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The fun & fascinating stories of Supply Chain & Logistics.
Bryndis 0:01
Hi. My name is Bryndis Whitson, and you're listening to the Zebras to Apples podcast, the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. Canada is a really vast country with a lot of intricacies as you drive across the country, and you're seeing it from a truck, or from your car. In 2022 my husband and I drove from Calgary, Alberta to Moncton, New Brunswick in four and a half days. (We) did 4700 kilometers along that period of time. We then went to Pei and Nova Scotia, and then continued back west. In total, it took us about 30 days for the entire trip. I really wanted to kind of showcase in this episode what are some of the tips and tricks as you're driving across the country. What are some things to be mindful of, things to look out for, things to kind of consider. That's what we're discussing today: moments that we should really look into, and really factor in if you're looking to drive across Canada, in its vast and ever evolving geography and supply chain. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.
Bryndis 1:33
In 2022, my husband Scott and I drove from Calgary, Alberta to Nova Scotia, and we drove in our vehicle because it was timing, prices, etc, because it's 2022 and it's just after COVID, or just during COVID, really, because I just gotten sick, and we decided to drive, because the cost of a rental vehicle, if we'd flown, was so expensive. Luckily, it was June, but we had a deadline of Saturday. Our original plan was that we were going to leave on the Saturday, we were going to take our time. And then my dad and the dog, who were coming on the trip, decided to not come on the Thursday, and we were leaving on Saturday, so we had to change all of our plans, figure everything else out, and we left on the Monday as opposed to Saturday. So we had to suddenly drive 4700 kilometers in four and a half days, because we had to make sure that we were in New Brunswick by Saturday morning, because the wedding was on Saturday afternoon, so we suddenly are now leaving on Monday at 1pm as opposed to Saturday. Now we're on a tight timeframe, and we've got to drive across the entire country, and there's different sections that if you drive across Canada, you start to learn about. This is not my first time driving, at least to Quebec or Ontario, but there's things you have to consider.
Bryndis 3:38
I would regularly make the drive to Winnipeg for many years, because that's where my grandparents lived, and so I'm used to getting in the car. You drive 16 hours. If you're feeling really tired, you might stop in Brandon. These are your places that you stop. These are your areas, and you keep on going. As a Canadian, we often look at our travel in hours, not necessarily kilometers or timings, and so it's not unusual for Canadians to get into the vehicle and drive 16 hours to the next spot because you gotta go visit your grandparents or you know someone two provinces over. So on this trip, we leave and we're like, okay, because we've run into experiences before where you don't have a place to stay at the end, but you just aren't gonna hope for everything. So we drove from Calgary to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. That's the first kind of area. We never quite knew where we were going, because we were trying to maximize as much daylight as possible until we got tired. To give you an. Idea it, according to Google Maps, is seven hours and 12 minutes from Calgary to Regina, or just outside of Regina, which is Moose Jaw, and it's 692, to 743 kilometers. You just get in the car and you start going, but you learn things about different transportation systems. We're looking at the trucks. We're looking at the vehicles. We're, you know, looking at various things. We're chatting, we're listening to music as much as we can. And we get to Moose Jaw, and we're thinking, okay, it's Moose Jaw, we'll be fine, and we'll have a place to stay because it's Moose Jaw. It's a smaller, mid size kind of city. It's not too big, and every hotel room is booked in the entire town, but why? And we realized that every parking lot is full of white trucks. So if you get used to white pickup trucks and construction and different areas, whether you've been in construction areas, you realize what these moments are about. And so you're like, Okay, white vehicles means construction. What construction would be happening around Moose Jaw, like, okay, definitely around kind of, one of the major train lines in Canada, they're having major reconstruction projects, so you factor those in. There's other kinds of areas where you learn other fun, little random pieces of trivia. And it's just random pieces of trivia that I now just lodge in my head. Like, in Madison on the way into Medicine Hat. It's one of the steepest grades in the entire CP, KC line, at least in Canada, because it's just one of the steepest areas, because you suddenly have to go into a valley when you go into Medicine Hat. So there's these neat pieces that suddenly happen. So the next day, we go to Moose Jaw, and we go all the way past Kenora, Ontario, which means that this is the day where we drive three provinces in one day. So we start in Saskatchewan, we drive across half of Saskatchewan. We drive across all of Manitoba, and we enter Kenora, Ontario. And that one, just to give you an idea, according to Google Maps, is 865 kilometers, or eight hours and 23 minutes and again, there's the little things that are a little different, and there's little intricacies for our country. So if you've ever regularly driven to Winnipeg, there is this spot that a regular person who drives this road over their lifetime knows about something just that's called the tree. It's flat, and there you see a lot of farmers, fields and stuff like that, and there's suddenly this tree. They have done everything possible to make sure this tree stays. It kind of spans over a little bit of the Trans Canada, but out of nowhere, there's a tree right on the highway. At the time, I posted a picture of the tree, and everyone was like, oh my god, goodness. It's the tree. The tree, the tree. So if you've ever driven that part, you know what the tree is.
Bryndis 9:06
You get in from like Moose Jaw to Regina, and this is where the transportation supply chain geek in me comes back again, because on the edge of Regina on the west side is a place called the global transportation hub. So the global transportation hub started, or GTH started on June 24 2009 and it's looking to be a really large inland port. And inland ports are locations where major railway lines, highway networks, distribution centers, etc, are all located within a certain geographic land area. But in Calgary, that's not quite how our inland port is developed, but Regina, Winnipeg, etc, that's what it is, a very large conglomeration of land and different areas. In 2013 I was lucky enough to be able to fly to Regina and meet up with a researcher that we had named John Paul Rodrigue, and we were doing a study on refrigerated containers and refrigerated cargo, specifically its impacts in Western Canada, but also kind of across Canada. We were lucky enough to get a tour of Regina and of the 1 million square foot Loblaws facility, which services a lot of Western Canada's dry goods and refrigerated products for all of the Superstore Loblaws chain of foods. So No Name, No Frills, etc. So it's such a great facility. It's fascinating. Every time I drive by now, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is a global transportation hub, and now there's a sign to it, and this is what it is, and Scott, who I'm normally in the car with, and maybe his dad, kind of humor me and listen to my stories, just kind of like I'm doing now. But it's so neat. But then you keep on going, and you keep on going along the Trans Canada Highway, and you get to Winnipeg. Winnipeg as well, they have the area kind of around Winnipeg, which they have the perimeter highway, and they were one of the first cities in Canada to have an area where you kind of skirted the city, so that if you were major trucks or driving through, you would go around. The other thing that I love about Winnipeg is they actually have CNCP used to have, right? Still do, both of their main lines, or the CPKC, go through Winnipeg. So when my mother was growing up in Winnipeg, my grandfather worked for the CN railway, but a lot of other people work for CP railway, or CPKC now. It's been a railway town, especially in the 1950s-1960s but it still has those roots. Winnipeg is also this interesting moment where we go from prairies to- this is the geography major for me. We go from prairies and we start going into more lakes and forest, and we go more into the Canadian Shield. And so when we decided to pass through Kenora, we were starting to lose daylight, and in this spot of Kenora to Dryden, Ontario is very fast, even though the speed limit is like 100 to 110 kilometers an hour. It is normally mainly a two lane highway, so one lane going west, one lane going east, and it, for me, is one of the scariest, most dangerous parts of the entire stretch of the Trans Canada Highway. So for that aside, we also ended up in a construction site dust cloud, not really labeled. So we decided, let's stop for the night and couldn't really find any place to stay. So that's one of the nights, we discovered that in Ontario they have great rest stops, pull outs, areas where you can quickly kind of rest for a few minutes. You're not really allowed to sleep overnight. But in this case scenario, we decided this, this was the safest option for us. And then in a very typical Canadian drive across Canada, we slept in our van. My husband, Scott, was able to, because he was doing most of the driving, was able to really have a fairly good sleep in the passenger seat. I however, not so much in the driver's seat, because you're always you got the steering wheel. You don't want to hit the brakes, you don't want to hit the gas, even though it's in park and everything's off and you've got trucks whizzing by you on the highway. But we woke up at like three four in the morning to the call of the loon on the lake (that) we were stopped by and then said, Okay, we're both up. Let's maximize the daylight as much as possible. And so, because we've also got a one hour time change happening at some point. Now we go from Kenora, Ontario to Cochrane, Ontario. According to Google Maps, it is 1200 kilometers and a minimum of 13 hours. So at 4:30 in the morning, we set off to drive across Ontario. We know that driving across Ontario will take us at least two days, because it's a very big province. It just goes and it goes and it goes and it goes and it goes some more, and then it goes some more. And you also, when you're driving across Canada, you have to factor in, do I take the northern route, or do I take the southern route? So the northern route, which is the way we took on the way to the East Coast, is highway 11. You can also take Highway 17, which goes along the Great Lakes. You're going downhill as you go east, and you go uphill as you go west. If you take Highway 17. In 2007, we took highway 17 to Ottawa. So we decided we would take Highway 11 on the other way there. Scott had never seen it. I had never seen it going east. And so we took highway 11. The other reason we were taking highway 11 is because it's a little bit quicker, especially when you have a quick timeline, and you gotta keep on going. We set out at, as I was saying, 4:30 in the morning, and in the time change of 5:30 we didn't get to Cochrane, Ontario until just after nine o'clock at night. So we just kept on going. We were able to do the stretch between Kenora and Dryden in daylight at 4:30 in the morning with barely any cars, barely any traffic, and it was the most enjoyable time that I've ever had driving that stretch of road. To give you an idea, on the stretch of road, it's very curvy, and like I was saying, it's only mainly one lane either way. And so you have trucks or vehicles and cars that tailgate on the section because they've got time to catch and they're tired of driving or whatever. And so they like to tailgate. They like to pressure it, just, it's not a great stretch. I highly recommend it at 4:30 in the morning, because it's great at that spot. So you get these other moments that are so wonderful.
Bryndis 18:58
So you get this other piece, though, where you go from Dryden to Thunder Bay. If you ever look at a map of Canada, you're like, okay, it shouldn't be too bad. Shouldn't be too far. Shouldn't be that awful. It just takes you three to five, four to five hours to drive that stretch, and you just keep on going. And you keep on going because there's nowhere else to really go. It's a lot better now. But when I did this route in 2007/2008 there's a lot of cell phone dead zones as well, too. There's one point in 2008 when I was driving back with my mother, I went into a gas station, and basically, I think they spent most of their day telling people when they would get cell phone reception. And they would say, are you this company? You'll get it this corner. Are you with this company, you'll get to this corner. They would just know exactly when people were going to get cell phone coverage, because that's just the stretch of the road. And so you just keep on going. But there's still kind of neat things to see along the way, because there's trees, there's rocks, if you can look at those kinds of things. But the thing I love about once you get into Thunder Bay is the type of rock that they have in Thunder Bay impacts the color of the highway. And so suddenly you go from the gray highway, the typical highway that you're normally looking at, and it's suddenly around Thunder Bay has a very pink tinge to it, or like a little bit of a purple tinge. And that's because a lot of the rocks around Thunder Bay have amethyst. And so suddenly the highway suddenly has a purple, pinkish tinge, because they're actually using the local aggregate. It's a great place to quickly stop. Every small town across the country has, or Thunder Bay is not a town, it's a major city, but you have different things that are specific to them, there's a certain donut here. There's a certain, you know thing here. There's monuments along the way, there are statues, there's things to keep you entertained as you suddenly drive past the world's largest pasanka or in Vegreville, or you suddenly see the largest bunnock in Macklin, or all these little small towns have the world's largest something. At least in Thunder Bay, you can stop, you can stop, you can do all those other things. There's a really great and I am so grateful for this Canadian Tire, but they've got all these different spots along that way. But then you start to keep on going. You're still driving along 17, and shortly as you get to Nipigon, there's a bridge, and it truly is. The Bridge at Nipigon is the bridge that unites the country at this one spot, and it's right before highway you can either go highway 11 or highway 17 or highway 17 and highway 11 ends, and everything converges kind of right around this bridge. And this bridge is very, very important to the Canadian transportation system. So there was a bridge in 1974 that was built. There was also a bridge in 1937. I'm looking at Wikipedia to make sure I've got the right information. This is my first time seeing this bridge, because when I'd driven in 2007 2008 this bridge had not been built yet, but I'd heard about this bridge, and part of the reason I'd also heard about this bridge is because it closed, and so the bridge re-opens officially, and Construction started in 2013 the full bridge open in 2018 but it opened officially in November of 2015 so we've got the bridge. But then the bridge was closed to traffic in 2016 and they had to quickly figure out what was kind of occurring, because the main deck girder failed because during a winter storm, which caused the deck to actually lift 60 centimeters, and which, of course, would for safety considerations, close the bridge. We had to quickly detour, but it's winter, you gotta quickly fix that out. But you know, we were Canadians, especially when the entire livelihood of the Canadian transportation system is in the balance, because of this actual bridge being shut down, they were able to partially reopen to traffic the next morning and after, you know, after 17 hours. So they were able to really make sure that they were improving the entire cable system, the entire system to make sure it keeps on going, but that's why this bridge looks like a normal bridge, but it is truly the biggest connection between Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes and Atlantic Canada, to Western Canada, and it's this bridge that unites this country and our entire Canadian trucking transportation system. It's just one of those things. So in this spot, we take the northern route at Nipigon. Once you span the bridge, then you decide which route you go. So this time, we decided to go and tank highway 11, and we've still got quite a ways to go. And this is the other thing that I love as a geography major. This is where that kind of really kicks in. Is because at a certain spot in this area, the water no longer flows either west or east. It actually flows north. They tell you on the highway what the spot is. And so you have these neat kinds of things. So the other thing that happens especially in highway 11, is it really is a true Canadian moment as well. I mean, everything's a true Canadian moment. But suddenly, especially around Campus, Casing Hearst Ontario, the majority speak French. You really are in Franco, Ontarian country, in Canada. And so you learn, you're dialoguing a little bit more in French. There's also, you know, we went into a fast food chain restaurant, and the pop machine wasn't working, and she was trying to explain that to us in French, and luckily, we understood enough French to know what was the situation. But we would reply in English. She would reply in French, and that's just kind of how the conversation went. And so at this spot, some guy is trying to fix this pop machine, but he probably doesn't have the right parts. And because you're in northern Ontario, it's going to take a while for the parts to actually arrive. So that just adds in these extra supply chain issues that you see in these spots. There's also near Cochrane, Ontario, where the start of another major train line system kind of kicks in. And so there's need of spaces.Another tidbit for you is, if you're in and around Cochrane, Ontario, and it's nine o'clock at night and you're trying to find a place to stay, it's going to be a little tricky, because especially at least In the summer or late spring, at nine o'clock, they've shut down all of the even if they have vacancies, they've shut down the offices. So if you don't have a place to stay, you're really looking. We did eventually find something, and we didn't end up having to stay another night in a rest stop. So then we go from Cochrane, Ontario, and neat, interesting sites. There was Amish going into town, all along the highway, a whole bunch of neat things.
Bryndis 28:38
If you follow Google Maps, you get to a town called Matheson, and this is where what Google Maps tells you, versus reality versus safety becomes a situation to consider. So at this point, Google Maps will tell you to then take in the 101 as opposed to the 11. And the 101 will take you through Quebec immediately. And it's a very lovely kind of area, but it's a little bit of off roading, slower speeds, and you have potential for a flat tire, which I've had no people that have had flat tires because they took this route. But instead, if you continue taking the 11, it'll be an extra half an hour, but you'll be on a safe stretch of road where it'll be easy to get a tow truck if something goes wrong with your vehicle, there's more traffic, so there's more eyes on the situation. So when you get to that spot, if Google Maps tells you to take the 101, and not the 11. This is where you consider taking the 11. So you keep on driving. So we wake up, you know, and we're driving down, and the 11 starts to a smaller town, continues to go there, and then you reach North Bay. And when you reach North Bay, that's where the 11, the 17, reconnect. And then you continue along Trans Canada. But now you've reconnected those two stretches that divide up and you North Bay. I've never been so excited to see a grocery store or the Sobeys or something like that in my life. Or at least at the time, I was like, oh my goodness, fresh vegetables and all these other things.I mean, there is fresh vegetables along the other route, but because of the distribution system, it's less serviced than North Bay is, because it's easier to get to North Bay, and so highly recommend it. And so you get to North Bay, and then you continue to drive it along. This is where you start getting into deep river, Chalk River, where the nuclear reactors and power plants were in Ontario and still are. Then you get into Petawawa, which is the military base and one of the largest bases in the country, and then you head into Ottawa. And for us, we kind of kept on going through Ottawa because we had time. We're now already, it's already coming into Thursday, and we still have to get from all of Quebec and all of New Brunswick, and so we got to Dorval, when you get to the 417 in Ottawa to Montreal, it's a really good stretch of road, a lot of service. The 401 on the southern route is really good as well, too, because it's got a lot of rest stops. It's got a lot of service stations. It's really well designed for quick rest stops with a gas station, a fast food restaurant and a convenience store, and then you go up to a fast food restaurant, a gas station, convenience store, or in a spot for a washroom break or whatever. And so similar to the 417, it's fast, it's quick moving. When you get into the Montreal area, you have to really know where you're going. You have to pay attention. If you really are used to freeways. That's great. If you're not so used to freeways, it's very fast, and there's a lot of traffic and there's a lot of lane switching, so you really have to be on your toes at that spot. For us, we kind of hit two nights of not really a great sleeps. And so we stopped in Dorval for the night, so we continued on from Montreal the next day, just to give you an idea, from Cochrane, Ontario to Dorval, it is 910 kilometers, or approximately nine hours and 41 minutes, according to Google Maps. So then the next day, we're in the home stretch. We go from Dorval to Moncton, New Brunswick, and that one is approximately 1017 kilometers, and it takes you about exactly 10 hours, according to Google Maps. We also ended up with a bit of rain. And so we took, for safety. Of course, we weren't going as fast, but you continue going, you've got, you're going along the St Lawrence Seaway, which, hopefully we'll get a chance to really chat about in another episode. And you can continue on. And then you get to river dulu, and one of my favorite spots along the route, which is a great name for a location which is St Louis Dahaha. I love seeing that. And I also know that I'm in the home stretch of New Brunswick when I see that too. So you go through Grand Falls, you go through Emmisden, you go through all of these different kinds of areas in Quebec. It's kind of a lot of divided highway, pretty good stretches. When we were there in 2023 there was a lot of construction happening on the Quebec to New Brunswick route. So a lot of good additions to divide the highway a little bit more. Your geography really becomes a lot of trees and bushes etc, and you keep on going. So we finally made it to New Brunswick at not quite 10 o'clock at night, but the rehearsal dinner was complete, and we made it in time for the wedding. So that's just kind of a span of what it takes to like the different things that you see along the Trans Canada Highway, along those routes. But, you know, there's the other kind of factors, because we've also, later that trip went to Nova Scotia in different areas there. When you're driving to Prince Edward Island, you take the Confederation bridge, or you can take the ferry from Pei to Nova Scotia. The Confederation bridge is from New Brunswick to PEI. And so you see these areas where you kind of drive across, you don't pay to enter, but you pay to leave for the Confederation bridge. And the other thing is, with the Confederation bridge is make sure you stay the speed limit. Because they clock you. They take a picture of your license plate on the way in, and they take a picture of your license plate on the way out. And if you have gone faster than this certain route, you're definitely a little bit too fast, and you will get a ticket. Between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, there is a stretch of highway. If you also take the Trans Canada to Newfoundland, you actually take the ferry from near Sydney to either port aux Basque or St John. And that is a 15 hour minimum ferry ride, one, and that's the one to St John, I think it was 16. The other one's nine. And so you do those ferries. When you're taking the North on the way back, we took the, when we were driving through Ontario, we took the 17.
Bryndis 37:54
On our way back on Canada Day, we actually took North Bay Ontario to Terrace Bay, Ontario, along the 17 which takes you along the Great Lakes. So Manitoulin Island, it takes you along Lake Superior. It takes you along a few other Great Lakes. And so that one is 911 kilometers, or approximately 10 hours to take that route. On the way west, you go up, so you go up in elevation on the way, if you're going east, you're going down. So those are factors to bring in for, like breaking in and around those areas. If your vehicle takes premium, make sure you fill up at a certain spot, because there's less premium available, and it's just a consideration. And so these are different factors that you bring in with the Canadian transportation system. And I can geek out all day long, as you can tell, because I've already talked for quite a bit just talking about driving across the country, or at least from Alberta to Nova Scotia and back. That's kind of part of the reason I love our great country and its transportation system. This is just a short window into a 4700 kilometer journey in four and a half days. And I hope you enjoyed this episode, and thank you so much. And have a wonderful day.
Bryndis 39:59
Thank you for listening to this Zebras to Apples podcast episode. I hope you enjoyed the showcase of the fun and fascinating stories of supply chain logistics. If you liked this episode, I would love it if you could give it a rating and review. For more information about this topic, you can go to zebrastoapples.com or follow Zebras to Apples on the social media platform of your choosing, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter X, Blue Sky or LinkedIn. You can support the show on Patreon. Also, check out the show notes below. Please join me again for another episode of Zebras to Apples. Have a wonderful day.