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Astoundingly, we’ve made it nearly 1500 KM into Ontario, with no end in sight. There remains another near 1000 Km to go. There are also few people in the west of the province, with a total of about 1/5 the population of the prairies in the area, despite taking up nearly as much distance. It’s challenging to create a large society when there isn’t a lot of industry to rely on. The problem is, of course, that there isn’t any farming potential west of Sault Ste Marie. Instead, the Canadian Shield takes the whole landmass up, with pine trees lining either side of the highway that we’re biking on. Still, as we broke through Marathon, we discovered an untapped beauty that’s more or less incomparable with anything else in the country.

Despite our minimal interactions with society, we’ve still managed to fit in some excellent journalism; food critiquing. Today we will reveal the astounding revelations of our time in Thunder Bay and eating their famous pastry, the Persian. Then, we try Robin’s Donuts (it was bad) and then we have the greatest Apple Fritters in the world.

After all this faffing about, we discuss how much we love the prairies, and bid our final adieu to the region which so impressed upon us. We walked away a changed people, deeply in love with a strange but beautiful culture that all of us tend to ignore. What does it mean to have a news desert? Sadly the prairies are an undercovered, under appreciated region of the country. Luckily, we have tons of articles coming out about the place— it left a lasting impression on us, and we hope you’ll enjoy what’s to come. Nonetheless, we rank the prairies in our usual lighthearted fashion.

This, and more in this week’s Paper Trail Podcast.

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A&W is clearly the dominant culture of Canada. It’s hard to believe, we know, but as we journey from place to place, it is without doubt that we have discovered the truth: A&W is the most full expression of modern Canadian culture. As the years drag on, and time lapses, Tim Hortons has been overcome by the true fast food chain. Across every town, every city, and in every corner, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be an A&W waiting for you.

We have travelled massive distances since we last updated you— we were in Regina last week, but now? Well, you’ll have to listen to find out. We’ve seen the greatest of Canadian cultures, and the depth of the people around us, but we have questions. Isaac ponders about the logistics and practicality of such a large nation, where Jay thinks that the nation is united nonetheless. He recounts his time reading through a book about city planning, and how poor a job Canadian cities have done to create street culture. Instead… well, read the first paragraph.

In this lighthearted episode, we go into our ideas of the future book about this project, and lament that maybe we’ve done a poor job selling this project as much as we could have. Listen now to hear all this, and more!

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That’s a fancy way to say that we lost. To Front Burner! But we still got the honourable mention, which is something that will be going in our bios and whatnot. Still, we did well with a $2000 budget against Front Burner’s millions, and the other podcasts we were up against. We’re super happy with how things are going.

Meanwhile, we haven’t moved very far since last week. Isaac had to fly home to go to their sister’s wedding, and was gone for a period of about 30 hours (with no sleep). Now the trip is radically freed up as the two of us charge across the country with nothing on our backs weighing us down! Ontario, here we come.

We also talk about the weird experience of talking about separation on social media, and people expecting us to be activists as opposed to journalists, something which confuses people. We explain the details of what it means to be openly on the left, but non partisan, and Agnes, the dog, barks at us in the background.

All this and more this week!