August 17
End: Warm Up Inn
Miles: 33.9
Total: 5213.4
In the morning I slept in for a few minutes, enjoying every second in my sleeping bag, which I had been packing up early for the last few days. I then got up and made my way over to a big grocery store, which I found was not open until eight in the morning. I checked the nearby Walmart to find the same story there. I needed the food so I would have to wait.
At Tim Horton’s I got a donut and waited for the store to open. When it did I got plenty of Nutella, though I had been eating a lot of it in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I also grabbed some chips, which I ate on my way out of town. It took a little time, but I got across a bridge out of town and saw a marking for the IAT heading off into the woods on a foot trail. I opted to follow the road instead.
Soon I was off of the pavement and onto the dirt road which led past a pipe where I got more water and past a few houses given a name as if they constituted a full-sized community. Soon a passing truck stopped and I met a couple of nice guys working on a government contract somewhere nearby. They had seen me walking on the highway, and gave me their phone numbers in case I needed help. They told me of a shelter for snowmobilers on the road ahead.
Soon it started to sprinkle, and I donned my rain gear. The rain was not heavy, but it did not stop that whole afternoon. After a couple of hours of rain I decided that I wanted to stop at the shelter, which was probably still a couple of hours ahead, according to the description I was given.
My shorts were soaked and my shirt was damp despite my rain jacket. I listened to music to keep me going, and also found IAT blazes at some point. Finally I found a sign proclaiming the shelter to be a kilometer away.
When I arrived I was happy to find The Warm Up Inn, an enclosed cabin with a wood stove. I took off my wet clothes and jumped into my sleeping bag. Later I attempted to start up the wood stove but didn’t have enough kindling. I wrote in the log book, and admired the writing on the walls. People from Labrador had visited, which intrigued me.
I had some food and enjoyed my slightly early end to the day. After doing a journal entry or two I was too tired to even write. It got dark soon and I fell asleep indoors for the first time since Quebec.
