Gaspesie Gambol, Day 4

Wolf River
Thursday June 25, 2009
Copyright(c) 2009, Jim Beachy

We have another lazy start, rolling out at 9:30 under partly sunny skies and temperatures that are much warmer than I expected this far north, nearly 80F (27C). Slow-Down Guy just doesn’t seem to care that it’s two hours later than the usual start. We head east on Aut-20, which for practical purposes is like a US Interstate, through vast flatlands of rich crop farmland. Some fields have freshly upturned soil, incredibly black and vibrant in the morning sun. The horizon seems endlessly far away in every direction, and our meager progress at the posted limit of 100 kph (about 62 mph) seems ineffective in reaching the limits of what we can see. Slow-Down Guy runs the speed limit, and I am surprised that many of the Quebec drivers are similarly inclined. When I see Quebec license plates in the State, I usually figure they are running 15 mph over whatever the posted speed limit happens to be, but that is not the case this morning. I don’t know about Canadian law enforcement’s attitude toward running over the speed limit, and they are out in force this morning.

After about 48 km (30 mi) I say “I think we’ve seen all there is to see along this road. Let’s duck off and find a road near the river.” The mighty Saint Lawrence Seaway has been on our left all morning, and so we find a way to Trois Rivières and wander eastward on Rt 132, which will be our primary route for the circuit around the Gaspésie. This road is a bit rough in stretches, especially within the little towns, but other than that it’s a nice slow-down road that mostly follows the great river to our left. At times we can see the great expanses of the valley on both sides of the river, a massive carpet of verdant farmland sloping gently on both sides down to the river.

We stop in a few small quaint towns just to take a look or take a picture or two. The architecture of churches in particular is unique in this region: Most of these centuries-old structures are constructed of grayish-white stone feature two giant spires, sometimes seemingly incongruous with the size of the building, and many of them have red doors. Often these spires are the predominant feature of a town as we approach, visible through the trees long before there’s any other evidence of a settlement.

At one curve in the road we are startled by a field of brilliant fluorescent yellow in a sea of green farming country. We stop for a picture and conclude it’s probably canola. Canola, one of whose chief uses is for cooking oil, is produced from the rapeseed plant. Due to its unfortunate name, “canola” was a new name crafted in 1978, originating from the phrase “Canadian oil, low acid.” I remember huge fields of it in Idaho amongst the potatoes, but I guess since it has Canada in its name, it’s logical that it be grown in Canada. We see many other fields of the same but whose blooming stage is less advanced and thus the distinctive yellow is just beginning to appear.

We continue our northeast meandering with the Saint Lawrence to our left. Even this close to its origin, this is a huge river. From our vantage point looking south-to-north, the north coast looks to be much more populated than our southern coast, and we ride along many miles of shoreline that feature a headland

“My overdrive indicator light just went out,” I tell Kitty.

She wonders if that’s a problem or if I can replace it without dismantling the fairing. No, it’s not a problem, and I think I have some spare bulbs in my stash of such stuff, and I replaced it once without dismantling the fairing. It’s possible if you have small hands.

Then I notice the fuel gauge and temperature gauge are not working either and I conclude it’s a fuse. On a Gold Wing, the various components affected by a given fuse are baffling, so not knowing what else might be affected, we pull over and sure enough, I find a blown 15A fuse for “Tail and Position Lights.” Most times, a fuse failure is just that, a fuse failure. But they are there for a reason, and sometimes there really is a short in the electrical system that causes the failure. I turn on the bike, holding my breath that everything will work, and it does, no apparent electrical problem.

Later, we see a giant “honey wagon” spreading liquid manure onto one of the fields to our left, between us and the great river. I’ve never seen a honey wagon this big: It is a green monster, a tractor-trailer in fact, with a tank nearly as large as a standard fuel tanker truck you’d see on the highway. Three huge arms project from this thing one to each side and one out the back. Attached to the arms are giant rotors rather like helicopter blades, spinning slowly. Attached to these rotors are nozzles that are spraying tons of the putrid contents liberally onto the field, turning the green field dark and leaving a broad black swath in its wake.

“I bet that smells really, really good,” says Kitty. We smell nothing out of the ordinary.

And then suddenly, as the wind shifts, or we ride into the downstream wind current, the odor is so stunningly overpowering as to defy description. We’ve smelled 40,000 sheep in a sheep enclosure in Wyoming, smelled 50,000 head of cattle in a North Dakota stockyard, and growing up in the country I’ve smelled the fields after the farmers clean out their pig pens. But I will tell you that I have never smelled anything like this. This is overpowering, gasping-for-air, throat-constricting, breath-stopping, awful.

“I know one town that’s going to be eating out in some other town tonight,” I tell Kitty in the headset.

Ten minutes later, Kitty says “I can still smell that stuff in my helmet.”

About 50 km (30 miles) from our destination, we witness one of the most unusual phenomena we’ve encountered. The temperature has been over 85F (30C) and in the space of five miles it plummets to 65F (18F). I’ve seen temperature shifts of that magnitude associated with severe weather patterns or a sudden climb in altitude, but never on flatland without an associated severe weather pattern. Apparently we are out of the heat belt!

We reach Rivière du Loup, River of the Wolf, some time after 5:00 PM. We learn that the name is derived not actually from a wolf, but from a long-ago incident when a pirate crew sailed into an Indian settlement here to escape American capture. There ensued four days of great revelry and great hospitality until the pirates made the mistake of carrying off the intended maiden of Lone Wolf, the heir apparent to the chief’s position. It turned really ugly after that and things were never quite the same in Rivière du Loup. But things seem to have settled down in the intervening years and the town seems quite normal.

After a brisk power-walk with Kitty, she’s helping me clean and cover the bike when I notice a small section of exposed copper wire in the trailer wiring harness, the part that extends from the bike to connect to the trailer pigtail. I’d redressed my wiring harness last fall, and apparently did something that lets the pigtail slide down and expose more of the cable than I’d like. Apparently it rubbed through the insulation against the plastic. Hmmm… what are the chances of a coincidental fuse failure that involves the taillights, and finding an exposed wire, all on the same day? Not high, I’d guess, although there’s no apparent metal that the wire could have contacted, just plastic. I’ll never know.

Kitty looks for my electrical tape to make a quick repair, and it’s nowhere to be found. I always carry electrical tape in my trunk but must have absentmindedly put it back in my toolbox when I was working on the bike recently. We ask the hotel staff where we could find some, and they tell us about Canadian Tire, probably a 2-km walk. We walk to the place, retrieve some electrical tape and wiring in case I have to splice something together. I peel apart the insulation and make the repair; only one wire in the harness has exposed copper, so I carefully dress it as best as I can, liberally wrap it with electrical tape, and we should be good to go.

We have a great dinner at a restaurant within walking distance, entertained by a charming waitress whose English just about matches my French, so we have an interesting time asking each other about words and how to pronounce them. I have a secret plan that by the next time I come to Canada, eh, I will be able to carry on a decent conversation in French. I’m a little embarrassed to have so little French at my disposal.

We’ve ridden 395 km (245 miles) today, 1587 km (986 miles) today. Fog and rain are moving in tonight across the river, so we will see what the morning holds.

See you then.

Track Log, Day 4