Joe Kurmaskie · 2009 · road

Joe Kurmaskie's account of a family bicycle odyssey across Canada, this time with his wife Beth and three young sons aboard a sixteen-foot train of tandem, trailer bike, and trailer, the youngest celebrating his first birthday on the road. From Vancouver Island to Nova Scotia they pedal through the wilds of Canada, Beth adding her own wry footnotes to the Metal Cowboy's tales. The route crosses the breadth of Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

1. 1
   Vancouver Island

   The Kurmaskie family sets out from Vancouver Island, all five of them strung along sixteen feet of bicycle, a nursing mother, three small boys, and a great deal of optimism.

2. 2
   The Canadian Rockies

   They climb east into the Canadian Rockies, trading the Pacific coast for snow-tipped peaks and high mountain passes.

3. 3
   The Prairies

   Out onto the vast prairies they roll, day after day of wheat and sky, the family finding its rhythm.

4. 4
   North of Lake Superior

   Skirting the wild northern shore of Lake Superior, they thread the rocky, lonely heart of Ontario.

5. 5
   Montreal

   Through Quebec and along the great river they come to Montreal, the long country slowly unspooling behind them.

6. 6
   Halifax

   Two months and a continent later they reach the Atlantic in Nova Scotia, a family welded together by mud, sweat, and gears.