Tiny Tales
Post 9
It would come as no surprise if everyone in the long lineup of vehicles both ahead and behind mine were all thinking the same thing. “This highway is a son of a bitch on a Sunday afternoon” was what had been going through my head for the last forty minutes or so as every weekend warrior traversed highway 35 southbound out of the Haliburton Highlands and into the Kawartha Lakes region, and while the sun was shining and summer was in full swing, all of us would have been somewhere else, doing anything but this.
I wasn’t coming back from a weekend of cottaging - sounds nice enough, right? - but instead had bombed my way up toward Lake Saskatchewan with a little green canoe strapped to the Compass early that morning from our hunting camp. The thought process mostly involved panfish, but I figured that exploring that lake alone would be a good way to kill some time, too. The night before, there was a storm that rolled in from the Lake Simcoe area and crossed over the Alvar, knocking down branches, scaring the hell out of the Black Angus steers, and pounding rain onto the tin roof of the camp. Normally that would be a sound that could lull just about anyone to sleep, but this time around it came in a octave that is usually reserved for heavy caliber machine guns.
Eventually, just like most things, the rain fizzled out and things calmed down enough that decent sleep was possible, though if I’d known the sort of traffic that I would be dealing with the next day, I probably would have went elsewhere.
You never really know with shit like this, though. Highway 35, for all that it is, and trust me when I say that a lot of it is absolutely stunning, especially the stretch between Norland and Dorset, it can be a monster on a Friday evening or Sunday afternoon in the summer. I remember being a kid tucked in the back of my family’s station wagon while mom and dad drove through the dark along these very same stretches on our way to the family cottage on Kushog Lake, and even then, I remember the traffic.
But I also remember us cranking the Beach Boys on the cassette radio, too. And the Rock Bass, Salamanders, Cedar Waxwings and Red Pines, which more than made up for the long ride to and from.
Did I mention that the fishing didn’t pan out the way that I was hoping it would? A lovely few hours were spent in the canoe, but I’ll be damned if I could find the schools of large Pumpkinseeds. Maybe they’d gone deep, or maybe the lake had been hit hard, it was tough to tell, but in the end there was very little to show for any of the effort.
Stuck at the one and only intersection in Norland, I could see the Gull River to the left of the road, and thought long about taking the left on Monck Road and having a look at the river in the town of Kinmount. It’s been said that they named the town that because “Cousin Fuck” was either too rude or already taken, but either way it has a nice river that flows right through the heart of the place, and sometimes there are decent Smallmouths kicking around.
By the time I get through the intersection, aka by the time that I had to make a decision, I cave and instead go west and pass by Head Lake, passing the little trailer park there and the cutting a left turn onto Victoria Road.
Anyone that knows about Victoria Road will tell you that it is an absolute gem of a asphalt ribbon, never busy, and with the sort of curves that raise the hairs on your arms. It’s sexy and dangerous, ya know?
Anyway, about three quarters of the way down, the forest gives way onto the open alvar where all the wild things are, and the ranches are outlined by ancient cedar rail fences keeping all the Charolais and Angus steers off the road. No one is out here, just the way I like it.
Oh, and make no mistake about it, I’m flying down the road.
Out here there is no real major town or city for quite a while. You’re pretty much on your own, and while it’s not exactly a major wildlands, it certainly gives the impression, and you can’t really help but imagine what it must have been like a few hundred years ago when it was just the Huronians that called this place home.
It’s not someplace that can be taken for granted, and it’s the sort of landscape that fights back against every development that has ever occurred on it. Every house, barn, stable, shed and driveway out here is chewed away by the winds and snow and rain, until they’re in a state of ruin and unrepairable. I’m not sure what it does to the folks who live here full time for their entire lives, but I can only imagine.
Later on there will be a fire, a beer, a sunset, and food. Not necessarily in that order, but all necessary nonetheless.