Airdrie, AB to Outlook, SK
In 2013, I embarked on one of the biggest and most challenging adventures of my life. I rode across Canada. On my bicycle. As part of an organized tour.
Tour du Canada (TdC) was founded in 1988 by Bud Jorgensen. Together with his wife Margo, they provided administrative and logistical support for the tour. Riders were expected to be self-reliant during the day in terms of looking after themselves and their bicycles during the day and to participate in necessary chores in camp in the evenings. This consisted primarily of meal preparation. To that end we were divided into teams, and in rotation, each team would prepare the evening meal and breakfast nest morning.
2013 marked the 25th Anniversary year of the Tour du Canada, so it was a special year to be doing the ride. Through the winter leading up to the ride, by means of an online bulletin board we were able to communicate with past riders and with fellow 2013 participants. The past riders provided a wealth of information on what to expect during the tour.
The ride itself essentially boiled down to riding during the day and camping over night. We had rest days approximately once a week and for three of those rest days we stayed in university dorms (in Thunderbay, Ottawa and Quebec City). A support truck accompanied the tour, primarily to transport our gear and the camp kitchen. During the day, our driver, Adam, would travel to the next campground on the route and shop for groceries along the way. In the evening, the dinner crew for that day would prepare supper following the menu plan and recipes in a binder. So while we were responsible for preparing meals, we were not responsible for dreaming up a meal plan. The same crew would make breakfast the next morning, do the cleanup and assist in loading the truck. Needless to say, we ate very well! Meals were always prepared from scratch with fresh ingredients.
With that preamble, over the next week and a half, my wife, Susan, and I will be picking up the route I followed in 2013 in Airdrie, Alberta (the closest point to us) and will follow it to Nova Scotia. This time, rather than on bicycle, I will be retracing the route by car. This will give me a chance to relive some incredible experiences as well as provide an opportunity for Susan to experience the route. The actual tour started in Vancouver, BC (with a pre-tour excursion over to Victoria on Vancouver Island) and ended in St. John’s, NL We visited all 10 Canadian Provinces. This time around we will only be travelling through 7 provinces. Due to some timing constraints, we will not be starting in BC and will also not travel through Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland & Labrador.
In 2013, I kept a blog with pretty much daily postings of that day’s ride. In fact, this blog, “Windaturback.com“, was basically started as a means to record my trip. If any readers would like to go back and read the original posts for the legs combined into today’s Part 1 of TdC Revisited, the links are below. Please excuse the typos and spelling errors: these post were often composed fairly quickly inside my small tent or balancing my small laptop on my knees while typing away in a rec hall or campground shelter.
As I’m sure is apparent by this list, one day’s drive by car will incorporate several day’s ride on a bicycle. On the tour, I believe our average daily distance was about 120 km (50 miles) with individual days ranging from about 80 km (75miles) to 175 km (109 miles).
Over the years, I have kept in touch with many of my fellow riders via Facebook, while some I lost touch with. I would love to hear from any of my fellow riders, especially if something in my posts over the next days sparks any special memories for you. Please leave a comment below, and if you are still in touch with any other riders who might be interested, please let them know of my posts. And, as always, I always welcome comments from any reader of my blog!
So here we go! First stop Airdrie!
From Airdrie, we worked our way East past a number of prairie towns and on to the Bleriot Ferry across the Red Deer River. Over the following blog posts, I will often include photos from this trip alongside of similar photos from 2013. In some cases, nothing has changed, in other cases, lots has changed.
From the Bleriot Ferry we continued on to have lunch in Drumheller. Following lunch we reached Youngstown by later in the afternoon. I have very special memories of the night in 2013 that we spent in this village. The wonderful people of Youngstown treated the TdC riders to a potluck dinner. What made this even more special was that, as mentioned above, 2013 was the 25th anniversary of the running of TdC and Youngstown had done the pot luck dinner for every one of those 25 years! Truly an amazing gift from this town. Here are a few photos from 2013.
Today I made a point of stopping to take a photo of the school. I vividly remember the school from 2013. The showers in the school were made available to us and we gladly walked the few blocks to make us of them. The only problem was that the boiler was turned off, presumably for the summer. The icy cold water made for VERY short showers!! Even so, it was truly wonderful how this community opened itself up for us and I will forever treasure these memories.
With today being a very long drive, I didn’t have a lot of time to stop to take random photos. However, here are a couple I did capture that kind of represent the Alberta prairie.
One of the biggest changes today came when we entered Saskatchewan. What was a beautiful welcome sign in 2013 has been replaced by a pretty boring, plain jane sign. On the left, below, is the sign from 2013 and on the right is the sign, at the same location, from today. What a step backwards!
After a very long day of driving, we arrived in Outlook, SK. It was too late in the day to revisit some of the sites I remember from 2013, so I will try to do that before we leave in the morning. Tomorrow, its on to Esterhazy!
Wind At Your Back 
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