It has been a while - a long while - since I've updated this site. THis is going to be the last one for now. Let's see if I can remember what happened since calgary. At the University of calgary I met this cool guy who put me up in his house, and taught me to make some interesting and ingenious pot-smoking paraphanelia - information I have no intention of using ;) He was from BC and was very happy to meet someone more liberal than the local albertans. It seems that BCers and Quebecers both share more in common with each other than with their next door neighbours (Alberta and Ontario). Well when the temperature perked up I got back on the road and was picked up almost immediately by a texan in a pickup truck. He was utterly stereotypical. He was an untamable, uncouth, uncultured man. He had a son named Bubba and a daughter named something equally texan. He was intolerant and bigoted, and made comments that made me wonder what century he was born in. To summarize, I liked him. What was most interesting about the ride was the fact that he had lost most of his memory in a car accident a few years back. He was in Canada to retrace the steps of his youth, to try to resurrect his dead memories. He would stop at towns and places when his faint recollections instructed him to, and would gradually recall the stories of his youth spent working in the oil industry in alberta, and training at canadian military bases during a war-time training exchange-program with the states. We drank wine (Doctor's orders, to thin his blood) and talked about old times all the way to Winnipeg. We both slept a night in the truck somewhere around Regina, or rather he slept and snored like a buzzsaw, keeping me awake all night. We said goodbye in winnipeg and I got back on the road. It wasn't long before I was picked up by a couple of 18 year old girls who thought I was cute. They got me to this little town called Kenora, I think. Cute town. At one point, anfter getting a couple short rides, I found myself with my thumb in the air when a Ontario Government vehicle came by. Well I almost retracted my thumb to attempt to play the innocent, but the guy stopped and offered me a ride. Well, he was a government scientist, studying fish populations, I think. Anyways, what he couldn't admit to his fellow scientists, for fear of ridicule, was that he believed himself to be gifted with the metaphysical gift of healing. He regularly attended meetings of the psychically-adept, where he had further developped his skills. We discussed philosophy and metaphysics and psychic phenomena all the was to Thunder Bay, where he and his wife - a fellow psychically-adept - put me up for the night. Come morning I was driven to the highway, and resumed my trip. I was picked up by a very quiet native-american man, and then by a very strange older man who was escaping from a romance with an eighteen year old girl, fearing her family's reaction should they find out. Very strange man. He was on his way to a cabin in the woods where he intended to grow copious amounts of pot so that he could live comfortably for a few years. Having successfully avoided the town I had been frequently warned about by seasoned hitchhikers, Wawa, Ontario (also know as hitchhikers hell), I found myself in Sault-Ste. Marie. I got a couple more rides, including a ride from a crazy old german man, who drove his tiny little german-engineered (as he told me several times) car at incredible and terrifying speeds, and so found myself nearing nightfall on a very cold night, somewhere in god-knows-where ontario. With the sun coming down, I gave one last ditch effort to get a ride, and finally flagged down a big rig! I rode that truck to a truck stop just outside Sudbury. I tried unsuccessfully to get a ride out of there to Ottawa, or directly to Montreal, and finally had to stay the night out back, on what turned out to be a very cold night. It didn't help that I had managed to soak both my feet in the marshlands behind the truck stop before pitching camp. Come morning my feet were freezing cold, and I went to the truckstop to warm up. The waittresses there were much less friendly than the one of the night before, and didn't let me stay long. So I found myself outside and trying to hich a ride on a freezing cold morning. Finally in desperation, I accepted a ride to ... Toronto. I rode with a couple of stereotypical Toronto boys with too much money and no manners. He tailed a police car the entire way so that he could drive extremely quickly. I'm surprised the policeman didn't stop him, but I suppose he was hurrying for a reason. Anyways, I found myself in Toronto. I walked along the 401 for awhile until a poilcecar stopped and picked me up for walking along the 401 (who knew that was illegal?). I talked my way out of it and got driven a little further along, where I thoroughly failed to get picked up. I tried to get my water bottle filled up at a couple restaurants, but they refused, but offered to sell me bottled water. I used the last five dollars in my pocket to take the bus as far towards the edge of town as possible. Eventually I found a truck stop, and snagged a ride out of toronto, thank god. I was getting near home now. I was at a truck stop now, almost entirely populated by francophones. It was so nice to hear french again! I tried to get a ride from some Quebecers sitting at a table. With regret, they told me that they could not take me on board, because there were two weighing stations between there and montreal where they would be checked for passengers. If a passenger were to be found, they would lose their jobs. Well, I told them I understood, and took my sign and sat outside. I was so close. It was nighttime, and I was not eager to spend another cold night. So I sat outside with my sign and gave it one more try. Well, a truck stopped and gestured that I should come on board. Wouldn't you know, it was one of the french truckers from the table, who had decided to risk his job in order to give me a lift. The plan was this: He would take me as far as the weighing station, and if it was open, he would stop the truck and I would jump out, no questions asked. I agreed to the scheme. Well, it was tense as we approached the first weigh station. We were a caravan of three trucks. The other two had gone ahead so that they could radio back the news. As we approached he reminded me of the plan. As we came upon the weighing staion, we found it closed, to our mutual relief. But it wasn't over. There was a second weighing station, and the odds of both being closed were slim. And if the tension was thick before, it was doubly so now. We watched closely ahead for the flashing lights that would indicate an active station. They never came. We were astounded by our luck, and once again I got the feeling that I was being watched over by some benevolent force. I said my thankyous to the kind trucker, a south american immigrant who had made Quebec his home when he was rejected by ontario (When he became a successful business man, ontario invited him to live there and apologized for their error, but he told them that Quebec was his home now, and he told them what they could do with their invitation). I found myself in Dorion. I slung my backpack over my shoulder, and walked onto the island of montreal. It was just where I left it.