MacsTravel Blog

We had filled up in Wawa.

In retrospect we should have topped up in Thunder Bay.

When you leave Highway 17 for Highway 11 (also known as MOM’s Road- an acronym for Manitoba, Ontario and Minnesota) to head west towards Quetico at Shabaqua Corners you are greeting with a sign in black and yellow warning you to check your fuel level. These signs are not uncommon in this area of Ontario. We had about a third of a tank, with an hour of driving to our campsite. Feeling confident that we would be able to refill as we departed Quetico for Manitoba a few days down the road, we paid the sign little heed.

After a couple of great days in Quetico we drove off filled with the spirit of adventure and a plan to take the scenic route to Manitoba. We would hug the American border to Fort Francis, turn north up Highway 71 and wind through lake country before reconnecting with Highway 17 in Kenora.

As we turned west out of the campground, I was confident that we would run into a gas station in short order.

This was not the case.

As an aside, Robin the navigator has an obsession with technology and apps in particular. Any app that can get us a deal on celery, or save a cent or two a litre on gasoline is a winner in her book, and as we left Quetico she was furiously scrolling trying to identify the perfect gas station for us that met the perfect intersection of pricing, loyalty card swiping possibilities and (the sweet spot) discounts based on loyalty point accumulation. It is a complex formula that I struggle to understand, but it has served us well over the years.

My first mistake was zooming past the turnoff to the Atitokan, a town 40 km outside of Quetico that, in retrospect, was probably chock a block full of gas stations. We were on a beautiful road with no one behind us and no one ahead of us, forests and lakes on either side. As we continued on towards Fort Francis, a 150 km in the distance, I started questioning the navigator: “When should we see a gas station?”

Robin’s face was bathed in the LED glow of her iPhone. One eye looked in my direction. I stopped asking questions.

Cell service is not a feature folks brag about in Northwestern Ontario. We were struggling to connect, and as a result didn’t have a complete picture of where the closest “perfect station” might be. As I watched the needle move inexorably towards empty I kept my eye on the gauge which indicated how many km were remaining before we ran out of gas. Reassuringly, it read 150 km. We should be able to make it to Fort Francis with a few drops to spare.

Twenty minutes later the gauge still read 150 km. My confidence in technology, never particularly high to begin with, was being tested. Every so often, as the car mounted a particularly long climb Robin would get a signal and say we were only so far from the Great Bear gas station, or that there was an Esso station in a place called Emo (echoes of “Jimmy Eat World!” and “Panic! At the Disco” played in my ears) if we could just hang on for another 200 km.

Presumably we drove through some majestic landscapes: I really couldn’t say as my eye was glued to the dash, and the glowing orange of the “low fuel” light. The gauge was finally dropping– 140, 130, 120, 100– which was reassuring on the one hand, as it suggested that A: it was working and B: we might have enough gas to make it. Then, the number disappeared.

I was driving blind!

Now I realize this was a beautiful summer day and that, if the worst did happen and we ran out of gas, we would no doubt have been helped out by someone heading by. I was grateful that we didn’t have to test that thesis as we rolled into the full-serve Great Bear Gas station. The world’s oldest gas station employee opened the door and as she tottered out in the heat across the dusty lot to help us, the navigator said, “Ask her to put ten dollars in and that will get us to the Esso (where the loyalty card/price/ deductions intersected) in Fort Francis.” Of course I rebelled.

I asked her to twenty dollars worth in.

Reading the mood, Robin found us a classic diner down on the waterfront in Fort Frances: The Harborauge. I’m not sure what a “harborauge” is but the food was great and the coffee was hot.

Refreshed we headed off to the Esso station to fill up and reap the bounty of our loyalty rewards, only to find that it was a home-fuel depository and not a gas station.

We filled up at the nearby Co-op station, and headed north.