Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies Read Online Free PDF Page A

care of their patch and not overfish it, or there would be nothing there for future generations. When Merril finally
     retires, his daughters will carry on, which will make five generations of the McInnes family fishing their piece of the bay.
    Arriving at the first buoy, we threw the hook, catching the line and hauling it up to flip over the hydraulic block. Up came
     the pots, some with lobster and some without. The little ones were tossed back, but those big enough to keep were banded,
     their claws closed with rubber bands, before they went into the tank. While the girls and I sorted the catch, the pots were
     rebaited and went straight back to the bottom. And so it wenton, pot after pot after pot, Boorman doing battle with lobsters determined to snip off his fingers.
    The season only lasts nine weeks, but from what the girls were telling me, it makes them enough money for the entire year.
     The really choice lobsters – the big ones with decent-sized claws – are tagged with a code so that any restaurant or shop selling
     live ones can trace them back to the McInnes family.
    Working with the girls was great fun – they were a really sassy pair who knew the lobster business every bit as well as their
     dad – but four hundred and thirteen is a lot of lobster pots, and when we were finally done, eight hours later, I was absolutely
     knackered. Once the last pot was back in the sea, I hosed down the deck and swept the debris over the side. I have to tell
     you, though, when we started steaming back and I was leaning against the rail with the wake kicking up, I didn’t regret my
     day’s hard labour. This is the kind of back-breaking work that Nova Scotia families have been doing for generations, and though
     I’m not sure I could do it, it is a wonderful way to keep a family together, and with so many of them involved, it gives the
     entire community a tremendous sense of continuity. On top of that, it only lasts a couple of months, after which they have
     the rest of the year to play.
    Back on shore, it was time to eat some of what we’d caught, so with a little help from one of the best chefs in the Arctic,
     I dressed the lobster and carried them out to the hungry crew.
    We hit the road once more, heading on our bikes for the ferry that would take us across the water to the smallest of Canada’s
     ten provinces, Prince Edward Island. After a hard day’s fishing, it was good to be able to doss around on a BMW for a while,weaving in and out of the traffic, sliding the back wheel in the rain and doing pirouettes standing on the seat. I’m particularly
     keen on side-saddle these days, one hand on the throttle, legs crossed, enjoying a good cigar. There’s something about the
     GS1200 that just fits me – it’s a touring bike that’s comfortable enough for the long run and yet still so much fun.
    On the crossing over it was cold, the sky leaden, the sea the colour of slate. But we were on the move and we’d had a little
     tarmac under the wheels and there is nothing to beat that. Our destination was Charlottetown, which was where the whole idea
     of Canada actually started. I was up for a bit of history; a major part of what we were trying to do here was to get under
     the skin of the place, and I admit I didn’t really know much about it.
    When we docked on Prince Edward Island, the heavy trucks rolled off first – the massive Macks and Kenworths, the kind of thing
     I’d driven in Australia on
By Any Means
. I had to pop a wheelie, of course; I mean, this was a new province and the bikes had to be christened properly, and that
     meant on the back wheel. The road was quite delicious, as my old mate Alain de Cadenet would say; a two-lane blacktop, it
     slithered through the countryside along a series of undulating hills with thick woodland on either side. I really wished the
     weather would pick up, though – this was summer, after all, and there had been no sign of the sun whatsoever.
    Gradually the