Collossus of Roads.

I sell sunsets down by the seashore.

London, ON – It’s a day spent watching fresh memories, but stitched in reverse.

And at high speed.

That is, of course, until we near Toronto on Highway 401, which is always a centipede of steel and impatient engines. Trucks heave. Lowered cars with cannon-like mufflers try to slip into new lanes unnoticed.

You can feel the collective eye roll.

Work commitments have required us to return all the way home today – what's a thousand kilometres between friends? So, for now, I tuck memories into the centre console, scribbled onto maps over coloured lines I'll likely never cross again. 

But which I'll hold with me forever.

At last: home, sweet home. 

Vitals:

• Time: 12 hours
• Distance: 1,123 kms
• Provinces: Québec, Ontario
• Weather: Sunny and warm
• Wildlife: Hare

A Grey Time.

A blank page unfolds before me.

La Malbaie, QC – Greys slip into nothingness.

As we set out to the mainland, the air swells with pregnant fog. It's like peering through wax paper as the boat pushes into folded waves. Ripples vanish even before they form.

We've joined a group of daytrippers for a tour to Île Nue de Mingan, which sprouts with nature's flowerpots. It's a stone chessboard laid bare by high winds. Beauty, in nakedness.

Botticelli would be proud. 

It's a nice, free trip where we're somehow the only ones not sporting bright red lifejackets – until the horrified captain notices us shivering. An Indigenous member of the tour picks a stick up off the stone beach and tells us it has come from the mainland. It's been gnawed by a beaver.

And there are none here.

Unfortunately, what's gnawing at me now is that we have to cover 1,800 kilometres by the end of day tomorrow.

And we don't reach our car until near noon.

Vitals:

• Time: 8 hours
• Distance: 668.9 kms
• Province: Québec
• Weather: Fog, burning off into beauty
• Wildlife: Porcupine 

No Words.

Seeing the light.

The Gulf Course.

Isolated, in the best possible way.

Île aux Perroquets, QC – Far off in the water, a rock smudges the horizon.

The lighthouse atop is barely visible.

We're waiting for a yellow boat, affectionately named Moutarde, to take us there for the next couple days. A beluga spouts near shore, only increasing my excitement.

Then, the low hum of a small outboard motor.

For five kilometres, we brace ourselves against swollen waves – it has stormed the past couple days and snowed only a few weeks ago.

As we approach Île aux Perroquets, a raft of sea lions nod. Puffins and razorbills (here, "petits pingouins") whir overhead in a spectacle of rapidly shifting dots and dashes – a welcome in Morse code.

As our luck has it, we're the only guests on the island for both days.

CliffsNotes on effective takeoffs.

Our hosts are incredibly hospitable, creating delicious homemade meals from local ingredients: haskap berries, seafood and freshly baked croissants. And always, too much dessert. 

As it's part of the Mingan Archipelago National Park Reserve, tourists visit during the day. But by 4:30, it's just us. Emboldened, thousands of birds drop from the cliffs in batches, peppering the sky in a search for dinner. Sea lions bark roughly from Île Nue, slightly to the east.

Puffins extend their orange feet, fluttering furiously as they land – standing – in holes etched into the cliffs by their shell-like beaks.

With tourists gone, they've come out to play. It's a feathery fireworks finale.

And the sun sets like a flock of flamingos, aflight.

Vitals:

• Time: 35 minutes
• Distance: 51 kms
• Province: Québec
• Weather: Overcast and cold
• Wildlife: Beluga spout, sea lions and countless birds, including puffins

Thunder Run.

The Golden Rule.

Rivière-au-Tonnerre, QC – Needles shed by windswept pines stitch together La Route des Baleines in north-eastern Québec.

Despite hours slaloming the coast, we see no whales. Nor moose, which diamond-shaped signs warn us of at regular intervals. For me, tradition holds.

It is, however, a beautiful-beyond-words drive through the jagged curves of mountains, which open their arms into countless lakes and into the St. Lawrence. Blues touch fingers with the horizon. 

I'm not sure I've taken a more stunning roadtrip east of the Rockies.

At one point, we comment about the lack of tunnels chiselled into the rock. One immediately appears around the next corner. I downshift. We try the same with moose.

Nothing.

On a roll in Sept-Îles.

Our only stop is at Casse-croûte du Pêcheur, in Sept-Îles. There, we have a lobster roll in a restaurant shaped like a giant, kitschy lobster pot. It's nicely toasted and tasty, but contains too much filler. 

Arriving at L'Escale Lam-Air is like stepping into a 1950's-era seaside motel. And I mean that in the best possible way. A Post-it note tells us our key is in the door to the room. We're well beyond cellular service and tourist season hasn't yet started – the hotel doesn't have full-time staff.

In other words: a great place for vacation.

We step off our back porch onto soft sand and over massive rocks filled with fossils, including one of a full fish. Gulls squawk, but we otherwise settle into silence before cracking a crab-flavoured beer. 

The sun set sets in glowing amber through the windows of Saint-Hippolyte church and upon a day filled with more beauty than expected.

But, still no whales.

Vitals:

• Time: 10 hours, 8 minutes
• Distance: 591.2 kms
• Province: Québec
• Weather: Sunny and warm
• Wildlife: None

Seeing the Forest and the Trees.

U-Bear Eats.

Sacré-Coeur, QC – Raindrops have been redrawn as mosquitoes.

As we make our way into the forest, a shape-shifting black cloud swallows the air in front of us. They tattoo our skin. 

It has been a pleasant day spent on a pair of ferries, including in the stunning Saguenay Fjord. Home for the night, though, is at Canopée Lit, in a cabin set high in the trees. It's equipped with a small kitchen, a separate bathroom and a birdhouse, which hangs from a rope.

Come morning, it will be hoisted up to us, holding a toolbox filled with breakfast.

But for now, we bask in the contentment of laying back and staring at the stars through the half-dome skylight, tree branches brushing gently against it like a cat. Silence and peace. 

Apart from the low, insistent buzz of one last, unseen mosquito.

Vitals: 

• Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
• Distance: 66.7 kms
• Province: Québec
• Weather: Fog, lifting, giving way to sun and (finally) warmth
• Wildlife: None

Signs of the Zodiac.

Between swell moments.

Rivière-du-Loup, QC – Rhythmic squawks: an alarm clock.

That and daylight spreading its wings across the sky.

It was all of 4 a.m. 

Apparently, we're far enough north to have much shorter summer nights, which is always an adjustment. It's the between times where a confused mind simultaneously seeks action and sleep.

I just want coffee.

After a sumptuous breakfast, the radio cackles. We're told the waves are too high for the boat to dock and that we'll need to be evacuated by Zodiac. Our hosts seem distressed.

We don our backpacks and rain gear, giddy with adventure.

The journey takes us through the forest, slippery with storm, and into an area otherwise closed for breeding season. The quiet cove shimmers in greens. Ferns fan our faces.

Assuming it's to take us all the way back to Rivière-du-Loup, we're surprised to see a grey, two-seat inflatable slowly rounding the corner.

I've seen bigger boats in a pool.

We immediately catch an oar in the mud and have to circle back. 

But, we soon make it to a larger boat anchored farther out in the water, grins as wide as the swells. Vanishing into the raindrops, our evacuation is complete.

Phare Away.

Alight.

Îles du Pot à l’Eau-de-Vie, QC – In the fog, the St. Lawrence fades from the page.

Imagination fills the remaining space.

Ships hurtle toward the rocky island, sailors’ faces as white as the waves. Each man tugs at a rope with raw hands, clasped in prayer, hoping the storm won't be their demise.

Ashore, the lighthouse keeper stokes triumphant flames in the broad, brick fireplace. He checks the wick burning atop the tower as a creak in the floorboards announces the arrival of additional hands. The glow grows, punching at the gloom.

Sleet hits the windows, rattling me from my reverie. The storm worsens. Winds whistle a maritime tune. 

Built in 1857, the historic red and white lighthouse we're sharing with a couple we've just met has no doubt seen its share of gales. A hundred-and-sixty-eight years later, though, it's still standing. We're told it's the only lighthouse in Canada where you can stay the night.

We climb the tower, looking across the island – now a bird sanctuary. Angry gulls pierce the clouds in slow-moving corkscrews. Razorbills skim the shifting surface of the water. It's moody.

And I can think of few places I'd rather be during a storm. 

Vitals:

• Time: 50 minutes
• Distance: 70.6 kms
• Province: Québec
• Weather: Cloud, leading to severe storms
• Wildlife: Beluga spout; countless birds, including great blue herons, razorbills, murres and gulls

Bedeviled.

Finding this place wasn't a fluke.

Rivière-Ouelle, QC – A driftwood whale sits atop La Baleine Endiablée, bleached by the sun.

It's home for the night after more than 11 hours and nearly 1,100 kilometres on the road. The sun has finally come out at the end of a day painted in blended greys.

So has my French.

Unsurprisingly for us, the auberge hosts a nanobrewery. Out back, picnic tables overlook farm fields that roll up into the mountains,  glistening in the distance. It has been a long, but not particularly taxing day. Still, the idyllic setting is a welcome respite.

We've settled around plates of méchoui – Québecois barbeque pork – with gravy, coleslaw and spiced fries. The server arrives with a 9.5% barleywine.

In a pint glass.

The devilish whale, indeed.

Vitals:

• Time: 11 hours, 14 minutes
• Distance: 1,091.9 kms
• Provinces: Ontario, Québec
• Weather: Fog, cloud and rain, leading to sun
• Wildlife: None