To Kenora, ON

"You're Mister Choo Choo!"

There was a pause. "Yes, I'm a Mister Choo Choo, there're lots of us you know." Mike came back well, from my unexpected outburst. He had just told me he was an engineer for the Canadian Railroad.

"Wow, that is so cool! I have a friend that would be flipping to be sittin' next to a real train engineer."

"I used to feel that way myself 20 years ago, eh. Now it's just a job."

"Yeah, but you're in a train, I'll bet you see some lovely countryside."

Mike paused and considered the route of the train. "Yeah, a lot of it isn't by the road and there isn't traffic all day long, eh. It's nice, I guess you just get used to the view after a while."

It turns out the day-to-day life of a Train Engineer in Canada can be monotonous. Mike's run is from Winnepeg to Schreiber. At Schreiber, Mike turns his trainload of grain or coal or other cargo over to a new engineer who takes the train further east. These are not the days of Casey Jones, the days of steam, where one engineer worked with one engine. These are diesel engines not steam, big 60,000 horsepower motors, running at 800 - 1000 RPM spinning a generator that powers enormous electric motors that drive the wheels and move engine and cargo along. At Schreiber again Mike takes over a different engine and heads back West again. No, this is not the age of steam.

"I drove a steam engine once. It's really different."

"I'll bet, you have to shovel all of that coal!"

"Well, there is someone else for that, eh. But there are a lot more gauges and you have to stop every 40 miles or so and fill up with water. They're really different. There was another fella that was watchin' over me. I only drove it a hundred miles or so, but it was really different."

In Northern Canada there are tiny towns that have no roads to them but there is a rail line. Mike has never driven (engineered?) those lines but he knows of them.

"On those lines, if you see someone standing by the track, you stop the train and pick them up."

"They can be standing anywhere?"

"Oh yeh, anywhere. You don't know where someone might have come from up there. They might be miles from anywhere, if they are standing by the tracks, you stop and pick them up. That's just what you do, eh."

It is as simple as that on the Northern lines in Canada. I suppose in the middle of the Canadian Winter you could feasibly be saving someone's life. Next time I should take a train across Canada. I wonder if you can do that, traveling only during the day, Evening you would disembark and catch a new train at sunrise. What a nice way to see the country that would be!

It was an interesting evening. At one point a joke exchange was going 'round the group. It came my turn. I don't know many jokes and most of them are pretty bad. I told a banjo-player joke (if you see a a banjo player and a frog dead on the side of the road what's the difference between them? - The frog was on the way to a gig. - - I told you I only remember bad jokes.) The fellow on the other side of me said "I play the banjo."

Erik was probably the only banjo player in the county. I was the only person he had ever spoken to who (other than his uncle who taught him) knew what "clawhammer" was without his explaining. Clawhammer, also known as frailing, is thought to be the original style of banjo playing before Scruggs and Tenor styles became popular. The thumb rests on the top high string, plucking in a monotonic counterpoint, while the nail of the index finger plucks out the melody out on the bottom string on the down strokes. It is a lovely and melodic style typically played on open back banjos which gives it a softer more "plunky" sound as opposed to the bright, fast and clattery sounds of Bluegrass/Scruggs style.

There wasn't too much to talk of. I have fooled around with frailing on a bit on Banjo, not enough to consider it playing. The conversation consisted mostly of naming off tunes, humming a few bars and agreeing that it was a nice tune.

-=-

The drive that day was, again, a lovely one. As I continued West I moved out of the hills and began to see working country again. A few small barns with a few small tractors working a few small fields. A few drives off of the highway onto dirt, but they were all out-and-back runs... nothing as exciting as driving a different through route, just sight-seeing diversions.

When I landed in Kenora. I found a place to repair the flat tire I had acquired out in the woods. It was also laundry day for me, the perfect activity while waiting for a tire to be repaired, provided they don't go together too often. I found a wonderful Laundromat where every washer was a front loader. Now this was how things should be. The day ended talking of trains and banjos. I had been warned there were bears about, but didn't see any when walking back to my room.