Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies by Charley Boorman
Authors: Charley Boorman
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only sees the sun for three months of the year. That didn’t stop me. The adrenalin must
still have been pumping, because I swam the width of the falls then climbed on to the rocks and stepped beyond the torrent,
feelinglike Daniel Day-Lewis in
The Last of the Mohicans
. Eventually the wall of water swept me off the rocks and the others hauled me back into the boat.
‘OK, Hawkeye,’ Russ said. ‘I think that’s enough for today.’
4
Something Cold and Something Blue
S aguenay really reminded me of
Deliverance
, the film my dad directed years ago with Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight: the water, the rapids, the way the woodland comes
down to the shore. I had really enjoyed exploring the place. But after a crazy few days, it was time to take a breather in
Toronto before the next stage of this epic journey.
Our few days of R&R meant I had a chance to visit the bike shop on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. The previous night we’d
been to the MMVA music awards ceremony – there’s a huge music scene in Canada, Toronto especially, which is partially supported
by grants, ensuring that Canada retains a separate artistic identity from that of the United States. We’d met a cool guy called
Nathan with a great mop of curly black hair, who played in a band called Midway State, and spent much of the evening trying
to persuade him to do the music for the TV show. He’d been a fan of
Long Way Round
and joined me at the shop to get a feel for the bikes. I suggested he hop on the back and we’d do a couple of blocks of Yonge
Street; it’s thelongest street in the world, according to the
Guinness Book of Records
, running from the shores of Lake Ontario all the way to Lake Simcoe, 1,896 kilometres further north. Nathan had never even
swung a leg over a bike before but he soon got the hang of it. We cruised the streets for a while, and when we were done he
said he’d work on some music for us.
After saying goodbye to Nathan, we set off up Yonge Street, aiming for the Fathom Five dive site in Tobermory, which is regarded
as the scuba-diving capital of Canada. As I’d spent so much time hanging from a rope above water, I thought it was time to
get below the surface. Pulling in to Tobermory four hours later, we stopped at a shop called Divers Den, where I met Mike,
a young guy in a polo shirt, who was to be our dive master for the afternoon. He was going to take us to the wreck of the
Niagara II
, a steel-hulled ship that had been sunk deliberately in 1999 for the enjoyment of divers. He told me we could dive inside
the wreck itself and swim up through the smokestack. It sounded awesome, although apparently the water was going to be pretty
cold.
‘So, it’ll be peeing in the wetsuit to keep warm, then?’ I said.
‘Only if
you
want to wash it, Charley,’ he told me.
In total, twenty-five ships had been wrecked within a five-kilometre radius at Tobermory, and I was delighted when Mike said
we could also dive on
The Sweepstakes
, a much older boat that had foundered in a storm in Big Tub Harbour back in 1901.
While I’d been talking, Russ had been out back suiting up, and he came through flexing his biceps like the Adonis he clearly
is. I’m not sure how he was feeling, but I was a tad anxious. I’ve dived a few times in my life, but never in fresh water,
where the visibility isn’t so good, and never in cold water.I knew this was going to be very, very cold, and my fears were not allayed when they gave me
three
wetsuits to put on.
As I grabbed a couple of air bottles and hauled them aboard the boat, the skipper blasted out an old sea shanty to get us
in the mood. I danced along to the music, no doubt looking like an overstuffed seal. Just in case you haven’t been following
on the map, we were on Lake Huron, which is the second largest of the Great Lakes and the third largest freshwater lake in
the world. It’s named after the Huron Indians, part of the Iroquois
still have been pumping, because I swam the width of the falls then climbed on to the rocks and stepped beyond the torrent,
feelinglike Daniel Day-Lewis in
The Last of the Mohicans
. Eventually the wall of water swept me off the rocks and the others hauled me back into the boat.
‘OK, Hawkeye,’ Russ said. ‘I think that’s enough for today.’
4
Something Cold and Something Blue
S aguenay really reminded me of
Deliverance
, the film my dad directed years ago with Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight: the water, the rapids, the way the woodland comes
down to the shore. I had really enjoyed exploring the place. But after a crazy few days, it was time to take a breather in
Toronto before the next stage of this epic journey.
Our few days of R&R meant I had a chance to visit the bike shop on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. The previous night we’d
been to the MMVA music awards ceremony – there’s a huge music scene in Canada, Toronto especially, which is partially supported
by grants, ensuring that Canada retains a separate artistic identity from that of the United States. We’d met a cool guy called
Nathan with a great mop of curly black hair, who played in a band called Midway State, and spent much of the evening trying
to persuade him to do the music for the TV show. He’d been a fan of
Long Way Round
and joined me at the shop to get a feel for the bikes. I suggested he hop on the back and we’d do a couple of blocks of Yonge
Street; it’s thelongest street in the world, according to the
Guinness Book of Records
, running from the shores of Lake Ontario all the way to Lake Simcoe, 1,896 kilometres further north. Nathan had never even
swung a leg over a bike before but he soon got the hang of it. We cruised the streets for a while, and when we were done he
said he’d work on some music for us.
After saying goodbye to Nathan, we set off up Yonge Street, aiming for the Fathom Five dive site in Tobermory, which is regarded
as the scuba-diving capital of Canada. As I’d spent so much time hanging from a rope above water, I thought it was time to
get below the surface. Pulling in to Tobermory four hours later, we stopped at a shop called Divers Den, where I met Mike,
a young guy in a polo shirt, who was to be our dive master for the afternoon. He was going to take us to the wreck of the
Niagara II
, a steel-hulled ship that had been sunk deliberately in 1999 for the enjoyment of divers. He told me we could dive inside
the wreck itself and swim up through the smokestack. It sounded awesome, although apparently the water was going to be pretty
cold.
‘So, it’ll be peeing in the wetsuit to keep warm, then?’ I said.
‘Only if
you
want to wash it, Charley,’ he told me.
In total, twenty-five ships had been wrecked within a five-kilometre radius at Tobermory, and I was delighted when Mike said
we could also dive on
The Sweepstakes
, a much older boat that had foundered in a storm in Big Tub Harbour back in 1901.
While I’d been talking, Russ had been out back suiting up, and he came through flexing his biceps like the Adonis he clearly
is. I’m not sure how he was feeling, but I was a tad anxious. I’ve dived a few times in my life, but never in fresh water,
where the visibility isn’t so good, and never in cold water.I knew this was going to be very, very cold, and my fears were not allayed when they gave me
three
wetsuits to put on.
As I grabbed a couple of air bottles and hauled them aboard the boat, the skipper blasted out an old sea shanty to get us
in the mood. I danced along to the music, no doubt looking like an overstuffed seal. Just in case you haven’t been following
on the map, we were on Lake Huron, which is the second largest of the Great Lakes and the third largest freshwater lake in
the world. It’s named after the Huron Indians, part of the Iroquois
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