Back in 1984 when I was 20, I decided I'd go on a long motorcycle tour on my little 400cc motorcycle. I was riding from Ingleside near Cornwall, Ontario out to visit a friend in Winnipeg, Manitoba. That's about a 2,250 Km trip one way. I got as far as Sault Saint Marie by first day's end and pitched tent on some rocks in a swarm of mosquitoes there that night. The second day I got to Kenora, about four hours short of Winnipeg. I didn't roll into Kenora until near 10 pm and it being still the last week of May, was very chilly. Well, if I had been in a car wearing warm enough clothes it would have been chilly. I was freezing! I was also pretty much exhausted having just finished my second ten hour day of riding. For the last couple hours of the ride that day I kept reaching down alternately with my left and then right hand - after putting on the throttle-lock - and grabbing the exhaust manifold to keep my fingers from freezing. (I kept those gloves for years with the palms permanetly seared into a "C" curl.) Of course, like any 20 year old finished their first year of university, I was travelling on a budget so I was pondering my options as I pulled into town. I didn't think I could find a camp-ground at that hour and even if I could, I wouldn't have been able to pitch a tent on account of my shaking and shivering. About then I remembered a story my dad told me. He had hitch-hiked from Cornwall to Chicago in the 1950's to attend a YMCA conference and he said that every time he and his travelling companions got to another town they'd present themselves at the local police station and claim to be vagrants and be locked up for the night. So I located the Kenora OPP detachment, dismounted and waddled in to ask the constable at the desk to please lock me up for vagrancy. "We don't do that any more" he said but they gave me a voucher good for a night's stay at a local hotel. I rolled my bike into their garage for safe-keeping and then wandered a short block or so from the police station to find the Lake of the Woods Hotel and presented the voucher to the hotel clerk. They gave me a key and directed me to a room upstairs over the bar. It had a sink and a bed that felt stuffed with mellons and there was a shared bathroom down the hall. I had the best sleep of my life! The next morning I noticed the rate card on the back of the room door showed the price of the room was $10. I felt well rested and hopeful and a bit cheap and so went down to the desk, reclaimed my voucher and forked over the ten bucks. Then I took the voucher back to the OPP office and retrieved my Kawasaki and embarked on the last leg of my journey. I'd visit Kenora again and I'd stay at the Lake of the Woods Hotel again too. Don't look for the OPP detachment because they've moved it a couple Km north out of town.
Last Updated on Sun, May 2, 2021.