Little Fugly on the prairie

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Our hideous ’93 Ford Aerostar - dubbed Fugly, for obvious reasons - is clearly not living up to its rep as the worthless, pathetic little car-that-couldn’t. Because despite dire predictions from all corners that Fugly was almost certainly going to break down, it has now officially left Ontario behind and is chuggling along - sans air conditioning, naturally - through the 30-degree Saskatchewan heat with nary a mishap.

Rocky Mountains, here we come!

With classrooms like this, it can't be all bad

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If it’s true we do only live once – and that any day we really could get hit by a bus – one of the things I hope to have done is inspire the wanderlust of other parents who dream, and who might then dare, to roam with kids in tow. Because outhouses and my annoying Smug Spouse notwithstanding, I feel incredibly lucky just to be doing this trip, let alone writing about it. Here at Sioux Narrows Provincial Park - yes we are still in Ontario but I'm over it now - we end our day with a bit of school at sunset, a swim and a Lucky Lager. And really, who could ask for more?

Not happy: Travellin' mama has a sulk

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“It’s not always going to be great but it’s always going to be worth it.’’ This is my new mantra, which I will repeat often and with great abandon when things get un-fun on this 5,000-km odyssey across Canada.

Lovely as it is here at Sioux Narrows Provincial Park, I’ve had a change of heart. Hit the wall, shall we say. Descended into unexplained foul-mood territory that I could blame on too much family togetherness, but I think the real problem is that we’ve slept in a tent for eight nights in a row now – so how the f*#! can we still be in Ontario? Have I gone mad? Surely pining for a bit of prairie to break up the trees-and-rocks-and-lakes thing is not normal.

And is it me or is it just plain dumb to put reading material in f&*@ing outhouses? With all that fear of falling in, the stink, the hovering, the covering (of mouth and nose) – all while trying to prop the door shut because for some reason there’s never a bloody lock – who’s got time for a quick read? Stumbling to the outhouse for a night-time poop is even worse: I’m like an extra in the Blair Witch Project, waving my flashlight around like a crazy person in hopes of distracting the wildlife. Add to that my fear that a bear will knock the whole rickety thing over with one swipe of his paw – leaving me horizontal, covered in everyone else’s poop and about to be his bedtime snack – and, well, you get the picture.

Holy shit. Where’s a Hilton when you need one?

Can we stay forever?

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A better campsite you couldn’t ask for ... this one is at the divine Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, where my hubby takes the girls out for their first fishing lesson , then hightails it back to shore once mom realizes not everyone is wearing a life jacket.

Not quite a rat in the kitchen … but close

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Clearly starved for playmates, Molly (left) and Annie have unearthed something stinky and dead, slapped it between a couple of leaves and voila – hours of girlie fascination followed by a solemn funeral for a furry friend. Trying to be the cool mom who doesn’t balk at such things, I tell myself that although there is a decaying rodent in the tent, the kids are having a whole buncha fun and who am I to tell them who and who not to play with? Especially out here in the middle of nowhere when all the other kids are back at school. (Molly keeps patting it, though, which is really grossing me out.) My husband tells me it’s only a vole, which although technically is not a mouse is clearly still a rodent, and therefore something to be avoided. But that’s just me.

The funeral involves some deadly serious chanting, a shroud of Kleenex and a shallow grave, even a few tears. I’m so glad we didn’t hit the deer we came so close to hitting yesterday because I can only imagine the funeral they would’ve cooked up for that.

Ordinary guy, extraordinary hero

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If it's true there really are five people you
meet in heaven, can one of mine be Terry Fox?

This is the Canadian story that brings me to tears every time I get near it, which I did on a couple of occasions this past summer.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Terry Fox's awe-inspiring Marathon of Hope, the self-proclaimed "ordinary guy" ran the equivalent of a marathon a day, every day, from Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario - on one leg - to raise money for cancer research.

His incredible journey, which began in April 1980, was to take him all the way to the Pacific Ocean. By the time he got here to Thunder Bay, the cancer had spread to his lungs and he was forced to quit - after running for 143 days and 5,373 kilometres. They say Lance Armstrong has the heart of a lion, but I'm willing to bet Terry Fox's was twice the size.

Having learned about this Canadian hero at school, my girls are well aware of his story, and the proceeds from their annual lemonade stand in August went to cancer research ... all $130 of it. A few weeks later, as we stood at the actual Thunder Bay memorial (above), I told them Terry Fox himself would've been proud of their efforts ... and then promptly burst into tears myself.

Terry Fox died on June 28, 1981, nine months after cancer forced him to abandon his mission. Since that time, hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised for cancer research in his name. So he may have insisted he was an ordinary guy ... but we all know better.

Edmund Fitzgerald on my mind

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"Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put 15 more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
May have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters"

- Gordon Lightfoot, 1976

Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which tells the tragedy of the 29 men who died in November '75 on this “big lake they call Gitche Gumee’’, has haunted me for many years. How ironic, then, that we're here on the calmest of summer days, watching the girls play D-O-N-K-E-Y in a lake that can turn from dead calm to deadly in the blink of an eye. Later, as the sun goes down and the temperature starts to plummet, I think of the ghosts Superior will never give up and I'm grateful my girls will never know what it’s like to wait, and hope, for a daddy missing at sea.