smoke pollution here, I go to the far end of the ferry and lie on my back looking up at the sky. I can see that the stars have depth, they are not just points of light and clearly some are closer than others. I make out the Milky Way splashed in a band across the sky, Orion’s Belt, the Big Dipper. The feeling of wonder and nostalgia for a time when I regularly did this overcomes me, I feel tears rolling down the sides of my face… which possibly has more to do with the Scotch than anything else, nonetheless I have no regrets about my situation.

I wake up at about seven, I can’t claim to have had a great night’s sleep, my bed was damn hard, the two-person tent somewhat smaller than advertised and the Trans-Canadian was extraordinarily noisy. I am also stiff and sore in places I had forgotten that I have, let no one say that adventure riding isn’t a good work out. Twenty minutes with Google maps and I think that I have a way out that looks like I should be able to manage without getting lost. The route actually has a number - Route 101 – like it’s a real highway, which I have a pretty shrewd idea it is not. As I don’t have a pen and paper I do my

best to memories, but also print to pdf just in case. The road out of the wilderness is 100 km, my best guess is a four-hour ride, and expect to come out close to the village of Kipawa, only a few kilometers from Temiscaming QC. Using a luggage bungee and my cut-off Coke can to scoop up river water I drink, wash face and brush teeth and refill my water bottle. It’s funny, knowing that there is nothing to eat, I just don’t feel hungry. By 8.30 the campsite is all packed up and the KLR is ready to roll, there is a satisfaction in this nomadic independence.

On Route 101 - one of the better stretches

Route 101 proves to be just about as challenging as yesterday and the first 20 km takes about an hour and a half. I think the heavy rains we have had over this summer have taken a toll on these roads. After awhile the road does improve and I’m able to do short stretches at up to 45 km/h punctuated by sections of rough riding, the road is substantially wrecked on any steep-ish incline. Today I am having a lot more fun than yesterday, I’m in control and not the retard GPS. I am riding faster and with greater confidence… nearly take a spill or two, but manage to keep from dropping the bike. Thumbs up to Clinton Smout and his team at SMART Adventures (see http://not-so-easy-rider.blogspot.ca/2015/09/on-and-offthe-road-that-is.html) had I not attended this one day course in off-road riding I would have been in deep trouble, the techniques I learned have been invaluable.


By one o’clock I arrive at Migizy Gas Station and Restaurant in Kipawa and text my wife ‘Out of the woods, but far from home.’

Migizy may just be a place that serves a simple breakfast, grilled cheese or hamburgers, but I will always maintain a fond memory of my Thanksgiving dinner of four eggs (over easy), extra bacon, sausage, home fries, two doorstops of buttered whole-wheat toast and two large cups of coffee and cream. I programme the Tom Tom to ‘Ride home’, double check the route for any weird excursions, and set-off on the 382-km ride, destination ‘hot shower, clean clothes, soft bed and well-prepared dinner’. 

Inside Migizy Restaurant, Gas and Convenience