“Are you going to fly your bike to Alaska?”
I had encountered the question more than once in the days leading up to my 2022 summer adventure, and it betrayed what many Canadians believe to be true: The prairies are so boring! The sentiment is often accompanied by the now-standard joke about watching your dog run away for three days. Not to be too Zen about it, but motorcycles have taught me that, in fact, the journey is the destination, and I was looking forward to the open skies and endless horizons. This was part of a long-term test ride of the new 2022 Suzuki V-Strom DL650XA, and along with taking note of Suzi Blue’s performance and ergonomics, I was determined to make the most of every moment and every kilometre.
It was the summer solstice, and I rolled out of my bivy to a golden dawn in Steinbach, Man., the de facto centre of a Russian Mennonite population that had arrived as refugees from Ukraine beginning in the mid-1920s. Their heritage is rooted in the 16th Century Protestant Reformation, a renunciation of the perceived corruptions of both the Catholic Church and the larger world — a position that naturally led to conflict and even martyrdom. And while such conviction can also lead to zealotry and extremism, as I toured
