Note: for no very good reason, this is the only page of Northern Summer which I don't have any photos to go with. All the same I actually think it's one of the better ones. Hope you won't mind.
It was goodbye to Albany Anthrocon today, and goodbye to a good many friends. With the exception of Rainshadow, who I'd be meeting up with later, I didn't know when or if I'd see any of these people again. Indeed with the exception of Kimba, I've not seen any of those friends since.
I was heading North by road, with Tirran (who I'm afraid I cannot help thinking of as Ron, and I hope he won't mind, because it's what I grew up calling him), Ann and Mishi. By the early hours of the next morning we would be in Northern Ontario, another world altogether; composed of images of darkened, moonlit skies with big birds flying across them, making Neil Young feel Helpless. Meanwhile we were standing outside the front doors of the very American Albany Omni Hotel, saying goodbye to each other. The intensity of my emotions stole up an surprised me, and I lost it bidding farewell to Kimba, Alex and Flep. This had been a nexus, where our paths had all crossed, and now we were fanning out like some sort of furry virus, carried by arterial roads back into the body of mundane North America.
Ron, Ann, Mishi and I spent most of the next six hours or so on a freeway, heading Northwest across New York State. It seemed pretty from the sterile vantage point of the interstate, so I can reasonably assume there were gorgeous moments of countryside nearby, tucked away from the eyes of dilettante tourists.
It seems no matter how you travel, there's always a slower, better, and less practical way to do it. When I'm in a plane, I think "I�d like to be down there on the ground to see this stuff." When I'm on the ground I generally find myself wishing I was on a back-road instead of a freeway, and when I'm on a back-road I usually wish I was cycling instead of driving. Walking is even better. The best moments are usually on foot. I imagine the ultimate way to see the world is to adopt the touring method of those Islamic pilgrims, who walk one step, get down on the ground and prostrate themselves, get up, walk one step and then lie down again. I've seen films of this though, and it seems an impractical method for covering any great distance.
In contrast to some of the more conversational or garrulous furries I'd met, Mishi's verbal output on the trip consisted of about three words per hundred kilometres. Much later, and without realising it, we got into a conversation, and I was really pleased and excited by this, but as luck would have it a train pulled up beside us; he got on it and disappeared. But that's jumping ahead a little.
More bad McDonalds, and then we were in Buffalo, NY. Buffalo smells funny, in a not altogether pleasant way. It is the third smelliest city I've been to in the US. I can't quite describe the smell, and Ron did explain to me what he thought was responsible for it, but I've forgotten. There isn't much else I can say about it. It seemed a rather unremarkable place, and we stopped there only briefly while Ron went into a shop that sold model trains.
Not long afterwards we crossed the Canadian border. This incident was completely fuss-free, although Tirran assured me that at other time the officials have held him up for several hours.
And then, Niagara Falls.
We drove from normalcy into a sudden explosion of kitsch: waxwork museums, souvenir shops, a giant windmill, and countless small motels with pink plastic hearts hanging outside them. This avalanche of capitalism spilled down a few suburban blocks, and ended at the brink of the raging Niagara River, into which one hopes, it might eventually throw itself.
The falls are vast and unlikely. They appear less like a waterfall, and more like some medieval vision of the edge of the world; a place where creation plummets into space. Imagine this immense catastrophe of water, eternal motion, with a souvenir city swarming up to its rim, and throngs of rapidly moving people on the very brink, riveted by this point where the world tips endlessly over into the chasm. It strikes me as a strange place to have an avenue of honeymoon hotels. You can come up here for a dirty weekend, bonk the missus, get up in the morning, look over the railing, and know that you're going to die. Maybe it's not strange at all.
We didn't actually get right up to the rim, because we were a little short of time, and there were so many people we couldn't get parked within a reasonable walking distance. We might, perhaps, have managed it, if we were prepared to use the world's most expensive carpark, but we settled for somewhere on the lower side of the falls, where Ann and I clambered over a fence, out onto some old pumping platform, and watched the river churning away below. Tirran pointed out a spot where a bridge had been washed out at some time in the past. He and Ann bought me a fold-out postcard thing, which I subsequently left behind in their car. I saw a wolf T-shirt in a shop window, but never got back there to buy it. Yes, I wanted to consume. I'm excused: this is post-modern late capitalism, and according to Frederic Jameson, consumption is all that remains: nature has been obliterated. Niagara crashes on, oblivious.
We dropped Mishi off at train station some way north. He was off to London. This was my first experience of anything which I imagined might be typically Canadian. There was a difference, but it's hard to pin it down. The station was smallish, fairly deserted, rather austere and grim. Of course I'm no great authority on train stations, and they're probably like this all over the world (we don't have them in Tasmania.) Still, there was something about the no-nonsense, industrial feel of the place which was somehow more subdued than the no-nonsense, industrial feel of similar places in the USA. It seems, from my brief comparison of the two, that America habitually leaps out at you to remind you that it's America, whereas Canada just happens to be in the same place as you at the same time.
Incidentally Mishi, the Dan I was trying to think of on the platform was Dan... err.... Dan... Lorrey?
Somewhere around here was a vast home furnishing store, which we wandered around looking for what I can't remember. It was a kind of colossal, open-plan barn, with color-coded lines on the floor which you were meant to follow. I wasn�t sure where you were meant to follow them _,to_ but I spent a lot of time whizzing around them anyway. At one stage we ended up in a plush section, where I almost bought a large white.... something. I don't recall exactly.
By now it was late in the day, and we drove north towards Toronto, into the Canadian dusk. Tirran and Ann were an amazing source of historical and geographical anecdotes, and would make excellent tour guides. Such-and-such a place had some connection with some eccentric Prime Minister who drank a lot and consulted his dog on policy matters. It was dark when we came to Toronto - an endless swarm of lights, which we eventually left behind us. Somewhere at the end of the freeway, the country awaited us.
I quickly noticed that there are a very great number of donut shops in Canada. I also noticed that Canadian businesses are not far behind their American counterparts in flying the national flag. No-one seemed to be taking them down after dark, though.
At some point we stopped for food, and to find an ATM. Here was a franchise food place which looked for all intents and purposes like an Australian or American franchise food place, and yet it was not. I began to get a slightly fuller impression of the feeling I'd received in the train station. I cannot put my finger on any single thing which contributes to this difference, but whereas a fast food place in America says "Fries! Yes, that's right - FOOD! Right this way to the world's most amazing fries!!", a fast food place in Canada says, "Food exchanged here for money."
Later, and we were out into the country; near the area they call the Almaguin Highlands; past the small town of Burk's Falls, and finally onto an unsealed road, through miles of night sky and trees in the headlights. And ultimately to the tiny village of Magnetewan. With our arrival the population increased by around 1%. We stumbled into Tir' and Ann's house, were greeted blearily by the kids, Peggy and Cathy, and by a fellow who was minding the house. There was a bewildering array of stuff about the place: a half-repaired fursuit, for one. I was given Cathy's bed for the night - an arrangement I felt a bit guilty about, and about which, I gather, she held a brief and understandable resentment. That didn't last long though. Now, as then, it is late, so I will stop. Tomorrow, the lake. Meanwhile, I fell asleep in another country, wondering if I would hear a wolf howl.
