The Regina Monologues

The link to the pics first this time if you want to skip the verbage.
The scenery changes from mini mountains to prairie as we finally leave Ontario.

<<http://picasaweb.google.com/philip.story/ToRegina#>>


The journey from Fort Francis to Regina took us from Ontario - surely the largest Canadian province* to Saskatchewen - definitely the flatest. On the way we passed briefly through Manatoba helped by the speed limit increase from 90 to 100. It felt weird being able to pass through a province in less than a day after the two and a half day drive through Ontario. We started to feel like we were making some progress across the continent.

Other than that the journey was pretty uneventful on this leg so I thought I'd address one buring question:

Why is there no one on the Trans Canada Highway around the great Lakes ?
It really does seem strange why there are so few cars on the main highway across Canada which links most of the largest Canadian cities in this region. After a couple of days on the trip a few answers began to become apparent.

a) Gas is about 30% more expensive in Canada than the US. At least it felt that way with a gut estimate.
b) Accomodation is more expensive in Canada. Kim looked into booking a Super 8 hotel in Fort Francis and International Falls - just across the river and the Fort Francis (Canadian) hotel was about 30 US dollars more ! This was consistently true when we scoped out the trip initially via the US also.
c) Its quicker to go through the US.
Each day the garmin tried to get us to go back to the US to get to our Canadian destination. In fact, we nearly ended up going back over the border by mistake for that reason and had to explain to the Canadian immigration that we hadn't really left Canada. [Newton took advantage of the confusion and made a dash for the US but border guard was too quick for him. Back to the drawing board.]

Historical aside: the border around the lakes was determined at the treaty following the war of 1812 as the point that the two sides were occupying at the time. It therefore ends up being a bit more uneven than that established further west along the 49th parallel which was agreed later in the 1840s.

The net result of all this is that (I'm guessing) most people travel through the US when moving between Quebec, Ontario and Manatoba. For us however it was good to have the roads to ourselves whatever the reason.

* Ontario is in fact just the 4th largest province if you include the territories which puts in perspective how big Canada in fact is.