As you can tell, a lot of driving this week. Just zooming across the barren wastelands of Canada, where there is no riding to be done. Drumheller is a surprisingly interesting little loop to do, very unique in Canada. Definitely will put that on the list of epic places to visit.
The rest was not so remarkable. Lots of cold and wind, despite being in June!

Located 90 minutes north east of Alberta, Drumheller offers views reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. There you can visit the Royal Tyrell Museum and the World’s Biggest Dinosaur.

Albertosaur guarding the entrance.

The Albertosaur is one of the very few animals who's name just so happened to also be where they lived.Pretty amazing coincidence.

Very cool reconstruction of a dino skull.

Fossilized amonites turn into expensive looking gemstones. The 5 pounders make great earrings.

Just rocking out.

Science

That one was like two feet wide.

Yawning high school student for scale.

Some HR Giger shit. The dinosaurs are always the flagship attraction but there's thousands of unique weird things that also went extinct.

The main dino gallery has a large T-Rex skeleton. That's how you know it's good.

Mammoth.

What the hell is this? Keep in mind how rare fossils are and how many even weirder looking animals we'll never know existed.

Well preserved plated dinosaur. You can see skin patterns on some of these dinosaurs.

One of T-Rex's smaller cousins, compensating for his size by working out his neck.

Found a mirror! I dropped my phone basically day 1 of this trip so my selfie cam is blurry now. That's why there's almost no pictures of me.

Murder Rhino

Look at this guy

How is this an evolutionary advantage? What the hell was he eating?

A museum visit is never complete without a guilt trip. Take all the money you waste on this and invest it in Jurrassic Park tech, then extinctions will become a non-issue. You're welcome.

Now the actual biking portion along the river and into the badlands.

The view as you leave the city and start heading north west. Massive headwind not pictured.

The road follows the river canyon for a long while. Great views of the geological features on all sides. These rocks are full of fossils. So they say.

The road occasionally sharply climbs about 120 meters to connect with the land outside of the canyon.

The canyon is hidden in Alberta's general flatness.

To cross the river you get on this cable ferry that operates most of the day. Quaint.

Alburt'a

One of the stops on this route is Horse Thief Canyon, which hosts a little prairie dog colony.

They'll watch you and screech before escaping into their holes. They will run right in front of you to go into their own specific hole, even if there are closer ones.

Grand Canyon Junior here

About 120-150 meters deep ( 350-450 feet )

Back in town you can visit the World's Largest Dinosaur! Takes balls to take a dinosaur and just make it bigger.

Proof. I definitely recommend a visit to Drumheller!

Almost out of Alberta and solidly into the “prairies” landscape, you will still find one little hill on Buffalo Trail road. It leads up into Cypress Hills park, which is populated by endless pine trees. I suppose pines are an amazing sight for people living here. Woah. Pine trees.
There’s not much to see here.

You know you're in a good town when you see this.

Flat forever and ever, with 30-50kph winds blowing constantly.

When you get to the top of the Buffalo Trail "climb" there's a nice view of the flat lands below.

Keep going and you get to a large lake. Saw some deer as well. Ok now you don't need to ever go there, I went for you.

Right before Buffalo Trail you pass through Medicine Hat, where you can view the World's Tallest Teepee!

It is indeed huge.

Erm yes...

Started that morning in Moose Jaw, home of the World’s Largest Moose.

There’s really nowhere to ride in the southern prairies. Good time for a recovery ride. Regina seemed like a nice city overall to live in, just not if your main thing is biking. That sort of disqualifies 95% of earth. Don’t bike.

Ok calm down, calm down.

Snowbirds are used on Canada day to put on air shows for the masses. Some would say it just wastes fuel. Some would.

That's the Moose. What a moose it was.

Moose contests are one of the healthiest forms of competition.

The route I choose through the city follows the Wascana Lake

I learned that people build towns only near water.

There's paths / recreational / touristy things all around this lake.

And pelicans again...

There's so many. How. Why. This is a tiny lake in the middle of nowhere. How are they alive?

A little out of the way in Kipling, you can find the world's biggest RED paperclip.

I love these things. Build more big things please.

I had planned a 120km loop around the Lac Winnipeg area but it was stormy all day, raining on and off. I got all my stuff ready to go and was about to start riding when the rain just started pouring harder than ever and it was 3 degrees. Did not feel like riding 4 hours in a storm.
The area did not seem very promising to visit anyway, lots of dirt roads in this mostly back country area.

This cost me a 250km detour so I at least took pictures. Not coming back there.

Dirt road access to the lake covered in washed out trash.

Boy you can tell this is a fun place.

I swear it was raining.

The thing to see there is Grand Beach, which boasts one of Canada's largest sandy beaches. It's kinda far though honestly.

Unsurprisingly, not a lot of swimmers on a stormy off season weekday.

They have a lot of sand. I'm sure there's sign telling you not to pick up any sand or something. Don't disturb the precious sand.

It is a good area for bird watching as well. Saw some pelicans fly over. They're all over the place.

Quite the lake.

Many of the roads in Saskatwhewan and Manitoba are flanked with these small marshes / ponds lakes that are full of birds.

Goodbye Lac Winnipeg.

It was time to leave the prairies behind and make it back to the more familiar landscape of Ontario, which I found out looks exactly like Quebec, at least the parts worth living in.

As you drive through the prairies the yellow grass gradually becomes green.

Here we are, Ontario! Now starts many hours of driving along the Great Lakes.

You know your town is good when you have a nice sign.

Kenora has a little marina with sculptures and tours you can take.

There's so many lakes in Ontario. Anywhere you look there's a lake.

The Lake Life is the thing to do in Quebec and Ontario. Get a cottage near a lake. There's more lakes then people.

Pretty much peak Ontario.

I don't remember which city this was, but they also had a Moose.

These signs are everywhere in Northern Ontario. They wait for the darkness to go after your car.

Badass band name though. NIGHT DANGER

There’s no more large mountain passes between you and Alberta at this point. This gigantic valley really feels more like the prairies than BC already. Even has a frontier town ( Fort Steele ) for you to visit.

I don't want to bore you with pictures of little lakes but that's almost all there is here.

From Thunder Bay you can see the other side of Lake Superior, which is surrounded by these forested hills.

Not an uncommon sight. What are you going to do about it? Phone them and complain? hahahaha

This route just went to this large camping park/area.

Saw a porcupine cross the road to escape oncoming traffic. Fairly rare sight!

When he saw me he got in a little hole and raised his quills. He got bored after about 3 seconds and resumed his life.

At the tip of the peninsula you read the tiny town of Silver Islet. There was no "World's Biggest Silver Nugget".

View of Lake Superior from the town.

Lakes are awesome and relaxing when the weather is perfect. I get it, I get it.

Touristy store near the lake.

You will pass by this lake on the way.

Yep it's a lake.

The drive alongside Lake Superior from Thunder Bay is surprisingly beautiful. Has many lookouts and mid-sized mountain passes.

It passes near Aguasabon Falls/ Gorge near Terrace Bay, ON.

Very easy access to the gorge from the road. Just this little path for a hundred meters.

Worth the 5 minute detour.

Along the road I saw this Night Danger feasting in a ditch.

I stopped the car on the shoulder. We made eye contact. We understood each other.

I had never seen a Night Danger before despite the hundreds of signs to be careful back in Quebec. Quebec is a province of lies.

That night my Boonddockers host offered for me to stay in his camper van. It was really great, I understand the appeal of camper life now. Sucks about the gas prices.

If you continue along Lake Superior, you end up in Sault SteMarie, which sits right on the border with the USA and on a canal that separates Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

Have to start my day with a prayer to my lord and savior.

I stayed in Marathon, ON the previous night. You'll find this memorial in White River, about an hour east.

You really, really have to want to see this to make this drive.

As you continue you will drive near Wawa, home of the world's biggest Canada Goose! No one beating that one.

If you drive into town you'll find this statue which previously held the record. Doesn't really count if you win against yourself.

There's also a motel with a goose.

They left this truck there so long it became an attraction, not just junk.

A fairly typical rural Ontario home. If you don't have to live in Toronto, you get to afford this.

At the western edge of the area there's a little marina and beach.

Pretty Ontario-y

Then at the southern tip you'll find Pointe Louise

Just another private/remote community along the lake. Imagine you live here.

After that I went into the city itself. If you make it through the "meth" part of town you'll reach the boardwalk

It's right along the border. No weed while they x-ray your junk and inflate the value of your life savings away.

That's the bridge to Freedomland over there.

View of the canal from the boardwalk.

The harbor as seen from the boardwalk. Some speedboating going on.

I'm always amazed at the random statues and art installations in every city. I've seen hundreds already.

on the boardwalk I passed by a Beaver Tails store. That's on my list of "Canadian Foods" to get on this trip. But then...

They combined poutine with beaver tails? No one ever asked for this, but thanks for making it and letting me pay 10$ for one.

It was disappointing. Unmelted cheese curds, cardboard fries and the beaver tail was like a fried napkin. Why would you do this to me? Why?

I don't know what that prison-like building is. Probably a prison. Let's not google it.

Little art gallery near the end of the boardwalk.

Another thing you see a lot on the road is each town's extremely specific little museums.

That’s week 3 done! A little disappointed by the bad weather and missing an entire day. It’s making me have to be more flexible and add KMs to different days. Still, when I can’t bike, there’s always something to do on the road. Updating this blog takes a lot of time for instance so if I can’t ride at all, I can sit at Tim Hortons for 10 hours and schedule places to stay, book stuff, make calls etc. There’s always something I can do whether I have 5 minutes or 5 hours.

Also gas prices really starting to sting. It’s June 10th as I’m writing this and I’ve spent almost 600$ on gas so far this month. Oh, how it burns.

If you made it this far, feel free to join my Instagram and/or Strava!

Touring Canada Week 3 - Blasting Across Canada