Alban, which is a couple of kilometres from the Beauséjour, has historical significance for Charles. His grandfather’s camp on Trout Lake, in its early days, was only accessible from the south shore and so the family had to go south to Alban then head north to the lake and take a boat from there.
Divided highways
You may recall that our original plan was a boat ride to Dokis First Nations from where we’d head north out of Noëlville to pickup the old Trout Lake road and ultimately pop out on old Highway 69. None of that panned out and now we find ourselves at the on ramp to a limited-access highway ignoring the “no bikes” sign.
I anticipated some honking from vehicles or in the worse case getting pulled over by the OPP; as it turned out this was likely our safest cycle, scenic and very efficient. The new highway is built in a very sensitive area for migration of certain species: turtles and specifically the Massasauga rattlesnake. Along the route there are fences to channel animals to underpasses and in one case a bridge was built, adorned with images of animals.
We left the new four-lane, not at our planned point but a few kilometres later. This put us on the old highway which will prove to be very quiet and void of any commercial enterprises. We stopped on a bridge for a break where we encountered these four teenagers (and fellow cyclists) who had biked to their favourite fishing spot.
Jide
We meet our host for the next couple of days on our arrival in Sudbury. We’re early so we head to a park to have a celebratory beer and wait for our AirBnB to be ready. Once again we’re engaging with the locals (a city employee responsible for this great park that is just starting to open up to sports)
We finish our beer and head back to the Airbnb and it’s going to be the perfect place to spend two nights in Sudbury. We have time to unpack and clean up before heading to Charles’ long-time family friends (Doug and Debra) for dinner.
Sudbury
I think this is where I let Charles take over for the Sudbury stay itself. Returning to one’s childhood city is… complicated let’s say. At least that’s how it was me at times heading to Windsor. We did visit one of his places of residence as a kid and came away with this nugget:
