The Long Drive from Toronto to Winnipeg

I had driven across Canada some fifty times and at one time people began to plan around my visits, they were such a sure thing. Even the Toronto to Winnipeg trek I had traversed countless times. Even driving a car that had problems wasn’t unfamiliar to me. It was enough a part of my trips that my friend in Toronto was speaking to her mother in New York and the mother asked how my car was when told I would be visiting.

This trip was no different, in some ways. I was up early in Toronto, but I didn’t want to leave until I’d said goodbye to my friends, so I waited until they rose, said my goodbyes, and went to fight traffic on the 401 to 400 interchange. I revved the engine to prevent idle problems, geared down to prevent the brake seizing, ran the heater so the car wouldn’t overheat, and soon I was on the 400 north, to the tune of increasingly less traffic.

I drove all through that long day. I stopped for gas at a reserve south of Sudbury, and didn’t stop again until Wawa, although I was driving through some of the most beautiful countryside in Canada. After I’d gassed up in Wawa, I stopped to pick up a hitchhiker and him and I traded foster kid stories and talked about finding work in these fraught economic times. He was going to Thunder Bay, but as I told him when I picked him up, I would only be driving another three hundred kilometres or so and then pulling over. He was fine with that, and only became concerned when I described the car’s issues. I waved his concerns away, and soon we were at Rossport, where a small layby beside the water provides a great place to sleep.

He told me he usually was asleep by dark anyway, and asked me tentatively when I’d be leaving in the morning. He wanted me to take him right to Thunder Bay. I wasn’t adverse to the idea, so I told him to sleep where I could find him, and I’d wake him when it was time to go.

The next morning I woke up in the backseat after nearly eight hours of sleep, and he was sitting on a picnic table waiting. I waved and soon we were on our way to Thunder Bay. I left him finally, beside a highway north of the city, and as he turned to walk into town, I let the car pick up speed and take me west to Upsala and Ignace.

I stopped to eat in Ignace, which is something I haven’t been in the practice of on this trip. Largely because I am driving straight through and I’ve eaten enough lately. Once I’d rested and eaten, I passed through Dryden and by Kenora, and soon was on the flat straightaway to Winnipeg.

I arrived in Winnipeg around rush hour, which is, oddly, usually the time I arrive in a city. Annoyingly, it is typically the worst time to get there. Since I was in the eastern part of the city, and my friend lives there, I dropped by, but unfortunately he wasn’t around. Then I fought the traffic and downtown construction until I was running the heater on full just to keep the car cool and finally parked outside my place.

I spent a week in Winnipeg, principally with a few friends. I tried to see those who I missed when I was away, and if our schedules permitted, we spent hours together catching up and talking. I took my young friend to the beach one day with her boyfriend, and we sat on the sand and made up for missed time. By the time I left Winnipeg, I newly confirmed what I continually suspect. I know more people in Winnipeg than anywhere, and it has become a kind of reluctant home.

About Barry Pomeroy

I had an English teacher in high school many years ago who talked about writing as something that people do, rather than something that died with Shakespeare. I began writing soon after, maudlin poetry followed by short prose pieces, but finally, after years of academic training, I learned something about the magic of the manipulated word.
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