Highway 69 Revisited
Happy June, everyone.
Summer Solstice is coming, and once again Evergreen will be hosting a sunrise vigil on Saturday, June 20 at 4:45 a.m. in Strathcona. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll send you the directions if necessary.
The Covenant of Gaia is holding their annual Summerfest campout, Pelé’s Melee, in Kananaskis on the weekend of June 26-28. (Honouring the volcano goddess and/or the football god, perhaps?) Summerfest pricing is $25/night/site, plus $12/adult (12 & over). Day-trippers get away with $20/day. Details will be up on the http://cogcoa.ab.ca website soon, and registration forms will available by the end of the week. You can hold a spot now just by dropping a line to president (at) cogcoa (dot) ab (dot) ca. All the major volunteer roles have been filled, and they're still looking for workshop volunteers. If you have a special talent, skill, craft, or expertise that you'd like to share in a one-hour workshop, please give them a shout.
One of the downsides of getting older, and my recent Toronto trip only drew further attention to it, is an increasing sense of loss. I fondly remember when the road to the Kananaskis was a slow, twisty gravel road with high bridges and breathtaking views, and watched with a sense of disappointment as the new highway construction slashed its way across the wilderness. The Trans-Canada from Calgary to Vancouver remains an epic trip, but the stretch from Kamloops to Hope, following the well-settled Thompson and Fraser River valleys, was shortcutted over 20 years ago by the Coquihalla, a sterile divided highway featuring brutal climbs and drops along its length.
The TransCanada to Winnipeg had, until recently, two bottlenecks in the four-lane, in western and eastern Saskatchewan. Both of these have now been divided, but at the price of moving the highway from the main drag of several towns to a bypass on the outskirts. Doubtless this has damaged the tourist trade in these towns; in Moosomin, only the wonderful Red Barn Restaurant has managed to move a little closer to the new alignment. The divided highway continues beyond Winnipeg to approximately Kenora, where again the highway (now called 17) now bypasses the picturesque city on Lake of the Woods. Beyond that, the passage is so far too narrow to divide, often running three undivided lanes to accommodate passing zones. Aside from the odd divided stretch around Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury, it’s mostly two- lane until Parry Sound, at the foot of Georgian Bay, where it route 69 becomes the 400, running four-lane divided all the way to Toronto.
South of Sudbury, Hwy 69 is paralleled by Hwy 400 construction. The primal rock of the Precambrian Shield is being blasted away, turned into highway fill, a brutal rape that will again bypass the mom-and-pop motels, gas stations, and “trading posts”, giving way to Quality Inns and Golden Griddles. As a traveller, I can’t help but wonder about that this is doing to wildlife habitat and corridors. 69 is already segmented south of Parry Sound; soon it will be like the legendary Route 66 in the states, only a shadow of its former self. Even now, the existing route though northern Ontario is a graveyard of closed motels and former gas stations. I’m sure that truckers love the four-lane for moving goods across country, but recreational driving, the last gasp of the car culture of the Fifties and Sixties, is suffering. Like William Least Heat Moon in his Blue Highways, we may have to forego the Interstate that the TransCanada is becoming, and go to the secondary highways in order to find ourselves.
June’s Birthdays: Nicole G, Bev T, Colleen W, Dawn, Joie, Sierra, Michelle B, Mimi, some old HP... and probably some of his other Facebook friends.
June's Events:
Note these events are listed for information purposes only; no endorsement is necessarily implied. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this listing, please contact me.
June 2-4: Mayor’s Environment Expo at City Hall Atrium.
June 4: The Eclectic Circle, led by SpiritNSoul. Info: http://witches.meetup.com/1558/
June 6: COGCOA Coffee Cauldron and Mead Tasting. Info: info (at) cogcoa (dot) ab (dot) ca
June 7, 12:12 p.m.: Full (Strawberry) Moon.
June 12-14: VulCon 16: Spock Days/GalaxyFest in Vulcan. Fun for young and old (Spock)! Info: http://www.vulcantourism.com/vulcon-galaxyfest.html
June 12-14: Spirit of the West Druid Gathering. Too late to register; maybe next year. Info: http://www.druidgathering.ca/index.php
June 13, 7:30 p.m.: COGCOA Litha Ritual.
June 16, 7:30 p.m.: Calgary Witches Meetup, in north Calgary. Info: http://www.meetup.com/Calgary-Witches/
June 20, 4:45 a.m.: Solstice Sunrise Vigil. Only eight left until the end of the world as we know it in Dec. 2012... collect them all!
June 20, 11:46 p.m.: Summer Solstice
June 22, 1:35 p.m.: New Moon. Duir (Oak) lunar month begins.
June 26-28: COGCOA Summerfest campout, “Pele’s Melee”, in Kananaskis.
Blessings,
Hergest
Summer Solstice is coming, and once again Evergreen will be hosting a sunrise vigil on Saturday, June 20 at 4:45 a.m. in Strathcona. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll send you the directions if necessary.
The Covenant of Gaia is holding their annual Summerfest campout, Pelé’s Melee, in Kananaskis on the weekend of June 26-28. (Honouring the volcano goddess and/or the football god, perhaps?) Summerfest pricing is $25/night/site, plus $12/adult (12 & over). Day-trippers get away with $20/day. Details will be up on the http://cogcoa.ab.ca website soon, and registration forms will available by the end of the week. You can hold a spot now just by dropping a line to president (at) cogcoa (dot) ab (dot) ca. All the major volunteer roles have been filled, and they're still looking for workshop volunteers. If you have a special talent, skill, craft, or expertise that you'd like to share in a one-hour workshop, please give them a shout.
One of the downsides of getting older, and my recent Toronto trip only drew further attention to it, is an increasing sense of loss. I fondly remember when the road to the Kananaskis was a slow, twisty gravel road with high bridges and breathtaking views, and watched with a sense of disappointment as the new highway construction slashed its way across the wilderness. The Trans-Canada from Calgary to Vancouver remains an epic trip, but the stretch from Kamloops to Hope, following the well-settled Thompson and Fraser River valleys, was shortcutted over 20 years ago by the Coquihalla, a sterile divided highway featuring brutal climbs and drops along its length.
The TransCanada to Winnipeg had, until recently, two bottlenecks in the four-lane, in western and eastern Saskatchewan. Both of these have now been divided, but at the price of moving the highway from the main drag of several towns to a bypass on the outskirts. Doubtless this has damaged the tourist trade in these towns; in Moosomin, only the wonderful Red Barn Restaurant has managed to move a little closer to the new alignment. The divided highway continues beyond Winnipeg to approximately Kenora, where again the highway (now called 17) now bypasses the picturesque city on Lake of the Woods. Beyond that, the passage is so far too narrow to divide, often running three undivided lanes to accommodate passing zones. Aside from the odd divided stretch around Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury, it’s mostly two- lane until Parry Sound, at the foot of Georgian Bay, where it route 69 becomes the 400, running four-lane divided all the way to Toronto.
South of Sudbury, Hwy 69 is paralleled by Hwy 400 construction. The primal rock of the Precambrian Shield is being blasted away, turned into highway fill, a brutal rape that will again bypass the mom-and-pop motels, gas stations, and “trading posts”, giving way to Quality Inns and Golden Griddles. As a traveller, I can’t help but wonder about that this is doing to wildlife habitat and corridors. 69 is already segmented south of Parry Sound; soon it will be like the legendary Route 66 in the states, only a shadow of its former self. Even now, the existing route though northern Ontario is a graveyard of closed motels and former gas stations. I’m sure that truckers love the four-lane for moving goods across country, but recreational driving, the last gasp of the car culture of the Fifties and Sixties, is suffering. Like William Least Heat Moon in his Blue Highways, we may have to forego the Interstate that the TransCanada is becoming, and go to the secondary highways in order to find ourselves.
June’s Birthdays: Nicole G, Bev T, Colleen W, Dawn, Joie, Sierra, Michelle B, Mimi, some old HP... and probably some of his other Facebook friends.
June's Events:
Note these events are listed for information purposes only; no endorsement is necessarily implied. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this listing, please contact me.
June 2-4: Mayor’s Environment Expo at City Hall Atrium.
June 4: The Eclectic Circle, led by SpiritNSoul. Info: http://witches.meetup.com/1558/
June 6: COGCOA Coffee Cauldron and Mead Tasting. Info: info (at) cogcoa (dot) ab (dot) ca
June 7, 12:12 p.m.: Full (Strawberry) Moon.
June 12-14: VulCon 16: Spock Days/GalaxyFest in Vulcan. Fun for young and old (Spock)! Info: http://www.vulcantourism.com/vulcon-galaxyfest.html
June 12-14: Spirit of the West Druid Gathering. Too late to register; maybe next year. Info: http://www.druidgathering.ca/index.php
June 13, 7:30 p.m.: COGCOA Litha Ritual.
June 16, 7:30 p.m.: Calgary Witches Meetup, in north Calgary. Info: http://www.meetup.com/Calgary-Witches/
June 20, 4:45 a.m.: Solstice Sunrise Vigil. Only eight left until the end of the world as we know it in Dec. 2012... collect them all!
June 20, 11:46 p.m.: Summer Solstice
June 22, 1:35 p.m.: New Moon. Duir (Oak) lunar month begins.
June 26-28: COGCOA Summerfest campout, “Pele’s Melee”, in Kananaskis.
Blessings,
Hergest
posted by Stephen Hergest at 9:02 pm
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