Road Trip and Other Stories

By Frank Hirst

Frank has always enjoyed writing stories based on his travels throughout Canada. His style incorporates realism with a wry sense of humour. Short stories are Frank’s way of capturing snapshots of the fascinating experiences he has encountered throughout his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664196575

Frank Hirst

He was born in England in 1939,immigrated to Canada, settled in the Ottawa Valley where he graduated in 1959. He started teaching in a rapidly expanding Ottawa, so rapid that he taught in the well named Odd Fellows hall near the school. He taught for two years there, then two each in Northern Ontario and the Yukon. He returned to Queens University and began teaching secondary school until 1990 when he took early retirement.

Book preview

Road Trip and

Other Stories

Road Trip

Will and his buddy Ben had been roofing a garage in one of the myriad alleys behind Bloor Street West. It was a largely Portugese neighbourhood and many of the residents did not speak much English so that understanding what was required was often difficult.

They had finished the job and had come out to Bloor Street for lunch. The whole city of Toronto was very cosmopolitan, and Bloor Street itself was an international microcosm; shops of all kinds catering to a variety of food types and tastes. They had bought a small coil of Polish sausage, a modest amount of Swiss cheese, a crusty French baguette, a container of Greek olives stuffed with fiery Turkish peppers, and two cans of Belgian beer. They were sitting on a bench watching the people pass by, hearing the traffic on the street, and sharing their lunch.

They ate in companiable silence throughout the meal, and then Ben started a discussion about his cousin in Sault Ste. Marie.

Guy’s been depressed since Christmas. Badly failed relationship and he hasn’t come around. Needs someone in the house to cheer him up.

Why don’t you go up there and give him a lift Will offered.

Been thinking about that. Would you come with me?

We’re going to need wheels to get there.

How about that old beater of yours?

Will thought for a moment. He had made many trips across Canada in questionable cars, and had never been left by the road, though had needed a few tire changes and a gasket repair.

Guess we could try it. Need to boost the battery and top up the oil.

Besides, Sault Ste Marie to Toronto had been child’s play, often the last travel day on one of his mad dashes across the country. They would take longer than that.

So they walked to the rear of Will’s apartment, dusted off the car, put in a quart of oil, and got a neighbour to bring over his battery pack and boost the car.

In an hour they were on their way, a ready bag of travel essentials thrown together. They tanked up with coffee at a Timmy’s, and with mega cups firmly settled in the cup holders, they were off. Will felt like old times, with beverages at hand and the road stretching before them.

To break the car in gently they started out on a series of back roads; a dog leg course, turning alternately right and left, through the middle of the Oak Ridges moraine. The back roads were still beautiful, with rolling hills, neat farms, clear flowing streams and the occasional quaint little villages in the hollows.

But major crossroads showed disturbing signs of urbanization. The earth had been completely skinned off, with foundations sprouting for shopping malls and housing projects.

Four rivers rose in the Oak Ridges: the Humber, the Don, the Rouge and the Credit. Will had swum once in the Rouge; pleasant memories of a clear, cold stream. He feared for the future of the waters if urbanization went on unchecked.

They came eventually to highway 35 and turned north. Lindsay was next. He had spent a bit of time there, visiting his daughter who was serving as a stage manager for Kawartha summer theatre. They’d had some good times, seen some great plays and met some fantastic people.

This time they bypassed the town and kept on going north through the Kawarthas, through cottage country, where most of the lakes had been dammed to provide sufficient head of water for the Trent Canal. They passed Fenlon Falls and numerous smaller communities, through Minden and Carnarvon and still north.

The rock cuts became more showy and taller, with striped gneisses and schisms predominant.

They came at last to Dorset, a town that one of Will’s friends had called the prettiest town in Ontario. Situated on Lake of Bays, it was a major tourist destination with a couple of gas stations and a first rate general store. Will used his credit card for gasoline and they went into the general store for late lunch items.

They ignored the boating supplies and fishing gear and the vast array of clothing, settling on wooden sandwiches and soft drinks, a major departure from lunch.

Then they were off again, skirting the edge of Algonquin Park to Dwight on highway 60. Then east past Deerfield Lodge to Huntsville. They bypassed Huntsville and turned south on Highway 11. The road map showed a way west, to Parry Sound, across route 141 a short distance south of Huntsville. They were immediately in the sprawl of lakes which were the Muskokas.

In due course they came to Highway 400 and wheeled north. By nightfall they were past Parry Sound and headed north towards Sudbury. The country began to feel like the north; more conifers than deciduous trees; the start of the vast boreal forest going all the way to the Arctic.

In the early evening Ben was driving and Will was napping. He felt the car slow and stop and came awake to see what was happening. He realized that Ben had stopped for a hitchhiker. He was about to offer an objection when the most attractive face he had seen in awhile arrived at his door. He rolled down the window and she asked where they were going. Will was quite tongue tied but managed to croak out that they were going north.

`That`s good enough for me," she replied, opened the rear door, slung in a knapsack and climbed in. As she entered Will caught a flash of shapely leg and then she was settled and they were off.

She and Ben began a conversation from which Will felt excluded. After some distance Ben pulled over and asked Will to drive. As they changed places Ben opened the rear door and climbed in beside their passenger.

Before long Will could see in the rear view faint images of faces touching. He heard sounds of kissing and faint moaning, the rustle of clothing. There were more sighs, a grunt or two and finally a long wail of either pleasure or anguish. Will kept his attention on the driving.

By dawn they were at the French River, the historic canoe route to the west. They had skirted the entire length of Georgian Bay and not seen it at all. The occupants of the back seat emerged looking dreamy and contented. They went into a restaurant attached to a gas station and ordered breakfast. Will ordered coffee, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns and brown toast. They ate in silence; at least the woman was silent. Ben sounded ready to pledge undying love. The young woman excused herself to go to the washroom. Before she entered she turned and waved at them and blew a kiss. Then she was gone.

Let’s be gone, Ben, said Will.

We’ve got to wait for her.

Ben, that kiss means she’s not coming back.

They walked through the park at French River. Halfway across the footbridge over the river they stopped to study the smooth, rapid flowing river between high sloping banks. Will could imagine the speed with which the freighter canoes surfed that speedy current on the way to Georgian Bay and on to the west. Also how slow would be the return trip with a cargo of beaver pelts, the men straining at the paddles, and singing all the while.

Back in the parking lot Will lifted the hood and checked the oil. It was still topped right up. How different from that trip down the Alaska Highway in that old clunker, using a quart of oil every fifty miles. They’d found a friend in Edmonton who repaired the leaky gasket with a cardboard cut out and sent them on their way without further problems.

By the time the oil was checked Ben was back to being himself. He’d definitely felt the rejection of the young hitchhiker’s rapid withdrawal, and had sulked for most of the walk. As they got in the car and started off he was laughing again.

Before long they passed the turn off to Killarney and arrived in Sudbury by mid morning.

In the old days traffic went right through Sudbury. First up had been Coniston, smelling of raw sulphuric acid and industrial blight. Then came the tipping where molten slag was dumped over the edge, creating visions of volcanic eruptions at night. After that were the stacks at Copper Cliff spewing so much pollution into the air that the wasteland around Sudbury had been used to train moon walkers. Included at Copper Cliff was the longest smelter row in the world at the time; almost half a mile long.

The super stack changed everything. Sudbury began to green up as pollutants were diluted and spread further afield.

Nowadays a bypass took traffic rapidly around Sudbury, and before they knew it they were on the Trans Canada west, heading for the Soo.

The first town of significance was McKerrow at the turn off to Manitoulin Island. They stopped in Massey for drinks and sandwiches and ate in a roadside park with comfortable benches and flush toilets.

They kept rolling west, and at Serpent River passed the turn off to Elliot Lake. Will had been there before, on a geology field trip with one of his classes. That was in the good old days.

From Serpent River to the Soo was only a few hours’ drive. They stopped again at one of the small towns along the way. It might have been Blind River or Iron Mills. In a nicely groomed park beside the North Channel they bought hamburgers and fries and drinks at a food truck and ate on a park bench overlooking the water. Views of large water such as this stoked Will’s wanderlust, and he just wanted to get up and be gone. Somewhere. Anywhere.

After half an hour they got back into the car and resumed the journey. By late afternoon they were on the outskirts of the Soo. They stopped at a road side restaurant that still sported a decrepit phone booth with a functioning phone. Ben looked up his cousin’s number and dialled. Within five minutes he was back looking crestfallen.

What’s up? asked Will.

Bounder’s gone off to Toronto.

Well, what now? asked Will.

I don’t know. What would you like to do?

Will took out his Ontario road map, unfolded it on the hood of the car to the northern part of the province and studied it. Well, we have the car for as long as it holds together, and I have a few dollars in the bank.

Then, after more consideration, North. Let’s go north. I haven’t been along the north shore of Superior in a few years.

There were the great sand beaches at Pancake Bay. They could comb the cobble beaches of Michipicoten Harbour for agate; sift through the sands at the mouth of the Pic River for old trade goods turned over in the surf long ago. They could mine for amethyst at East Loon Lake. They might at some point act like polar bears and go for a dip in the frigid water.

And Will had a nephew living in Nipigon. They could possibly get a bed and a shower.

They refilled at another Timmy’s, their drinks hot and fresh.

And then they just started to drive.

Counter Service

The snow started to fall as I drove through Kapuskasing. Big wet flakes floated across the highway in waves, stuck to the windshield, stressed the wipers, and stressed me too. I should have pulled over in Hearst, found a parking lot, unrolled my sleeping bag and slept out the storm in my car. But I had driven through, and once started I was committed. The next habitation of any kind was Longlac, over a hundred miles away. I couldn’t very well pull over, for I could no longer tell where the shoulder was or where the ditch began. If I didn’t pull over far enough a following transport could wipe me off the road. If I went too far I could turn turtle in the ditch, get covered in plowed snow, maybe die. So I kept on going, bent forward to see what I could of the road through all the white. There was nothing for over a hundred miles but the silent cone of wet snow springing toward me as I drove.

There really was no reason for me to be making this trip just now. I needed to be in Calgary by summer, months away actually, but my free restless nature had overridden common sense and so here I was.

After an interminable time I passed the turning on the left going south to Hornepayne and kept on driving. I’d done the drive many times, always in summer, when the boring hum of the tires and the constant flash of the boreal forest hypnotized me. I knew the turn off to Hornepayne very