Manitoulin island.

We stood out on the highway for about 15 minutes, picked up by a business man with a wife, 2 daughters, and a secure job at Telus. Nice guy, thought he was completely straight until he told us that he bought his first house by selling and growing weed in collage. Huh.

He dropped us off at some intersection where there was a little store that sold milk, gas, and fireworks... or something. We stood on the highway for no more then 5 minutes, and that's when Peggy picked us up. She talked on her cellphone for about half an hour and Jp and I just sat there in silence. When she got off the phone Peggy told us that she just got back from Malaysia after meeting her online boyfriend for the first time who is a pro soccer player from South Africa. She lives just outside of Perry Sound going to school there taking business. Peggy was on her way to Manitoulin island, where shes from to visit her mother and tell her all about her trip.

Peggy was a sweet lady, probably only 4-6 years older then me and seemed quite in touch with her roots, and heritage. She told us stories and tales about the history of Manitoulin island, and asked us if we wanted to go there. We both agreed that it sounds like a nice idea, and that we had no definite plans for our trip anyway, so why not. Peggy took us to her mothers house on the reserve where we were welcome to stay the night. Her mother was known as nothing else but 'Sweetie Pie', so we called her Sweetie for short. He brothers and sisters were there, and they were all really sweet people. They told us stories about there lives on Manitoulin island, their culture, pow wows, traditional dresses, and dances, the materials used as well as folklore that went along. I learned a lot about the Ojibwe that night, I found their beliefs to be similar to the Nakoda first nations group that I'm familiar with. Peggy was planning on taking us for a drive around the island the next morning to show us where all the stories that she told us that night had actually taken place. Everything seems fine and swell, until about 2 am when I got tired and Peggy got drunk. Jp and I went to bed and all we could hear was Peggy yelling and screaming, getting totally wasted all by her self. At about noon Peggy came storming down the stairs yelling "get up get up!" and came and sat beside us on the couch. She didn't make much sense, mumbling and talking about being a two face, until she leaned forward into the light we understood. She fell off her bike riding to her grandmothers house, at about 9 am totally wasted, and smashed the shit out of her face. Does anyone remember when I fucked my face? It wasn't quite as bad as that, cause she didn't break anything, but it was close. We felt so sad for her, but we couldn't say anything to her cause she was in a totally different world. We decided that it was probably a good idea for us to get out of there cause Peggy wanted Jp to drive her car to go and pick up her son ( I know right, where the hell did that come from?) so we could go on a nice pic nik. Hummm, no...

Sweetie felt bad for us, so she took us out for breakfast, and took us to see the church (that was originally built by the Christians until it burnt down and took the priest with its fiery blaze) that was built in a circle underground, she also took us to a basket weaving party at the cultural centre, then bought us some nice cards and a little turtle with another turtle carved inside of it out of stone. She walked us to the highway, gave us a blessing with tobacco, and pointed at a car and said, "theres your ride." Sweetie was right, the car pulled over and picked us up. We said our thank yous and left that magical, but bizarre place... Manitoulin Island.

Id like to go back and visit Sweetie one day, maybe the next time I do the cross Canada trip.