Near and Far: Revising the Art of Travel

In August 2013, I, my boyfriend Erik, and our friend Robert, embarked on a ten day odyssey from Vancouver to Montreal, driving across five Canadian provinces in a U-Haul packed floor to ceiling with every book, plate, and keepsake I owned. The plan was to camp along the way, but we had left a day late and ended up driving through the Rockies in the dark. It was road-ripplingly hot and the large amount of water we drank, combined with a lack of physical movement, swelled our ankles and feet. After covering over 3,000 km in three days, the tension between us was increasing as fast as the odometer. Our dream of a joyful Canadian Adventure was disintegrating as the hours passed in a haze of rest stops, AM radio, and air conditioning.
By the fourth day of our trip, we prepared ourselves to spend another night with the natural beauty of the Canadian wilderness all but hidden from us by darkness. The brochure from the campsite office informed us that Sleeping Giant Provincial Park was situated on the Sibley Peninsula that juts into Lake Superior in Northern Ontario and was named for the group of cliffs resembling a sleeping person that runs down its western side. I hoped we would see it.

After pulling into our campsite, we stepped out of the truck and began to stretch our stiff legs. I wandered onto the pebbly shore of Marie Louise Lake and immediately I saw him looming over the treetops. The sun was just beginning to sink lower in the sky, revealing the silhouette of the giant as a soft breeze sent ripples across the water below his back. A few ducks swam nearby, occasionally puncturing the silence with brief quacks. Barely a word passed between the three of us as we stood together in awe of this view hidden just off the highway. Later, eating charred hot dogs by a crackling fire, we looked up and watched as the encroaching night slowly revealed the Milky Way stretching across a vast sky. I wondered how many nights like this he had seen.

The next morning I woke up with the sun. The breeze had died down and the sky glowed a velvety blue. I watched a canoe glide across the glasslike surface of the lake towards the head of the still sleeping giant. There is a tale of unknown origin that says Nanabijou, the Ojibwa creator, laid down and turned to stone to protect the location of a silver mine; as I stood there, renewed and ready for the journey ahead, I considered that perhaps, his resting place also guards another secret, one I am now fortunate enough to share.