Ice Gal's: Things You Don't See In Canada

The first thing you don’t see is a lot of litter. Maybe they pick it up? Or maybe people just don’t toss it out the window? The exception has been Ontario closer to Thunder Bay a lot of the pullouts looked like dumps, or what you would expect in the us. You also see a lot of turnouts with trash cans, but no toilets. I wouldn’t go into the woods at one of these pullouts.

You don’t see a lot of rude drivers. Most people signal when the pass. The exception was this morning when two pickups passed 7 or 8 vehicles on the three-lane ignoring the double yellow. And its funny that when people do pass especially in the passing lanes, they will hang out in the left lane for a long time before signaling and moving back into the right lane.

A big thing you don’t see are roadside graves with little crosses. Now maybe christens are better drivers in Canada than the us, or maybe, just maybe people here respect public spaces, and don’t bury their dead along the road.

Not A Distraction Along The Motorway At All...

Now I have been crossing time zones, and I have discovered that crossing time zones on a motor bike was simpler. The clock on your display was big enough to see and you could see it change, and it did at every time zone, and when you stopped, you looked at your phone and it had the same time as your bike. Well unless you had a really old bike with a analog clock, but that thing probably quit working years ago.

I have been relying on the phone to be the go-to clock on board, but when it’s on navigation duty its clock is too tiny to see. The vans clock in spite of me pushing all of its buttons, a total of three, refuses to update from the GPS, if it does it updates to a time zone we are not anywhere near to, or it refuses daylight savings time. The computer had been in a nefarious time zones until today when it updated to the correct time, and then the clock on the digital controls for the RV, has to be manually set, as it has no connection to the outside world. Yes, I know timeless first world issues.

I cut across the narrows of Lake Manitoba, heading to lake Winnipeg. I really had no idea that these massive bodies of water existed, as in previous trips across the country it was always to the south of here. And again, I looked at that road north to the end at Thompson, but decided to stick to my original plan.

So far, the best place camping spot has been here at Winnipeg Beach in the Provincial Park

The Towns Water Tower

The woman at the provincial park desk was absolutely delightful. After she got me a spot I went out to the van and made us constant comment tea, served in Kaladi mugs, and we chatted for quite some time.

I had serious questions for my new pal the gate keeper of Winnipeg Beach Provincial park.

The first one was why are there so few evergreen trees on the way here and even here? She didn’t have an answer, but I suspect they were harvested to build cabins for the early settlers.

A Knotty Pine Relic

When I told her I had looked at that road to Thompson to get up to Churchill to see the Polar Bear's. She said that now was one of the better times of the year to visit as the ice is forming and the bears are moving around. Another trip will have to be made.

Another question I had was since I have not been able to receive any over the air TV is where Canadians get their television from. Her answer was that most people like her have satellite providers for tv and internet. Upon further research, I discovered that cable providers in Canada unlike in the us are not required to broadcast over the air. Humm, I have unlimited AT&T data here and have been getting my money’s worth streaming Americana Boogie Radio most travel days and occasional tv of the evenings.

I thought I would be able to stream Alaska Public Media, since I am a card-carrying member, and it says on their web site that you can stream their live feed. But the small print sezs you can only stream in their broadcast area. Really if I was in the broadcast area, I could just watch it on tvee. Maybe I need a higher level of membership….

Winnipeg Beach as the town as the name implies is a beach town, with lots of summer houses , hotels and rentals. Almost everything was shuttered for my visit.

No Ice Cream For Me

No worries, I really didn’t need an ice cream anyway and walking on the pristine empty beach was nice, and then the water bombers flew in for a refill.