Heading to the Maritimes

I last wrote from St. Williams, Ontario on the North Shore of Lake Erie. The area affords quiet, flat backroads for safe cycling. One wonders that there be enough market for the amount of Ginseng that has replaced the former tobacco fields. Campers may not appreciate rain but after overnight showers one can practically hear the corn growing. The Tobacco Exchange is about to be permanently closed illustrating the demise of a once proud industry in this area. In an area famous for fresh water fishing the Port Dover Legion sells fish sticks and frozen fries at its Friday Night Fish Dinners. The sign on the St Williams United Church announced last service June 28^th. There are outdoor services on the pier in Port Rowan. Life is definitely taken at a slower pace here. A local complained about the Mennonites who let others fight their wars and took over family farms that came on the market because with their boys overseas aging families couldn’t make a go of them. He also complained about the effect these new neighbours had on local service clubs and businesses. His take on half a million bikers arriving in Port Dover on Friday the thirteenth was not particularly charitable.

After stopping half a day in Oakville I headed East across the top of Toronto and the next day braved more traffic on Highway 40 through the middle of Ile de Montreal. Packed camping at the Ivy Lea KOA was $55 a night. The next night I camped near Trois-Rivieres after negotiating with a non-English Speaking Quebecois. There’s more traffic on Highway 40 to Quebec City than I once encountered and St Hubert have changed the formula for the sauce that comes with their chicken dinners. It now comes with rice pilaf as well. The roadbed is also in need of repaving or actively being repaved. So far I’ve been lucky not to be held up by major construction projects. After crossing the Saint Lawrence I drove up Highway 20 through the Eastern Townships with a stop for gas and a visit to Subway for lunch. Last time I drove this highway through dense fog following a transport truck for safety. This time I had a brilliantly sunny day. At Rimouski all that was left was a parking site beside a motel parking lot; there was a 30 AMP hook-up, water, and high-speed Wi-Fi.

I encountered stiff cross-winds driving down the Matapedia Valley amid the steeply rolling hills and farmland. At the Bay of Chaleur crossed the bridge into New Brunswick and returned once more to the land of Salt Water. Was accorded lucky to find a campsite in Beresford near Bathurst. Acadians definitely exude joie de vivre. A local complains that this year lobster brings in only $3 a pound—not enough to cover the costs of the catch. Whether or not the price at the markets or on the menu reflect this I have yet to see. My attraction to rain continues and I spent an entire day at Malybel Park watching as shower followed shower, indeed I couldn’t even leave the park without first waiting out a reverberating thunderstorm the next morning. Fortunately I drove out of the rain as I headed south from Bathurst along Highway 8, crossed the Miramichi River and took Highway 11 to Kouchibouguac. Provincial Highways may provide an efficient route from point A to point B but they certainly don’t provide much scenic value however there are fewer speed zones, traffic lights and stretches of broken pavement.

Kouchibouguac National Park protects miles of tidal plains in the middle of New Brunswick’s Acadian Shoreline in a area where there is an uneasy peace existing with the local First Nations Mi’kmaq population. The park boasts 40 miles of biking trails and miles of boardwalks through sand dunes and salt marshes. The sandbars provide protected waters for canoeing and kayaking as well as habitat for a colony of 3 to 6 hundred seals, nesting terns, and protected nesting grounds for the endangered Piping Plover. The river estuaries are home to eels and fish populations. The summer interpretive programme is superlative. After camping at so many campgrounds with sites crammed together it is refreshing to see spacious level sites with long entryways and plenty of woods separating neighbours. This also enhances wildlife viewing opportunities by providing loads of natural habitat. I was pleased to have a mother ruffed grouse and her brood of 5 as neighbours.

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Wash lines are in again even in areas that once banned them by local ordinance. Whether clothing hung out to dry in smoggy Toronto can actually smell fresh is another question.

Halifax Sewage Treatment Plant. How could the failure of one valve cause $333,000,000 worth of damage? Did someone sabotage the place? Is it possible the people running the place could be that incompetent?

Talk about being a marked man. When a bank robber stuffed the loot down the front of his jeans the exploding dye-pack in the bundle of cash turned his crotch brilliant scarlet and left him with second degree powder burns in the area.

News of the Weird

In North Carolina a pregnant bank robber took a cell phone call in the middle of a robbery and became so involved in her call she walked out of the bank ignoring the cash the teller was trying to hand her.

In my book there is no circumstance in which it is other than extremely rude to abandon the person standing in front of you with whom you are dealing as a customer to answer a phone as happened to me at Kouchibouguac National Park today. Keeping that customer waiting while you talk to a fellow employee is right up there behind it as a turnoff.

In a CBC Comedy Podcast today I got a laugh at the suggestion that the seal hunt is good for the economy whether or not the hunt itself is still a profitable undertaking. The hunt attracts celebrity protestors who hire helicopters to get out to the ice flows, occupy expensive rooms and eat at pricy restaurants at a time when tourism is nearly non-existent.

To support the local tobacco industry in a province in China government workers are now required to buy a set number of cartons of cigarettes a month and schools have been allotted a similar quota. Are they actually attempting to reduce their population due to premature death by cancer? Are they taking into consideration the costs of health care?

In Canada our governments are shelling out our tax dollars at the rate of $2,000,000 per auto job they are supposedly protecting. Wouldn’t it be a better investment if they gave us a tax credit for the motor vehicles we buy? Those same automobile manufacturers are renting extra space for the cars they are unable to sell.

I'm Overdo for a Rant

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.

Dick Gregory (1932 - )

 

I've gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller's parlors], and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.

New York City detective

 

Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents' shortcomings.

Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)

 

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

Fran Lebowitz (1950 - )

 

Things could always be worse; for instance, you could be ugly and work in the Post Office.

Adrienne E. Gusoff

 

 

There is no sign marking the crossroads community of Dog’s Nest north of Lake Erie, seems it was such a collectors item township workers couldn’t keep them on the post. 

 

I’m a bit behind in my magazine reading so I recently came across a new tale about the challenges of preparing the Christmas Turkey.  The turkey helpline regularly publishes lists of beleaguered chef’s gaff’s like the lady who called to report that she’d accidentally set her oven on auto-clean with the turkey inside or someone attempting to bake a deep frozen 25 lb bird—2 days defrost time in a refrigerator.  Seems in an ever widening range of methods that have been developed to prepare the perfect bird someone came up with the idea of deep frying it.  Unlike a turducken that takes 12 hours deep frying takes 20 minutes however miss steps with over-heated oil can result in more than a flambéed fowl.  Other hazards include overfilling the container with oil and upset.  Placing an improperly thawed bird in hot oil can cause rather spectacular boil-overs when the hot oil suddenly hits the ice and turns it to steam.  Some things, it would seem, are best left to the professionals.  The same issue of MacLean’s also talked about heritage bronze turkeys but who can afford turkey at $100 a pound?  

 

In honour of Obama’s inauguration Ben and Jerry’s introduced a special Butter Pecan flavour called Yes Pecan with a picture of the prez. 

 

In Germany a scrap metal firm cutting up an old safe found it to contain over ¼ of a million Euros left behind when a bank disposed of it.  OOPS!

 

When did provincial park and conservation campground guides become more about the hazards, do’s and don’ts and even a listing of offences and the fines appertaining thereto than about the parks resources and how to enjoy them?  After reading the park’s brochure for Turkey Point, for example, why would anyone who didn’t already know the place want to go there?

 

What better way to  ride down a bobsled run than in a Chinese Wok or that’s how they do it in Germany of all places. 

 

“Will you have fries with that?”

 

The Golden Arches is not on my list of gourmet stops so I had to read MacLean’s back in Canada to learn that with profits falling and franchises closing up shop in the land of super-sized fries MacDonald’s has started charging patrons for the privilege of squeezing ketchup and vinegar out of those infernal blisterpaks.  Airlines, you may remember have the problem licked by not feeding their patrons in the first place, even bottled water sales are down—the only drink available since onboard reservoirs on planes, trains and boats were discovered to be contaminated and the cost of cleansing them  deemed to be too high. 

 

 

 

Out Again for a Not so Dry Run

Whether or not as a friend asserts I attract rain I am once again seated in my RV listening to the sound of rain on the awning outside my window.  Certainly given the sight of fields upon fields of corn barely a few inches high rain is welcome here north of Lake Erie.  Why it has to arrive at this precise moment is the issue. 

 

In the first place may I make a pitch to those who read these ramblings that they leave a comment or let me know in an E-mail that they do so that I might know that my work is not entirely in vane.  Secondly I would inform you that for the next 3 months as at present I am going to be without internet service for weeks at a time so that my postings and responses will be erratic.  Yes, I have decided that my odyssey will continue, I have not yet exhausted my wanderlust nor have I seen as much of America as I would like to visit. 

 

After sweltering in the Gatineau I crossed back across the Ottawa River for a couple nights in Renfrew.  There was a time when I might have been attracted to the idea of white-water rafting in nearby Beachburg but having done so in an open canoe the idea no longer holds so much appeal.  Instead I spent a good deal of time attempting to catch up with a week’s worth of E-mail and browsing.  On Monday, June 29^th I drove down to Marmora on Highway 7 through rolling farm country and  forests with my host’s words in my ears.  “Highway 7 is like Highway 17, either it’s under construction or it should be.”  For a good part of the trip I drove over newly paved roads so fresh they lacked proper markings.  At least I was fortunate in not being held up by flagmen or jostled across newly built washboard. 

 

In Marmora I was faced by towering thunderheads and failed to get off the highway to visit the local cheese factories or go to a grocery store.  Highway 7 is much improved since I drove it decades ago.  When the rain held off I decided to join the campground hosted ‘hayride’ around the park.    It was not as lame as it first appeared, seeing how people have their seasonal campsites set up from an elevated view was interesting.  The rains did not in fact come until I set out for Oakville next morning. 

 

My return home was for the purpose of tying up loose ends.  It’s discouraging how matters one believed to be dealt with keep coming undone because others can’t seem to get it right the first time.  When cloudbursts returned with a vengeance I decided to find a place to park and sleep in my own bed overnight. 

 

Canada Day Morning I arose early and drove out to the RBG where I found the Centre still in the throes of remodelling and everything else gated and locked.  Giving up on that idea I drove out Governors Rd, Hwy 99, in Dundas toward Brantford and checked out an RV park near Burford—no I had no idea it existed either—and decided it was an old folks home in a trailer  park.  When did Brantford rename the town Gretskyville?  From a large parking lot at the LCBO in Burford I decided to head south to Lake Erie and try out Woodland RV Park in St Williams.  Sad to say its now cheaper to camp in a private campground than in nearby Turkey Point Provincial Park.  I have electrical, water and sewer hook-ups here but no internet access. 

 

St Williams is a crossroads community with a garage, general store, grocery store, Book Nook, and pizzeria.  For anything else it’s a 10 km trip to Turkey Point with its shoppes catering to beachfront clientele or the small town of Port Rowan where the Legion has a weekly Friday Fish Fry.  My campground has a heated swimming pool with adults only hours, a couple of trampolines, the requisite horseshoe pitches which seem to be a campground staple and here in use, a games room with “penny arcade”, and the usual laundry room and play areas.  As suggested by the name the park is surrounded by the St Williams Forest and infested with black flies. 

 

I still need to sort through the clothes in my RV wardrobe and see what else needs to be removed in a weeks time when I drive through Oakville once more but  otherwise I seem to be ready to strike out again.  Before I leave here I should take time to give myself a haircut for the sake of my 88-year-old Aunt in Oakhill.  One of these rainy days I’ll probably spend some time planning a route to Nova Scotia.  This time I’ll probably take a route along New Brunswick’s Atlantic Coastline. 

Wakefield Quebec

It’s hard to remember just how slow a dial-up modem is until you’ve been offline an entire week and finally get an opportunity to reconnect.  Somehow paint actually dries faster these days. 

 

After three days attempting to avoid the clouds of pine tree pollen in Cantley, Quebec I headed out toward Wakefield.  At least I was able to make use of a couple fine days to open my storage areas and sort through the items I have stored, combining food stuffs, and repacking to save room.  On the way south of Cantley to find the nearest bridge across the Gatineau River I found a general store open on St John Baptiste Day to sell me some orange juice and Ginger Ale.  I also managed to locate the Gatineau Park Visitor’s Centre in Chelsea and pay it a visit.  They have some interesting interactive exhibits but not that much by way of guides or tour books on the park.  Their campgrounds, I discovered are not managed by the parks department but rather farmed out to a private company.  When I reached the fee station there was a multi-car line-up at the kiosk and when I went inside the main office to see about camping the single person present spent 15 minutes on the phone while I waited.  Even when she finally hung up she interrupted serving the people in front of her to answer the phone—a practise I abhor.  The fact that someone was an hour late for work should not have been my problem but it certainly became so.  The person serving me was not with it and after three reminders still tried to rent me a site for 2 days rather than the 3 I’d requested.   The Philippe Lake area of Gatineau Park is emphatically in shield country and negotiating its roadways is an exercise in dodging rock outcrops.  The forest however is a hardwood/softwood mix.  The place was  quiet although the odour of campfires hung heavily in the air and the heat of the day didn’t ease until well after midnight.  Sleeping was definitely a clothing optional experience.  The predawn chorus of birdsong awakened me every morning.  Alas it was way too hot to essay the it was way too hot to essay the 14 km hike to Lusk Caves so on my off-day Thursday I sat inside with my curtains drawn and read my book. 

 

Wakefield is an English Community in Francophone Quebec.   The first surprise I received when I drove into town to reconnoitre was that there was no Black Sheep Inn as I’ve always heard it referred to on CBC—it’s Le Mouton Noir.  Took me a moment to make the connection and by that time I’d driven past.  Driving up Riverside Dr one discovers that the sidewalk on the waters edge runs between two rail lines which in places abut the roadway and in other locations are mere inches from houses on the riverfront.  Obviously people who park there must take care as the line is actually still in use by Le Train Vapour.   To prove the point the train blew its whistle and rumbled through town before Friday’s performance making its return run shortly after.  Although that train boasts a steam engine and tender car it seemed to me that the majority of work was being accomplished by the diesel unit behind it which obviously also powers the passenger cars and dining cars. 

 

Just outside town, on the road in from Hwy 105 is an artesian spring which is a popular spot to get cold, gushing refreshing sweet water.   If you can find parking a wander along Rue Principale reveals an odd mix cafes and eateries, bookstores and giftshops, clothing and whatnots.  There is a library if you can find it open, the schedule defies logical examination.  Main street was in need of repaving half a decade ago and at the entrance to the community centre a rapidly expanding sinkhole threatens to eat anything that gets too close.  Le Moulin is a quarter mile up Mill St along a road with forest and rock outcrops on one side and a rushing stream on the other.  Certainly a peaceful idyllic location for a five-star Inn. 

 

What can I say about the Sheep?  Le Bistro Rutherford which manages its kitchen serves up a yuppie version of pub fare and lacks a liquor licence and like many other establishments in town accepts only cash.  Hence I approached the place to find everyone outside in the boiling hot sun eating on the Black Sheep’s patio which is licensed.  That an overweight pug has the freedom to wander wherever it pleases including a seat on the sound board was a revelation—strange liquor laws in Quebec.  In spite of the fact that having dinner there was supposed to assure me priority seating for my evening concert staff failed to inform me that the doors had been opened prematurely until all the seats were taken.  As it turned out the improvised seating on the covered pool table in front of an open window proved to be the most liveable seating available.  Wednesday’s program managed to start on time.  Not willing to be hoodwinked twice I had dinner before I arrived Friday night and got myself in the line-up at the entrance around 6:30 with my book in hand.  This night the doors did not open until 7:45; allowing the audience in before the opening act has arrived not being a wise act.  It was not until 8:30 the opening act performed their sound check and that completed they decamped to the patio for another beer.  The performance did not begin until 9:15.  All the more time to make alcohol sales it would seem.  I’m still not clear on why Blue Grass or any other music needs to be deafening but I’ve definitely decided that the ability to understand the words is not important.  Venues where the audience talks all through the performance and the performers drink beer on stage are not my usual stock in trade.  I did get 76 pages of my book read before the performance began Friday. 

 

Fred Eaglesmith attracts a devoted following of Fred Heads.  With no introduction he launched into his first set and moved seamlessly from song to song.  To say that his commentary, when it did come, was salty is an understatement.  When sweating profusely he opined he might go out and jump in the lake as he has on past occasions an audience member was told to f… off when he was informed that it’s actually a river.  Similar language was used to describe audience members who gossiped away in the middle of his performance and came up frequently.  It would seem I haven’t listened to my CD’s often enough to have recognized most of the numbers played.  I do find it novel that one who so offhandedly insults his audience maintains such a devoted one.  The opening act was so utterly forgettable that most of the audience ignored him and continued their conversations. 

 

The tardy Grass Mountain Hobos are a 5-piece combo fronted by Josh Ellis who shares singing duties with a couple of his mates.  A double bass player provided rhythm while a fiddler added grace notes.  Despite their hayseed front their music is an eclectic mix.  This we were informed was their concluding performance of a cross-country tour that will see them returning to home base in PEI to launch their sophomoric album July 1^st. 

 

The United Steel Workers of Montreal are a 6-piece combo in which the tiniest player works and even balanced on top of a huge double bass and the hulking gruff-voiced no-neck grimacing lead singer played the smallest.  The group boasts a female accordionist who sings, a banjo/mandolin and lead, rhythm, and electric guitars with a fife and other instruments thrown in as the mood struck.  This night the audience was attentive to both acts. 

 

As much as I enjoyed the live music I doubt I’ll be making the long trek to Wakefield again given the many drawbacks.  This morning after a quick bowl of cereal and a walk to the comfort station I set out for Renfrew Ontario.  Once again I was dependent on my GPS to take me there as much as I sometimes wonder at allowing myself to be at the mercy of an electronic wonder—particularly when it leads me along 22 km of washboard dirt road.  I should be grateful that a kampsite was waiting for me but I must say it’s been some time since anybody called this old curmudgeon “sweetie”.

Off Again on the Road

It's ironic.  One does not realize the ambient noise level of a modern city until one has spent time in an environment of absolute silence.  Having again had that experience returning to Oakville has been somewhat of a shock.  It is a fact of science that a sound that has been present in one's living space since birth is experienced as silence—we tune it out.  Since I grew up in an agricultural area of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia where farms were worked by horses and oxen it was possible to hear the waterfall three-quarters of a mile away and the steam train whistle 30 miles distant.  If I were to get homesick for that place I would think of sitting under a lone white pine in the middle of our home pasture and listening to the breeze sigh through its needles.  But it's impossible to go home—both the tree and that silence are gone.  When I first moved to a university residence in Waterloo Ontario the humming of fluorescent light ballasts in the corridor kept me awake at night and the water tasted worse than sucking an aspirin.  Returning to Oakville this time round gave me a similar experience. 

 

It was with some relief that I sifted through 8 month's worth of mail and found no bills for toll roads I'd accidentally entered and no parking tickets or red-light camera citations.  That is not to say that other rude surprises were not awaiting me.  It is truly mind boggling how slowly the bureaucratic process grinds and computers capable of trillions of computations a second have served only slow it down exponentially.  It takes 4 weeks to get a driver's license, 6 weeks to get a police background check, and three months to make a specialists appointment.  It was with a sigh of relief I learned that the passport I applied for before I left last fall had been waiting for me since November.  So was a cheque for an amount Bell Canada had over-charged me last summer which was now too old to process.  After making the rounds of financial, insurance, governmental, and police institutions for 10 days I had more than enough. 

 

Friday June 19^th at 11 in the morning I struck out east along the 401.  In the GTA it is a reality of life that getting there is not so much a matter of finding a route that will take you where you want to go but finding a time when it will not more resemble a parking lot.  The time to reach a destination is not so much a factor of distance as it is traffic congestion.  Despite a car fire in East End Toronto I was fortunate in having crossed the top of Toronto without slowing below 30 KMH.  Minimum speed and no stopping signs somehow seem ironic.  I remember with some nostalgia an itinerant peddler who travelled by horse-drawn caravan and spent much of his time drowsing on the driver's box while his horse plodded along at its own pace knowing full well the destination of its next meal of oats, hay, and sweet water.  In those days before traffic lights and superhighways the horse needed no direction to get where it was going. 

 

Finding a suitable campground is always a challenge.  To fully enjoy the facilities of my home-on-wheels I need a 30 AMP plug-in.  With some constraints I can survive for up to a week at a time with no plug-ins but such 'dry land' camping imposes a great deal of discipline and uses a lot of propane especially in cold weather.  I access Woodall's campground database via my computer and MS Streets and Trips to get an exact address and location.  Woodall's listings give sometimes nebulous directions and MS Streets supplies addresses and locations on its maps.  Alas Microsoft has been out by over 50 miles in locating many parks placing some in the middle of lakes or out at sea.  National and State Parks which give a mailing address that can be hundreds of miles distant are not much help.  Microsoft and my Tom Tom GPS often  use different names for the same road.  Internet access ideally means Wi-Fi accessible in the privacy of one's own home.  Using a manually attached modem to read E-mail and browse in a public setting is not particularly comfortable.  When one is already paying up to $40 or more a night for a campsite forking out more to access the internet and feeding coins into a machine to get a tepid shower feels like petty larceny. 

 

My recent experience serves to illustrate the vagaries involved in pulling into a park. 

• Cobourg East Campground is just outside Grafton East of the town of its name.  My site was in the middle of a grove of hardwoods close by the central office and washrooms near the entrance road.  Their Wi-Fi, when it worked was slow and inconsistent.  The place was quiet, had an adjacent river and many well-maintained permanently placed trailer-homes. 
• Camp Hither Hills near Manotick just off Hwy 416 south of Ottawa offered parking with hook-ups in a rectangular field beside the entrance road next to Bank St in Ottawa.  A strip of trees provided scant shade from the sun when it appeared and the office demanded payment in cash for their services.  Their Wi-Fi worked consistently and was ultra-high-speed. 
• Camping Cantley just east of Gatineau Park charges $40 a night for a rough-hewn site in a pine forest offering no Internet service at all and a meter that needs feeding did you wish a shower.  The staff are roughly bilingual.  The place has been quiet save for the nearby baseball game Sunday Afternoon.  I had to ask to be re-assigned from a site beside the entrance next to the highway. 

 

Having listened to taped concerts from the Black Sheep Inn in nearby Wakefield for several decades I am fulfilling a lifelong dream of dropping in to take in two concerts there.  Fortunately I did online research to learn that the venue does not sell advance tickets to its own concerts and stopped in downtown Ottawa on Sunday to buy tickets at a one-stop Folk Music Centre.  My ticket is merely a reservation that ensures I get in the door, seating is by general admission.  Tomorrow, before the evening concert I hope to find camping in nearby Gatineau Park.  Besides allowing me to get out of town and attend these concerts this trip affords me the opportunity to discover what more I need to pack or get rid of before I strike out for 6 to 8 more months. 

Elora Gorge

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Tonight I'm back among flora and fauna I understand.  Once again the Cardinal's whistled call fills the air.  I caught a glimpse of a Kingbird and here in the park have heard the 'weep, weep, weep' of the Great-Crested Flycatcher.  The woods are full of spring ephemerals including wild ginger, bloodroot, herb Robert, and columbine.  The gorge may be fenced off these days for security's sake but the Grand still rushes through the valley below.  Thirty-five dollars a night for a site with water and electricity.  Pity about the rain mind you but no one controls nature.  This was the last night of relative peace I'm likely to have for a while. 

 

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Yesterday after a lazy start to the day I drove down to Milton taking the route through the city of Guelph past the ever-burgeoning University of Guelph.  Before I reached the 401 I rued the number of traffic lights and rough city roads more than once.  In Milton I dropped in on a former fellow worker and the two of us dropped by the local Post Office to catnap a former supervisor of mine who had yet to read the note in warning I'd sent her several days previous.  We took her out to tea anyway. 

 

It's a weird feeling finding yourself a stranger in your own home.  Before I left I unplugged everything and turned off all my appliances but eerier still was not remembering the location of items I've reached for the last thirty years.  It was with relief I learned there were no parking tickets or red-light camera citations awaiting me.  Even better was finding the passport I'd applied for before I left last fall awaiting me.  There wasn't as much mail as one might expect awaiting me but what there was held it's own share of nuisance, paperwork, and added errands.  I look forward to going back on the road and leaving behind the noise of traffic and emergency vehicle sirens.

Feel Like a Swim?

I would not swim in your toilet, please do not pee in my pool.

 

Good pool hygiene: Don't pee in the pool

 

The Canadian Press  
Updated: Mon. Jun. 1 2009 12:09 PM ET

TORONTO — There's a famous scene in the 1980 movie "Caddyshack" that shows a chocolate bar being dropped into a country club swimming pool. Horrified swimmers clear the pool because they think the clean blue waters have been sullied by - well, the unmentionable.

But what about the contaminants you can't see?

It's not something you really want to ponder as the weather warms up and you head to your public pool for a refreshing dip, but a recent U.S. survey found that nearly one in five Americans admit to peeing in the pool.

"People sometimes are reluctant to say that they've done it but they think that everyone else has done it," says Linda Golodner, president emeritus of the National Consumers League and vice-chair of the Water Quality and Health Council.

"We found 17 per cent say that they've done it and 78 per cent say they're convinced that fellow swimmers are guilty."

And although public pools everywhere have signs telling bathers to shower before entering the pool deck area, approximately one third said they don't stop to wash and three quarters said that fellow swimmers don't shower before swimming.

"We found it quite interesting to get these results," says Golodner from Washington, D.C. "We knew there was an issue, but we didn't have any numbers behind it."

Altogether 1,000 adults were surveyed online for the council between April 30 and May 3 by TNS Omnibus, and the margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, at 95 per cent confidence.

The council is made up of independent scientific experts, health professionals and consumer advocates who advise the Chlorine Chemistry Division of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association.

Cathy Hughes, a facility manager at the University of Toronto's faculty of physical education and health, says she's not surprised by the finding that 17 per cent of respondents admitted to urinating in a pool.

Assuming that a facility is meeting the health regulation requirements for the province, which sets the chlorine levels to treat the water, then there isn't a problem of infection, she says.

"Anything that gets into the water is pretty well killed instantaneously," says Hughes, who oversees three University of Toronto pools. "The bigger concern is actually air quality, not water quality, which most people don't realize."

That's because when uric acid from urine mixes with chlorinated water, chloramines are formed. These, in turn, form into the gas trichloromethane, which is not good to breathe for long periods.

The gases tend to sit low on the water's surface, which is where swimmers breathe, Hughes explained, adding that it's more of an issue at indoor pools where the breezes can't blow the gases away. It is thought these gases pose a health risk to people who breathe them in frequently.

"Some people believe that it increases their risk of having asthma attacks if they're asthmatic - it can cause some respiratory problems," Hughes says.

"If you're a competitive swimmer, you're probably going to run into a lot of problems if you're someone who uses a pool two or three hours a day. For the recreational user who hops in for half an hour to swim some lengths, and hop out, it's very safe."

When you smell a strong chlorine odour at a pool, it's actually chloramines that you're smelling, she says. Chloramines can act as an irritant, causing itchy skin or red eyes.

"A pool that doesn't have chlorine mixed with organic matter, like urine, doesn't have much odour no matter how much chlorine's in there. It's when it mixes with organic matter, when people don't shower, they pee in the pool - that's what irritates you," Hughes says.

And the definition of showering isn't just a quick sprinkle.

"You should use soap and water when you do it. You don't just run through the shower," says Golodner.

Hughes gets more specific.

"The only real shower is one where you've taken your bathing suit off because the parts you want to get are the parts in the hard-to-reach places," Hughes says.

"Most people don't talk about this but the real determinant is when you had your last bowel movement. You want to have showered after that, because you want to be clean. ...The real concern is any residual fecal matter that hasn't been removed."

An exploding diaper or someone with diarrhea can contaminate the water, and people can become sick, Golodner says.

Recreational water illnesses can include diarrhea, respiratory illness, and ear and skin infections. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides these tips for healthy swimming:

-Don't swim when you have diarrhea.

-Don't swallow pool water.

-Shower with soap before swimming and wash hands after using the toilet or changing diapers.

-Take your kids on bathroom breaks or check diapers often. Don't change diapers at poolside.

-Wash children thoroughly (especially the rear end) with soap and water before they go swimming.

As for pool decks, the risks largely concern foot fungus and athlete's foot, says Hughes. It's a good idea to wear flip-flops in the shower area and on the deck, she says.

In terms of sunscreen and bug sprays, Hughes says they don't really make the water unhealthy but they do make the pool look "less nice."

"The oils from your skin end up floating on the surface of the water ... and then it'll try and coat the edges of the water when the water splashes up against the sides of the pool and they get what's called a scum line, and it can look kind of dirty along the edges."

But she says it's hard to tell people at an outdoor facility to scrub off sunscreen because then they could end up with a serious sunburn.

 

Owen Sound

Today brought back memories of my first days on the road in Front Royal, Virginia at the front door of the Blue Ridge Parkway when I encountered a Campground located behind a farmyard and pasture.  There were no Texas gates to rumble across this time or cattle to dodge as I drove through a barnyard to reach the Owen Sound KOA but there definitely were cows behind the fence.  To find a modern campground in this pastoral setting was all the more remarkable.  Even more gratifying was to discover that this well equipped park was much cheaper than the one I stayed at last night.  Especially gratifying to find a KOA that is remote from any traffic noise, truly a rarity.  It even affords direct access to the Bruce Trail in its backyard. 

 

I had forgotten just how dull the drive along Highway 6 from Tobermory to Wiarton is.  It is paved however and the majority of the county roads are not.  Alas, even the coastal roads on either side of the peninsula fail to afford much of interest as the majority of the coastline is in private ownership and inaccessible with only rare exceptions.  To truly enjoy the Bruce Peninsula requires one to visit the National Park, one of the many resorts or hike the Bruce Trail. 

 

Saturday was a beautiful day and I'd have dearly loved to have been out and about but after just over a month it was time to do laundry and I didn't much relish lugging newly dried clothes around in the rain.  At least here I had access to enough machines to do it all at once.  Pity the machines didn't work better.  Now my RV looks like a Chinese Laundry but at least I managed to get my bed made up last night. 

 

Awoke this morning to the patter of rain on my roof.  If I want a shower all I really need to do is go outside.  Yesterday there were children making a ruckus splashing about in the pool but it won't look nearly as inviting today.  Aside from the rain it's rather cool outside.  Alas Monday's forecast is even worse. 

 

I must pass on kudos for the Owen Sound IGA's cheese and cherry bread—expensive but good.  Every time one attempts to go shopping in a new town there is always the excitement of learning what local delights await one somewhat balancing out he challenge of finding the things on one's shopping list in yet another new store.  This one, bearing the name Foodland seemed to be well stocked though not always with the container size I'd have preferred.  I'll wait until I find a larger-sized bottle of wine vinegar  but I'm still bemused at what anyone would do with a gallon-sized container of ketchup.  Somehow it doesn't say much for the culinary taste's of the neighbourhood that there would be call for an entire bottom shelf display of it.  I was surprised to find Guinness Cheddar. 

 

The opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway led to a steep decline in business at the port of Owen Sound and nearby Collingwood with its shipyard—the latter unique in that it launched its new ships sideways.  Grain and iron ore that once passed through these harbours could now make it all the way to Thunder Bay and the loss of that trade put hundreds out of work.  The Owen Sound General and Marine Hospital is unique in that it has an alcohol treatment unit directly attached to it.  Matters were sufficiently serious that the city was 'dry' until the early 70ies. 

 

Not that it's likely to do any good but in this time of high-fuel prices and the desire to cut down on fuel consumption I have a suggestion for every municipality that institutes speed zones on major highways that pass through their communities.  In the first place make them visible if you want them observed—I couldn't find the one for Mar until I reached the resume speed sign that indicated there should have been one somewhere.  If you want traffic to slow down from 80 or 90 kmh to 50 please place the signs announcing the change sufficiently far in advance of the speed zone to allow drivers to take their feet off the gas and coast to the new speed without jamming on the breaks—saves on the breaks and definitely saves fuel.  Also allows truckers to reduce speed without the need for those dreaded engine breaks.  Mind you the steep hill leading down into Wiarton forces everyone to apply the breaks. 

 

 

In the Mood for a Rant

It would seem I've become addicted to having online internet access on a constant basis.  At my campsite this morning I was unable to access a consistent Wi-Fi signal so I gave up knowing that the ferry terminal had a prominent sign reading Free Wi-Fi.  Wrong!  Oh the signal came through loud and clear but the modem that fed it was not connected to the web and the gal in the office pleaded ignorance.  You don't suppose this had anything to do with the internet café across the way selling access for $3 for 5 minutes?  If the terminal was up and running their enterprise would be worthless.  No, I didn't allow myself to be so manipulated.  My present campground has a high-speed modem accessible only by a hard line in the office.  Reading your E-mail and doing your browsing while anyone can walk by at any time is not a very comfortable experience.  Unless I can access Wi-Fi from the privacy of my own RV I don't consider it internet access. 

 

Little I was told by the gal in the tourist bureau in Little Current was accurate and turns out she was wrong about when the ferry terminal opens, just as well I didn't rush down but as it was I still ended up waiting half an hour for the gate to open.  On the plus side they gave me the car rate for my RV.  Everything about ferry travel is hurry up and wait.  Having gotten my space at the front of the line I now had 2 hours to wait until loading.  Spent some time touring the tourist traps beside the terminal before settling back to read my Electronic Version of MacLean's.  I'm just a few months behind there.  The Chi-Cheemaun's diesel-electric engines are nearly silent and vibration free, pity about the noisy plumbing in the head mind you.  The crossing was effortless and without any surge or sway.  Again I was impressed by how narrow the channel is at South Baymouth and at how tightly a ship that size must turn to negotiate the harbour.  As one is forced to return to one's vehicle passengers don't get to see the ferry dock.  The crossing took just over 2 hours. 

 

Having spent half a day in transit I was not up to much for the remainder of the day.  It was with some surprise I discovered that Tobermory Village Campground is run by Mennonites.  I realized they were being forced out of an ever more urbanized Waterloo County but I had no idea they'd migrated so far north.  They may be Mennonite but this campground is emphatically a commercial venture.  On a walk around the park after supper I met a bearded gentleman who is working at some new cabins.  I disturbed a few nesting redwing blackbirds and found some Indian Paintbrush  and was very pleased to discover a clump of yellow lady slippers I was happy to point out to a couple from Korea who are here to visit their relatives in Richmond Hill. 

 

Like drive-ins and movie theatres that want to sell their own over-priced pop corn and other confections and would like to prevent patrons from bringing their own private campgrounds have been quick to jump on the infected wood bandwagon attempting to forbid campers from bringing in their own firewood so that they may sell their own over-price green product.  Somehow I find their zeal rather self-serving. 

 

 

Manitoulin Island

From Sault Ste Marie Highway 17 Eastbound follows the North Channel Coastline which runs between Manitoulin Island which bills itself as the largest freshwater island in the world and the mainland of Northern Ontario.   Since much of the forest here is hardwood and the leaves are just now opening the forests were a riot variegated greens, reds, and yellows.  By contrast once one turns south along Highway 6 onto the island itself evergreens take over again as the predominant trees on a land underlain by the limestone of the escarpment of which this is an extension.  I stopped a night in Thessalon where I parked on Main Street and had a bowl of soup and half a sub at the Thessalon Bakery and Pizzeria.  Both the Carrot Soup and the Sub were good, two types of olives gracing a sub with a Greek influence.  The double-scoop of Chapman's Apple Pie Ice Cream was an indulgent calorie-ridden excess.  A loaf of their raisin bread was a special treat as well.  Not wishing to blink and miss it, to quote my campground host, I walked main street and checked out Home Hardware and the cramped and crowded gift store.  Seeing what was available at the local LCBO was a dubious venture—who would buy a wine called Wild Grape and why all those American Beers?  My campground was rustic but a walk along the shore to a rocky shoreline outcrop totally covered in two generations of graffiti made me feel sorry for people who feel the need to despoil the landscape to leave their mark on the world. 

 

A listing in Woodall's Guide and/or MS Streets and Trips is not a guarantee of a positive campground experience but for my first night on Manitoulin Island I learned that finding a spot on my own online can be fraught with difficulties.  At their website Gordon's Campground sounded like a naturalist's dream with nature trails, bird watching, and star-gazing; what confronted me after I'd signed in for a night was a mosquito infested side-hill that lacked running water, any lighting, or indoor plumbing.  I spent the first 18 years of my life with an outhouse—it is not an experience for which I feel any nostalgia.  An eco-shower may be fine for one on a wilderness canoe trip but standing under a glorified hot water bottle does not turn me on.  I managed to back into a narrow uphill campsite and found my adapter to use a 20 AMP outlet managing not to blow the fuse overnight; closed things up to keep out the insects and soon drew the curtains to keep out the harsh realities out of doors.  Next morning I actually managed to get online to retrieve my E-mail before packing up to leave.  To complete the picture I discovered I was out of orange juice and my milk had gone sour.  I wasn't long shaking the dust of the place off my feet and shoeing the black flies out of my van. 

 

Tobermory has a permanent population of about a hundred and a summer population that grows exponentially.  Add to this four to six ferry-loads of passengers who pass through daily—the wait to board the ferry being a boon to businesses in walking distance of the ferry dock.  South Bay Resort is just north of town fronting South Bay which runs between the main island and a peninsula of Unceded First Nations Land.  The water is a beautiful pellucid blue and wildlife above and below abounds.  As with most campgrounds the mainstay here is their seasonal campers augmented by a group of rental cabins.  The old general store in town is no more but there remains a collection of motels and cabins, bed and breakfasts, restaurants and fish and chips joints, gift shops, and art galleries.  Just west of the ferry dock is a small marina and on the edge of town the Shell Station has a small grocery store.  The museum was closed and to finish the picture throw in a few churches that are open seasonally including the quaintly named St Andrew's by the Sea.  Just what is a Given Road?