Wednesday, September 26, 2007
LIVING EIGHTEEN DAYS IN SIX
One good thing a diagnosis of cancer does is cause a more intense appreciation of all of the wonderful moments of each day. Staring death in the face contributes greatly to the enjoyment of life.
I spent the last six days visiting Michigan and Ontario. Driving with my husband to Sioux Ste. Marie, Ontario, we boarded the Algoma Railroad through Agawa Canyon where we exchanged the tour train for the commuter train bound for Hearst a trip of 300 miles through the Ontario wilderness. It's another world.
The commuter train moves passengers from one tiny cabin or hamlet to another. To ride, a passenger stands beside the tracks and waves down the train, climbs on board, and pays the conductor who sits in the passenger car and collects the fares. Some of the passengers are sportsmen who have cottages along the tracks. Some are tourists like us. Some, though, are locals, like the trapper who showed off the impressive onions he had grown, and told the story of painting the floor of his cabin, then having to catch the train to escape the smell of the paint. He had ridden the train going north on Friday, then caught it going south on Saturday., but only rode for a short distance.
On Friday night over dinner in Hearst the engineer answered my curiosity about what happens when a moose challenges a train. He assured me a moose can fly, and that he knew because he saw one fly the time it stepped onto the tracks at the last minute when it was too late to stop the train. He still has the rack, though his wife hasn't let him hang it over the fireplace yet. He let me climb up into the engineer's seat on Saturday morning before we departed, and I discovered how cramped his quarters are up there.
Ontario was at peak fall color last weekend before the Friday night storm that brought down a lot of the leaves. There is a color that almost appears pink mixed in with the reds and yellows and oranges. It made this landscape the most spectacular fall display I have seen, and I saw Vermont a couple years ago. Sadly it rained nearly all day Friday, so the pictures are not great.
It rained during our visit to Agawa Canyon, but that didn't stop me from hiking to the waterfalls to at least try to get a picture. The train that was scheduled to pick us up at 1:10 arrived around 2:20. We had to shelter under the small overhanging roof of the only building in the canyon other than the rest rooms. There were a lot of us cramped and wet crowded under that roof. It's one way to get to know your fellow travelers. It seems that the commuter train had many unscheduled stops to make on the way up causing it to be more than an hour late. The Canyon Tour Train which we had ridden up to the canyon couldn't leave until the commuter train arrived, maybe because there is only one set of tracks, but more likely because they'd get sued if they left us stranded there in that uninhabited place.
On the commuter train there is no potable water, and no food, so we had to bring our own. A small fridge and microwave are provided for keeping and cooking it. After a few hours on a train the swaying motion sort of mesmerizes. We got drowsy. We forgot about the "outside" world. We got to know our fellow passengers, several of whom got off at what looked like a series of haphazard buildings and a pontoon boat. The boat rescued them from what would have been a miserable night, taking them to a wilderness resort where they saw bear and moose, or so they told us the next day.
There are numerous roads along the route and the train whistle signals each of them, though there was seldom anyone there. A couple were paved. Most were dirt, and didn't appear to go anywhere in particular. There were some train stations, though most appeared not to have seen a passenger on the inside for a generation. One deserted station was named Akron. The engineer stopped the train so we could take a picture of Akron, which we did from the door in the mostly empty baggage car which also served as the smoking compartment if standing on the platform between the cars was too cold.
In Hearst the first language is French. In the hotel restaurant the menu is written in French with the English translation in small print below. As we ate dinner the conversation around us was in French, but the waitress could handle our English without a problem. Hearst is located on TransCanada Highway No. 11, and known for moose, though we didn't see one, as well as ATVs and snowmobiles along with the usual hunting and fishing that you men love. The chief industry in the area is lumbering. There are bears around. As we pulled out of the station on Saturday morning we happened to notice the environmentally green appliance-size steel box with the door propped open sitting in the brush near the rails and a short distance from a group of mobile homes. It seems that the bear discovered garbage bags left outside contain edibles. He politely drug his cache over to the train yard where he explored it and left the mess, prompting the bear trap.
A new bishop was named for the Diocese of Hearst this year, Bishop Vincent Cadieux, O.M.I. The diocese has 30 priests and 7 sisters. Cadieux is also Bishop of Moosonee with its population of 4,000 Catholic mostly Aboriginal People. Unfortunately we weren't there long enough to explore the cathedral.
