Defying Anthropology

I said I would write about the highway up to Parry Sound and Sudbury sometime, so I will. I'll start by telling you that the old Highway 69 was the most dangerous highway in Ontario. I'm not exaggerating. The winding two-lane trail to cottage country and the north was the cause of so much carnage, I can't even begin to describe it. I personally knew at least a dozen people who died crashing into the rock cuts or over the embankments of that lovely, but deadly road. Whether it was overflowing with tourist traffic in the heat of the summer, or coated with black ice in the dead of winter, Highway 69 was a killer. But it's gone now...

The whole time I lived up in Parry Sound, various governments promised that the highway would be flattened, four-laned and fixed. Ironically, the last two people I knew who died on 69 were killed right where the old highway met the new Highway 400 coming north. But the progress continued, and now it's nearly done. Only the short stretch across the Native reserve south of town remains unchanged, and now that the band has reached agreement with the government, that will be renovated too.

Which means that when I drove up to Sudbury last month, I drove to my hometown along a brand-new highway 400, through a countryside I had never seen before. The little gas stations, camps and hotels that had lined the old road were somewhere through the forest. The winding little highway had given way to a vast, flat, fresh grey macadam through an apparent wilderness of trees and lakes and rock. It's a sublime road. Not beautiful, but sublime: a large, impersonal, modern, and perfectly executed freeway through an achingly ancient landscape. It was fascinating through the sleet on the way up north, and astonishing in the endless sunset on the way back to the City.

But the most incredible thing about this new road is not the new beauty of the old forest, recently revealed. And it's not the marvels of modern engineering that make it so fast and sleek. It's not even the apparent disappearance of that old highway I knew so well. It's the new rock cuts. They're going to defy anthropolgy.

There were always rock cuts, but they were small and narrow. Now, that four lane highway cuts through near-mountains of precambrian shield, leaving monuments the size of the Egyptian pyramids, already dotted with Inukshuks, towering over the road. This is some of the oldest rock in the world. It dates to the cooling of the earth's crust. Nothing has even marked it since the Ice Age, and even that just left a few scratches.

But long after cars have come and gone, long after roads have lost their meaning, long after our civilization has bloomed and faded and been forgotten, these rock cuts - brand new blasts out of the earth- will be standing still. They won't have moved. They won't have softened. They will still be there ten thousand, a hundred thousand, even a million years from now.

And the people of the future will know somebody made them. That much will be obvious. But they'll have no idea why, or what they were for. They will never be able to guess what led people to change the crust of the planet itself in this strange way. They won't know about all the deaths on the old road. They won't know about the politicians and the promises and the programs. They won't know about the cottagers, the traffic jams, the little hotels and camps that are almost forgotten already. They'll just know that something important happened here. And the rest will defy anthropology.

Northern inspiration

I love the city of Sudbury. As a kid growing up in Parry Sound, it was a big city "only" 99 miles north, and as such, a destination for shopping, restaurants, adventure, and incidentally, my first ever rock concert: Triumph in the Sudbury arena, on the Thunder 7 tour! I'm fond of the toughness of northern towns like this, with their gritty aura, their fading taverns, their haphazzard town planning, their odd juxtapositions of faded economic glory and new government money. I like the rocks, the trees, the trucks, the cold. I like the hockey feeling in the air. I like the cheap draft - $3.35 a pint - in weathered old watering holes like the Towne House Tavern. I like trains running through the middle of town. I like the northern Ontario accent, with its French and Native nuances. And I must admit, I like liking these things, knowing that not everyone does.

As of two weeks ago, though, I think a few more people are convinced. The Ontario Conference of Folk Festivals brought about 500 musicians, artistic directors, radio personalities, and miscelleneous other members of the Ontario roots music scene to "The Rock" to do business and play music for one righteous weekend. The music community is still abuzz with the warm feelings that were generated in this cold city, and none more so than me.

A lot of good things went on, from the official showcases and workshops to the impromptu late night jam sessions. Hands were shaken, cards were exchanged. Awards were handed out. New contacts were made and old ones renewed. Synergies were formed. Pints were lifted. One heck of a lot of songs were sung, and it just felt great. I imagine anyone who was there would say the same.

But for the record, here are my four personal highlights, in no particular order:
1) Performing with signer-songwriter James Jones for the Grade Sevens of Lansdowne Elementary School. I'm not into being overly political, but I must point out that the 45 minutes we spent amusing and bemusing them with our acoustic music was THE CLOSEST THING TO A MUSIC PROGRAM THEY HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. We are doing our level best to create a society of uncreative I.T. drones, it appears. Musicians, take note: the children of your society need you like never before.

2) Watching the Manitoba ensemble Das Macht SHOW! play an impromptu concert in the Ramada Hotel elevators. Song finishes, everyone claps, the doors close and they disappear. 2 minutes later, they reappear, having played for the other floors along the way. The best part: the security guard, drawn by the noise, shows up - just a second too late to see what was going on. Confused by the gathered audience, he looks around, hops into the empty elevator, and disappears. Two minutes later, the doors open- and there is the band, playing yet another tune! Where the security guard wound up, no one knows to this day...

3) The Towne House Tavern. I can't tell you how many folkies confessed to me that they were intimidated or put off by this classic northern bar and concert venue. I'm sure they must have changed their minds by now, but let me state the case to be certain: yes, the place looks rough. So would you if you had been standing on the same corner in Sudbury for 50 or 60 years. Yes, they sell Northern Ale, not Fancy Urban Beer. (Which I also enjoy); Drink up, it's cheap, it's local, and it's made of good northern Ontario water. Yes, there are pickled eggs behind the bar. It's a cultural thing, trust me. You don't have to eat them, it's just good to know you can. Finally, if anyone remains unconvinced, I will simply point out that the graffiti in the men's washroom at the Towne House Tavern in Sudbury is the smartest, most diverse, and most interesting graffiti I have seen anywhere.

4) Driving south on Sunday afternoon. Even the sky didn't want the weekend to end; the sun seemed to take 3 hours to set; approximately the time it took to get from Sudbury to Barrie. And for much of that time I was driving on the new highway 400 through my old stompin' grounds in the Parry Sound area. It's one heck of a highway, for good and for ill, (I'll write a whole piece on that later), but the key thing in this instance was that it's opened up a whole lot of really beautiful bush that looked absolutely spectacular in the intense golden light of the late autumn sunset.

Those are my highlights. There weren't any low lights. The weekend was so magical, even the cold weather made me feel warm.