Before starting off, I stared at my official highway map for a few moments. I noticed a promising dirt road at exit 18 off Hwy 104. This road leads to Riversdale and other tiny villages, all headed in the wrong direction from where I wanted to go. However, in Riversdale, railroad tracks intersect the dirt road and go to West River Station and beyond. This was in the general direction of my goal, and being a sucker for railroads, I decided to investigate this option. Upon arriving in the four house town, I easily found the tracks, and what appeared to be an access road alongside them. Remembering my bad experience in Labrador, I thought, “Perfect, I won’t have to ride the tracks this time.”
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I jumped onto this access road, which was the perfect type of surface for the KLR: rugged enough for fun, wide enough to quickly pass through. Basically an ATV or narrow double-track trail. I had only traveled about one mile and I came to a water crossing. I hopped off the bike to take a look. The current was healthy, though not overly swift. I’ve been in much worse, but I never crossed deep water with the Pelican cases on the bike. The creek bed was strewn with cantaloupe-sized rocks. That, combined with the two-foot deep trench in the center of the creek, made me think about just turning it around and finding an alternate route. On the other hand, I figured that I was still close enough to “town” that if I dumped the bike in the middle of the crossing and couldn’t pull it out, I could get assistance from one of the residents. So, I forged ahead. The crossing was business-as-usual, except I hit a large rock on exit, jerked the throttle and almost wheelied myself into oblivion. Five bike lengths later, I came to a “Y” in the trail. I turned to the right because it kept me close to the tracks. After going another 1/2 mile, I came to an additional branch in the trail, and I began to wonder if this was an access road, or just a random network or trails. Because I didn’t have Canadian maps in my GPS, I could only use my trackback feature if I became lost. This was undesirable, because it would potentially be a huge waste of time if I had to follow the popcorn trail back to the start after getting halfway to my destination. At this point, I chose to turn around and go back to the dirt road.
I trudged across the creek on foot and set up a video camera for the return crossing. I also loaded my smaller camera into my underwater video housing, saying to myself, “This oughta be neat.” The water crossing was a hair more graceful than the first round. When I got to the other side, I view the video. Consistent with my usual luck, the camera inside the housing malfunctioned with a “moisture error.” No water entered the case, but the camera had condensation from sitting in my moist tank bag through several days of rain. This added to the list of frustrations (dead batteries and tapes ending during crucial shots, bad weather, bugs on the lens, etc.) encountered while trying to document motorcycle travels. I packed up my cams and followed the dirt road toward Burnside, planning to eventually find Hwy 289, which runs north to New Glasgow.
Enroute to Burnside, a very large animal sprinted across the road in front of me. It looked too tall to be a deer, too dark to be a moose, and it was on all fours, so I knew it wasn’t that damn Sasquatch. I hammered my brakes, paused briefly to make sure no more of these were going to follow, and continued on. Just outside Burnside, I noticed a narrow driveway and a sign that read, “Burnt Hill Cemetery.” Cemeteries in extremely rural areas are a bit of a fascination for me. I find it interesting to see how long it’s been there, if it’s still in use, and what the prominent family names were/are in the area. I take note of how long these folks lived and wonder what kinds of lives they led. Many of these cemeteries occupy places of industrial ages gone by; logging, metalworks, fishing, mining, etc. Back then, technology was just budding, life was hard, and there was not much in the way of a personally satisfying career for most people. This is sometimes indicated by the young deaths of many of the males in the area. Other times, you can tell if there was an epidemic or some other disaster by coinciding dates. Occasionally, I notice that a certain family has a pattern of deaths, which makes me wonder if there was a genetic defect, or whether they were just accident-prone. But, what affects me the most is when I see the untimely demise of infants and children, and my heart aches a bit for them although a century or more has passed.
A mile or two past the cemetery, another dirt road branches to the left. There is a beat-up sign that reads, “West River St.” I thought it was odd that a dirt road in the middle of nowhere would have a name at all, and just kept on going. A mile later, I was in “downtown” Burnside, which consists of less than a dozen houses, an abandoned church, and a storybook schoolhouse that now serves as a community center. There were a bunch of cars parked at the community center, so I stopped in to ask where this “West River Street” went. As I entered, more people showed up for a periodic town meeting. I don’t think there was a single person there under age 70. They were friendly folks and were amused at seeing my motorcycle and me. It seems that not many people pass through their town, and they were especially impressed that I had ridden all the way from Pennsylvania. They gave me a brief history of the town, told me who married who, and so on. We talked about many other things such that I almost forgot why I stopped there. When I asked them about the animal that ran in front of me, they were sure it was a moose, and used the words “damn” and “bastards” to describe them. As I got back on my bike, I remembered to ask them about the side road. They clarified for me that the sign did not indicate the road’s name, rather, it was the road to West River Station. I indicated that I would take tat road because it would take me in the right direction to where I wanted to go. They told me that when in doubt, bear right. They also said to be careful because it goes through the woods and there are no phones, people or cell towers for a distance of 30 km. I assured them that I’d be fine and off I went as it began to rain once more.
After the first mile or two, I said to myself, “Piece of cake; I’ll be there in no time.” Then, the road evolved into a muddy, dendritic array of logging roads. At every turn, I stayed to the right, but I became unsettled when I saw my compass drift 180 degrees from where I wanted to head. Occasionally, I saw a tiny tag with a number on it and a picture of a snowmobile tacked to a tree. The assurance that I was at least on some sort of state-designated route offered me some comfort and I continued to plod along at 40 km/h into the developing fog. Sure enough, the Burnside town folk led me in the right direction, and before long, I descended upon West River Station. By now it was well past dinner time, so from there, I took the direct route to Hwy 104, and into the fast lane for New Glasgow.
I hadn’t received any voice mails from Joe’s friend, so upon arrival in town, I immediately began to stake out potential locations to bivy for the night. Not finding anything promising during the first sweep, I stopped for fuel. 
After refueling, I had my trademark dinner, a pouch of food that had spent its day riding on the engine. 
Today’s special was Zatarain’s Sausage and Chicken Gumbo. The stuff is only $1.49 at my local grocery store, and it really hits the spot after a ride. I first employed this technique of cooking on the road during an iron butt run down to Florida for Biketoberfest a couple years ago. I got the idea after years of hearing old guys talking of cooking potatoes and chicken on the exhaust manifolds of Jeeps in the Army. I figure that with the liquid cooling of the engine, the surface temperature would never reach the boiling point, thus not rupturing the bag. Works like a charm; eaten right from the pouch, no mess, no cleanup.
I washed down the gumbo with some raspberry iced tea that I prepared from a ‘singles’ packet dumped into my 500ml water bottle and got ready to roll. It was too late to do anything constructive, but too early to bivy, so I scoured the town for any hint of life on a Sunday night. For the most part, it was a ghost town, but I found a place called The Thistle Bar & Grill that had about a dozen people in it. I walked in around 10:00PM and one of the bar maids immediately invited me to take over her TV sports trivia controller while she got back to work. I sat down, ordered a Blue, and continued play with the three other friendly patrons. Most of the people there were young regulars, and I ended up talking with the guys at the bar and the bar maids, and playing sports trivia & Texas Hold ‘Em until the place closed at 2:00AM. I still haven’t a clue what I'm doing with the Texas Hold ‘Em game, but in the last two games of the night, I cleaned everyone’s clock. I’m guessing the alcohol diminished my opponents’ skills faster than my understanding of the game improved.
I was good and sober when I left the bar, so I hopped on the bike and did one more quick spin around town to find a place to sleep. During this time, I could tell thunderstorms were brewing, and I really didn’t feel like sleeping exposed to the weather or setting up my tent. I recalled that the bowling alley next door to the bar, Heather Bowling Lanes, had a side entryway, which was shrouded on three sides by translucent, corrugated fiberglass. It also had a roof on it and that sealed the deal for me to stay there for the night. I discreetly parked my bike, reclined on the wooden floor in all my gear, removed my helmet and quickly fell asleep under my metalized tarp “blanket.”
