MOTO GUZZI TOUR
Back in 2012, when I first traversed the then unpaved Trans-Labrador Highway on my 1972 Moto Guzzi Eldorado, there were places I wanted to visit but missed in my rush to get home to cure a raging toothache. In the thirteen years since, much has changed. The toothache (and the tooth) are gone. Most of the highway is now paved and the bike, which, at that time I only thought of as a motorcycle that appealed to me, is now regarded by some as a venerable classic. In the interim we've criss-crossed the country and rolled almost 100,000 miles together, and I, like many of you, have reached my eighth decade.
Would it be wise for me to take a wellworn, 51 year-old motorcycle on a 5000 mile jaunt across the wilds of northern Canada again? Oh heck. Why not?
Before heading out, for some obscure reason that I don't really understand myself, I removed the huge ‘buffalo’ fairing that keeps me out of the wind, and, unless the rain is torrential, mostly dry. This was something I would learn to regret. But with fresh oil in the engine and new gear oil in the gearbox and rear drive box, we were ready to roll.
I chose to head straight north to reach the shores of James Bay – that massive, teat-like bay that projects south from Hudson Bay. To reach Longue Pointe – the furthest north one can reach by road in Quebec – is a journey of roughly 860 miles, about the same distance as from Land's End to John o’ Groats.
Ignoring for now the penetrating cold, the two hours of rain that drove me into an overpriced hotel in Amos, and the hours spent droning along between endless spruce forest, past
