Chapter 8 - The Dream House

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Thunder Bay - A Map for Saturday


So as many of you may already know, I spent a whole lot of time in Thunder Bay. I was definitely not expecting to stay so long, but I certainly found what it was I thought I was looking for. After finding some people on couch surfing, I really wanted to meet them in person. This would be my acid test of the true connection possibilities of a website with great intentions but not necessarily any real results. Like what lavalife, amazon and ebay had to go through in their early stages, couchsurfing would have to find its true path, and so would I.

After getting up fairly early at the Hostel, I said my goodbyes to Wilma and Lloyd and made my way to downtown Thunder Bay. It was on this drive that my heat in the car stopped, and I was getting pretty worried and anxious about the van and it's ability to make it past Thunder Bay let alone across the rest of Canada. Before leaving on this trek I had talked with my Dad about Thunder Bay being a sort of point-of-no-return/halfway kind of stop. If the van had any problems up and until Tbay, I should probably cancel the rest of my trip and head back home to make other arrangements. Now that I had made it to Thunder Bay I thought my trip was actually coming to a grinding halt where I would have to decide to either stay in Thunder Bay or head back to Brampton.

So I stopped into a laundromat with wireless connections and logged onto the CAA website, then couchsurfing, where I found a message from Heidi and one from Danika, that I should contact Brodie and/or Zack in Tbay to find a place to crash. I also made plans to meet up with Sarah later on that night at a local pub. At this point all I was really hoping for was a bed/couch for a night, a chance to get the van looked at and maybe a chance to meet some of the other surfers I had met online. So I emailed Brodie and Zack, got directions to CAA and went on to see if they had a mechanic I could trust bringing the van to.

I should also point out that my cell phone had not worked since I left Sault St. Marie, and so I managed to call the wireless provider in Tbay to find out that there were no Telus towers between the Soo and Winnipeg and therefore I wouldn't be able to use my phone for a while. So to make a call to Zack, I found a payphone and called him up. He let me know that he was pretty busy with a presentation but that it wouldn't be too much of a problem for me to crash for the night. That was settled, and I would go over and meet him after I dealt with the van.

I found myself in a CAA certified garage, and had a mechanic take a look at the no-heat issue. In the end he said the blower motor had failed and though it might operate intermittently for a while, it would fail permanently in a short time. Best bet; replace the motor. How much for the motor? $90. Not too bad. What about the labour costs? This question later turned into a three mechanic showdown about how best to get at the blower motor since it was buried underneath the a/c, and in the back of the core at the bottom. They gave me an estimate of $700, with a time frame of about 6 hours to complete it. Knowing this was not an option, I prodded them with MacGyver type solutions that could get me another couple of weeks/months out of the van - with some kind of heat. They suggested I go to Canadian Tire and buy a space heater and a 12V DC converter to typical AC output - as long as the max. wattage was lower than the capacity of the converter. This proved to be not only difficult to find but an expensive fix. After comparing the various setups and configurations I would have to undergo, I decided on a $30 12V plug in foot warmer and thought I could just bundle up as I drove, it wouldn't get THAT cold, right?!




After spending a few hours in the automotive district of Thunder Bay, I bought some beer for my new host, and headed for a house on Oliver St., to meet this couchhost named Zack. My first couch surfing experience couldn't have been written any better. I found myself at a student housing mecca spot called the Dream House, a 3 storey house not far from Lakehead University. Zack was in the middle of a presentation he was preparing for the following night on a trip that he and two friends did the past summer when I met him. An epic 50 day sea kayak trip around most of the islands on the north shore of Lake Superior. Fascinated by this nearly 2 month long kayak trip, I started asking him all kinds of questions and we talked about how truly great Lake Superior really was. Soon his friends started coming into the house, some roommates, some kayak mates helping with the presentation, some musically inclined friends and some other usual suspects. It wasn't long before I had handed out some cold beers and was utilizing my computer skills and we were all watching a great video take from their trip of Joanne peeing in the lake, hanging onto the side of Aarons kayak. Great test video for their presentation, and great ice breaker for all of us. This was the first time I experienced the kind of self realisation that when you are part of a strange and different social circle, a new community, your personal contributions to that community help to channel the way you actually are. I found that being able to give something back like my technology help, I was able to connect and appreciate the community I was becoming a part of. This connection was what I found, that I thought it was exactly what I was looking for. It wasn't long before someone had suggested we go to the school to catch a presentation on the wolf/moose population on Isle Royale.

Zack, Aaron and I biked over to Lakehead to see an incredibly fascinating video presentation on the wolves of Isle Royale. Introduced to the island less than 100 years ago, with the moose population there needing to be controlled, a very unique relationship unfolded. With little to no human interruption, the two species developed a predator-prey relationship with almost no other species involved. The wolves were successful in managing the moose population, and the moose were better off with the weaker and sicker moose being killed off. Typically a much more complex ecosystem, here on an island in the greatest of the Great Lakes, was such a simplified snapshot of nature and the relationship all species have with their environment. Before the presentation was complete, I noted the time and decided to take off back to the dream house so I could shower and get downtown to a pub to meet Sarah, a couchsurfer I had met online.

Showing up at the Mad House for 9, I met up with a nice girl named Sarah. We immediately got on and talked easily about my trek across the country, Thunder Bay, couch surfing, her journey through China and Thailand and her plans for Lakehead and school and future travel. As we talked, the first snowflakes started to fall outside, in big soft floating flakes. We ended the night by walking around Thunder Bay in the snow and I walked her home and met her very little bundle of joy, Zoe. Not knowing if I was gonna be around for another night or not, we made plans to meet up again should I happen to stick around.



I got up the next morning and made breakfast for Zack and his presentation team who were already at work putting things together for that night. After spending time with them on the presentation they really wanted me to come by and see it that night. On top of that, I was really beginning to like Thunder Bay and with the new fresh snow I asked them what would be a good adventure for the day. That conversation led me back to Sleeping Giant, which you already know about. So returning from the Sleeping Giant that night, I made my way over to the school to see an amazing presentation on the epic sea kayaking tour. Having been away from University for a few years, it was so great to be back in a hall, with students and teachers all brimming with the final presentation and upcoming exam jitters and excitement of the ending of another semester. I appreciate the academic side of university life so much more now than I ever did through my 7 years of formal education. I had often let school get in the way of my education. I very seldom thought about things rationally or logically in that my education was something I was paying a lot of money for and it was up to me to get the most out of it, regardless of how much bureaucratic bs and terrible professors/students I encountered. But being back in higher learning I immediately saw the incredible resources, community and introspective self development that had always been so prevalent in my uni days, and I felt so enriched just being a part of all of that again.






After the presentation, we all headed back to the dream house where a party ensued and it wouldn't be long before there was talk of some kind of road trip to some place called Duluth. Many couch surfers had been through the dream house before me, and many of the usual party goers were familiar with my kind of traveller, so the question was often raised; "So, when are you leaving?" I had no real plan anymore. I knew that I wanted to camp at Quetico for a night and possibly stay a night in Ft. Frances before going onto Winnipeg. I was in the process of messaging some CS'ers in Winnipeg to see what might be a good night to spend there. I figured a Saturday night would be good, so figured if I left Thursday or Friday from Thunder Bay it would all work out. As I was working out my plan through conversation, and beer, Zack, Katie and Jordan were planning their own trip for the weekend to Duluth, Minnesota. When they first asked me to come along with them I was skeptical, both for my own plans and for any real interest in going to the US. However that great big country down there had just elected a new President that was standing for change, so I was at least a little bit interested. As I thought about it, I decided it was just such a great opportunity for my adventure to expand and go the way it was gonna go. with less planning. So we were gonna head out Friday afternoon and return Sunday. So now we needed something to do for Thursday. Turns out Jarvis Bay was calling our names.



Zack, his roommate Clay and I all hopped into my van and were headed for Jarvis Bay. When Zack got into the van, he accidently kicked under the dash where the blower motor rests, and kicked it into working again. (It still works to this day since that happened! Thanks again Zack!) We hiked around Jarvis Bay on Lake Superior (see map at top) and scrambled up a cliff for a great view of many of the islands on the north shore. The ice was forming on the tips of driftwood, and so we had our ice weapons at the ready, and Zack and Clay had an ice saber battle as I found a sort of ice scythe.




Later on that night I met up with Sarah again, and she gave me something that would change my perspective on my journey and life and what I was about to embark on. She gave me a dvd called "A map for Saturday" about a guy who quit his job to travel around the world for a year. I got a chance to watch it after leaving Thunder Bay, and it made a huge impact on me. Sarah had received it as a gift at some point on her travels, and felt I was the person that needed to see it and I will hold onto it until I meet someone who is on a journey that deserves to see this video. The interesting thing about the title, is that when you are traveling long term, every day does begin to feel like saturday, in that anything you want to do you can do, and everyday becomes a day of adventure and travel and something new.

I was really beginning to like Thunder Bay to the extent that the idea of staying there and finding work there would have been a pretty cool side journey, and that later on some day I would make it out west. In the end, it was time for me to leave, but not before a truly amazing couchsurfing side trip to Duluth!!