we last left off in winnipeg, and happily resume our play by play on an exceptionally sunny day in toronto (huzzah!)...

our time in winnipeg was fantulous. restful, refreshing, and fun. i took the time to actually read a couple books ('things fall apart' by chinua achebe; and "ano ano the seed" by kristin zambucka -- i highly recommend both...), and jeff did some jamming on the street with some bluegrass kids, and a hopeful moment or two with an anarchist marching band, but they had to make their way to rehearsal...

staying with joy was just that -- lots of music, laughs, stories, hugs and cuddles. a nice respite from the road. on tuesday night we had dinner @ shandra's place before heading to the neighbourhood to play our second show. thanks to friends, and some more time to spread the word, the crowd was significantly larger than our saturday night show, and we had an absolute blast! drew offered to drive us to the outskirts of town in the morning, which would help propel us into kenora at a reasonable hour. we also talked with ursula about po(e)tentially returning on the weekend after our show in wabigoon, and set ourselves in motion to make it happen...

on the road at an early hour, we expected it to be quite a breeze to get to kenora -- afterall, it's only 2.5 hours down the road. however, as in christina lake we were taught a thing or three about assumptions, and after a goodly while we took a ride that was only going as far as richer, manitoba -- but a change of scenery was very needed. in richer, things got weirder. after we'd been on the road while, an rcmp truck passed us, and parked in the lot of the restaurant down the road while talking on the phone. he was then joined by another two official vehicles (cars this time), and it looked like they were setting to change the tire on one of the cars. meanwhile, rather than the usual uniforms we associate with r.c.'s these cats were all wearing a hunter-type camo with the belts we all know. after another little while there were 5 marked and 2 unmarked vehicles in the parking lot, and a raid-type field meeting being held for nearly an hour before all 7 vehicles sped down the highway in convoy formation, passing us along the way (interestingly, all the officers in the marked vehicles waved on the way by, and those in the unmarked vehicles didn't...). not sure what exactly was happening there, but it was a strange sight to be sure...

finally an older couple picked us up on the late afternoon, just after i started stressing out about whether or not we'd make the gig. they took us right to the venue where we promptly got ourselves coffee and food before the show. it was a light crowd, but expected somewhat, for a last minutely booked show. fortunately jeff's friend who suggested the place also sent a few of her friends our way. our new friends laurie & erin put us up for the night, and we found a bunch of old half bottles in their pantry. laurie offered us a ride to the outskirts of town before she went to work in the morning, so again we figured we were sailing -- wabigoon's less than 2 hours away...

i must admit, i was in rough shape the next morning, due to some strange combination of vodka and rye (rye and tonics?!), so i wound up napping on the side of the highway for a bit upon arrival. an excellent precursed to the day of hitchhiking hell. we were in the spot (which was 18km out of town) for damn near 9 hours by the time we decided to try and make our way back into town and see if we could either reschedule our wabigoon show or convince somebody to drive us to wabigoon. it was as we were making this walk of shame that salvation came our way -- in the form of eric & justine, who are in the process of moving back to b.c. from toronto! jeff & eric had been discussing that our paths will cross in northern ontario somewhere, but we certainly didn't expect it to be like this. they were supurb enough to rearrange their travel plans, get a room in kenora, unload the car enough that eric could come back and pick us up, drive us to wabigoon, and make his way back to kenora for the night before driving to saskatoon the next day. WOW!

green achers of wabigoon is a sweet little spot located damn near on the lake in wabigoon, ontario which is just outside of dryden. it's a general store/liquor store/cafe/live music venue all in one -- quite fun! i was most excited for this show as it was the first one we officially booked for the tour, and all my communication with john had been wonderful. he was stoked to see that we made it (we arrived @ 7:45, the marquee said 7:30 and the show was slated for 8:00), and we were stoked to not be on the outskirts of kenora anymore. now, we just needed an audience. it seems canada post fucked us once again, and the posters that we'd maile some 3 weeks or so before, had finally arrived that day! only 3 people showed up, but we had an amazing time, the vibe was great, the sound was great, and the folks that were there were fantastic. john fed us and got us a room @ a motel down the road for the evening -- a treat! we all look forward to another opportunity to do a show together, and work to make it bigger!

from there we took to the task of crossing northern ontario's massive expanse. in making up for our terrible road luck the previous two days, we got some fantastic and long rides with wonderful people, and made it very rapidly to toronto where we're now camped out chez ory no'man and friends. we've picked up a slot @ an earth day show here tomorrow, and managed to snag a show in hamilton as well. so things are lining up quite nicely for the central canada portion of the tour. today is a big work day to fill the gaps out east, as will tomorrow before our show...

in the meanwhile, i'm about to be late for a coffee date with a friend of mine from the dawson days. i don't want to leave him hangin' on the other end of town, so i'll leave you hangin' on the other end of this message until the next chance i get for an updates...

hope you're all well and smiling,
and drop a line anytime!

love + feet,
~s.