Disconnecting on the Trans Canada Trail

Completing a Manitoba transit of the Trans Canada Trail (TCT) this fall was a welcome break from social media and the non-stop political news droning away on radio and TV.

Long-distance cycling is a meditative activity (as long as you’re not on a busy highway). You’re not thinking about your bills; you’re not fiddling with your phone.

Instead, your concern is the headwind or finding the path of least resistance on a gravel road. In theory, you have all the time in the world to reflect — but that might land you in the ditch.

A casual hiker, years ago I fell into this mountain bike mission to solo the TCT from the edge of the Whiteshell to the Saskatchewan border, taking it in easy to digest pieces summer after summer.

The TCT never met a place it didn’t want to meander to.

From its entry in the Whiteshell, it runs to the northern tip of Victoria Beach, then south to Winnipeg, then southeast to eventually strike Emerson, hence west along the border, before following the Manitoba Escarpment northwest to the Parkland and exiting the province in Duck Mountain Provincial Park.

There are some recognizable trails, but it is largely patched together from gravel roads and abandoned rail lines — I think about 2,400 kilometres worth for me, since solo biking means I have to do round trips.

As the licence plates say, Manitoba is still friendly.

If you’re on a country road, you get the wave. I attributed the rare misses to my not driving a pickup truck. The roadside cattle were skittish; the horses stoic.

I met a moose east of Emerson. The inevitable deer. The occasional bald eagle. There was more variety in the final several hundred kilometres in the Parkland. At Elphinstone, a curious fox was fascinated by this rare cyclist. Near Sandy Lake, a fisher ran across the trail — that one I had to look up. There was an annoying bear near Asessippi. And then four coyotes in a couple of days spent west of Riding Mountain National Park. One crossed the road to vanish behind a No Hunting sign. Wily coyote indeed.

What was rare was fellow travellers. Over the years, I met a grand total of two people actually doing some mileage on the trail, both on bikes. I get it — much of what Manitoba flaunts is simple space. This is real Big Sky country and you appreciate it when there is a surviving grain elevator on the horizon to set as a target for your 66-year-old legs.

You’ve heard of “slow food” — this is slow travel. The legendary desert traveller Wilfred Thesiger said it best: “I had no desire to travel faster. In this way, there was time to notice things — a grasshopper under a bush, a dead swallow on the ground, the tracks of a hare, a bird’s nest, the shape and colour of ripples on the sand, the bloom of tiny seedlings pushing through the soil. There was time to collect a plant or to look at a rock. The very slowness of our march diminished its monotony. I thought how terribly boring it would be to rush about this country in a car.”

I have trouble picturing our political leaders “feeling the land” on this road. Stephen Harper brings to mind a black limo, Poilievre an 18-wheeler. A decade ago, I travelled down the spectacular Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories. It’s a tradition for paddlers to stop at an abandoned cabin in Deadmen Valley and leave their signatures. I noticed Justin Trudeau’s name. Perhaps still some hope there.

My last night on the trail was spent in a Roblin motel. The TV wasn’t working — another opportunity to escape the interminable political news. Just as well, for it was early to bed and rise before dawn.

Next morning, the October air was chilly and the elk were bugling in the Duck Mountains. In the woods, the trail was relatively firm and clear, with only a few mudholes. There were even some mileage signs in the Ducks, a rare luxury.

Once you emerge from the bush, you are back on highway pavement for the final kilometer. At the border, I took a rare selfie with the usual Saskatchewan — Land of Living Skies sign.

Curious, I crossed the highway to check the Manitoba signage welcoming eastbound travellers. It read “IT’S ILLEGAL to bring unprocessed DEER, ELK OR MOOSE carcasses into Manitoba.”

Manitoba — it keeps you grounded.

» Greg Petzold writes from Winnipeg.