Random photos from the entire trip so far!

Me, heading up a hill, on the 110km ride from Nipigon to Terrace Bay




Heading down a hill on the same ride..yippeeee!



This is a monument to Terry Fox, a famous Canadian who had a leg amputated aged 18 due to cancer. He ran a marathon every day from the East coast of Canada to Thunder Bay until he was unable to continue due to his illness. He died aged 23, and Canadians run on this day every year to commemorate his short life and amazing spirit.



Kat and me at the Terry Fox monument. In the background you can make a long peninsula in the bay, known as "The Sleeping Giant" in Ojibwa folklore.



Some camp fire singing just outside of Dorian



Breathtaking views that make all that uphill pedaling worth it!




My cooking squad :Bad Spatch and the Utensils. Cooking up a storm for the group once every 4 days. From left to right, Kat, Jana, me and Zoe



Check out that savvy bicycle mechanic on the left ;-) Seriously, I now know how to fix my brakes and gears when they get temperamental, haven't had any flats yet...touch wood!



A chilly September morning in Atikokan, right before it snowed. Note only the sandwich hand is out of the mitten.



Facilitating a workshop about bananas in the paper mill town of Terrace Bay



Schroeder and Kathleen, fixing bikes for "Bicycles for Humanity" who ship them to Namibia.

Always time for a roadside ditty ;-)



Well it's been a fairly eventful stint since I last wrote. Our elementary school performances were well received and the kids were fascinated by how we got there, where do we sleep, do we repair our own punctures, and "can any of you do the splitz"! Then, for the first of the high school performances we decided to rewrite and re-rehearse the play to make it more relevant to this audience. This entailed a lot of work, but at our premier the kids seemed to be paying attention and laughing in all the right places. I had worried they would just laugh throughout ;-) but apparently we're on the right track!


Thunder Bay has presented us with lots of exciting opportunities, including both running and participating in workshops at Lakehead University. Another highlight was connecting with the group "Bicycles for Humanity". This organization collects bikes that are headed for landfill and repairs them. Mountain bikes are shipped to Namibia en masse, where they are converted into all kinds of trailer bikes and even ambulances for health workers. Road bikes are donated to families living in shelters in the Thunder Bay area. We performed our play for them, before helping with bicycle repair for a few hours...very inspirational.

There is so much more to tell but so little internet access; so maybe I'll have to fill in the gaps (i.e. the beauty of Quetico and Kakabeka Falls) some other time! I hope you're all having a lovely day, ciao for now!

Bring on the hills!

The Otesha Lake Superior Bicycle Tour adventure has begun! We're 2 weeks in and the itinerary has been jam packed with team building stuff, a crash course in bicycle maintenance, learning the play and of course, riding. AND, I learned a new word: "rowdyism"!


Training week took place at Wiens Shared Farm near Winnipeg. This is Liz and Kat and of course the solar powered oven:

We have already cycled from Winnipeg to Steinbach, into Ontario to Falcon Beach, and yesterday to our current stop: Kenora. The country has been beautiful: flat prairie in Manitoba and we just hit rolling hills on the Transcanada 5km before the provincial border.
Our coincidentally all-female-tour-team are getting along marvelously, despite having spent almost every waking hour together for the last 15 days. Today is a day off and of course it is pouring it down, but we don't care since we are all so excited about being able to read, journal and wander about as 14 single units for the day! Much to my delight, co-teamleader Kristen brought her guitar :-) Happy Days. From left to right, tour members: Liz (Ontario), Jess (Newfoundland), Myself and Jana (Saskatchewan):


We are very much still filled with anticipation, as school is starting soon - which means we will be starting our actual outreach. I am truly thankful to all of you for your support of the project and for making this tour a reality. I'll keep you posted on how it goes and what kind of reception the team gets when the real work starts as we roll into school gymnasiums ;-)

The terrible blogger

Yes, I haven't blogged in a while so now there is too much to tell so here's just a quick list of some things that happened:

Met up with Jody (Mac outdoor club friend) in Dawson, twas lovely!

Found out that Dawson City isn't a city

Heard some GREAT music at the Dawson City Music Festival.

Let David Suzuki into the Beer Garden of afore mentioned festival - I wanted to say "ID please" but managed not to and instead just waffled a bit about working for Earth Day Canada...and did he remember Fraser Los?

Got a ride up the Dempster highway to the "end of the road in Canada" - Inuvik, in the Arctic Circle.

Stayed with Jonathan's amazing cousin Julianne

Never went to bed (well almost never!) since it was constantly light.

Caught, filleted and ate a pike (yes I know, I said a little prayer for it though, and it was wild and free until I caught it and clubbed it) (Well okay, Jonathan's cousin Julianne did the clubbing, but I watched, very Northern experience.

Went to the Northern Arts festival, lots of Inuvialuit (Inuit community) art and some Native dancing. Lots of stuff made out of Whale, Polar Bear, Caribou, Muskoxen etcetera. Doesn't look like much gets wasted though!

Got a ride back down to Dawson and then Whitehorse in an RV - wooo hoooo!

Went to Robert Service's Cabin

Harvested some peas

Went on a 2 day training run on my bike. First day consisted of 50k to Marsh Lake campsite (unstaffed) to find that the well was closed due to arsenic. Hmmm fortunately there was a house 10k down the road who filled us up in the morning. Second day consisted of a thorough soaking arriving at the campsite just in time for my entire left pedal to fall off. Everything was soaked, especially the inside of the tent. Fortunately there was a sheltered area where a nice couple from Alaska had got a stove going so we kind of dried out a bit before bed. This morning when it became clear that there was no fixing my pedal without the missing bolt they drove me to the bicycle repair shop in Whitehorse.

Philippe fixed up the bike a treat and let us camp in his back yard bicycle graveyard inside an old school bus. Random!

Tomorrow I will set off to Christina Lake in BC to spend a few days with Jonathan's family at their cabin before the Otesha Adventure begins...

Bises,
Katherine

Dawson Music Festival

So, despite how lovely the puppies are here, and the crew, I have found that the focus for me has been more hospitality and tourism than working with the dogs and the garden. Therefore I have decided to move on 2 weeks earlier than planned, but still on good terms (at least I think so anyway!) in order to explore other possibilities.

Up next is the Dawson Music Festival. Jonathan (rather nice chap from Toronto who decided to join me out here ;-)) and I will travel to Dawson on Thursday to volunteer staff the festival for 10- 15 hours and earn free passes (woooo hooooo!). We are greatly indebted to Jody (McMaster Outdoor Club friend) for hooking us up with this rather sweet deal. Then the plan is to ride the Dempster Highway to Inuvik to visit Jonathan's cousin. This is supposed to be an incredible route and I'm very excited about traveling it. After this I'll be working on another farm close to Whitehorse for a week or so.

I'm having trouble uploading photos, but I"m working on it!
Bye for now,
K

Muktuk Kennels, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

I have been in the Yukon a week now and it's wonderful. Here's how my first week panned out:

The bus ride was great and as well as meeting some nice people, I saw large herds of bison and mountain sheep, both with young. I also saw moose and caribou on the Alaska Highway.

Arriving in the early hours of the morning last Thursday I was greeted by a chorus of howling huskies. I let myself into the house by the front door at first, which apparently was where the retired dogs slept, so once I had persuaded them to return to their lodgings (as quietly as possible since it was 5am) I found the humans' quarters at the side door. After a few hours sleep I got up and straight to work, since I could hear 120 dogs howling and was too interested to stay in bed!

We are currently 10 in the household: The owners, the kennels manager (german), the hospitality manager (french), and 6 woofers from Japan, the U.S., the U.K. and Belgium. So we are all constantly working on our languages!

The kennels run educational tours in the summer, since there's no snow and it's too hot for the dogs to pull carts. There are visitors here from all over the world, so this has provided even more opportunity to practise French and German.

I'm basically doing a bit of everything here: working in the herb and vegetable garden; feeding, watering, grooming and poop-scooping in the yard with the dogs; greeting guests and showing them round; and kitchen and housekeeping duties. The days are hectic and long but I feel very happy to be in the countryside and it's great to be doing active work.

A couple of days ago one of the dogs had puppies and they are so lovely. I will post some photos of them as soon as I can.

There is a family of Bald Eagles close by and they regularly visit to try and steal the dogs' evening meal (Artic Charr!!!). In order to avoid this and the commotion that ensues, a separate portion is left in the driveway, away from the dogs, that the eagle is free to "steal". Apparently this practice is stopped in time for migration...

There are only a couple of hours of "darkness" each night, but even when the sun is below the horizon it's still light by my standards! This is amazing because you feel like it's earlier than it actually is and get lots of stuff done in the evenings. I.E. last night I went on a 32k ride around 10pm and it felt more like 6pm.

A couple of the woofers are really into singing, and karaoke is apparently a Thursday night tradition. I also have my guitar here so we've had a few singalongs. It seems like in most bars here you don't have to pay to play pool, which is great
:-)

Today was my day off and I went on a walk with Eri, a Japanese woofer and ecologist. There are so many beautiful wildflowers and we're trying to learn them all but there are also millions of mosquitos and I look a lot like I have chicken pox right now. We saw a beaver though which was nice. Last night the guests in the cabin next door saw a black bear wandering about right outside but I haven't seen him yet... Wolves are also about and apparently one of the dogs strayed too far in the night a few months ago and fell prey to the pack. These days the dogs are kept inside at night, needless to say.

Okay, that's all for now - photos soon!
K

Hiking: Spencer Gorge and the Dundas Valley

Webster's Falls freeze over the Niagara Escarpment


Dale, Maya, Jason, Brit and Katherine - thank you Jason for the lovely photos.


Don't let them tell you that Hamilton isn't beautiful!



Unfortunately, the Escarpment is under ongoing threat of quarry expansion.
To get involved in preserving the Niagara Escarpment check out http://www.niagaraescarpment.org/

If you click on "volunteer", which is the last option on the left menu bar, and scroll down, the site lists several ways in which you can help protect the Escarpment. Some of these are as simple as writing a letter to your MP. This action in particular incorporates the added bonus of discovering who your local MP actually is...;-)