Lunch at a fry truck – across the highway Looney

Toonie – here Jones & co. realized a north-westerly

course will not strike – Deshkan Ziibi / La Tranche /

the Thames – turned southwest for twenty miles –

due south twenty more – treaty boundary an artifact

of their searching – leave Arthur on Wellington 12 –

trees cut back – no road quite the right direction –

angles skew – more south-southwest than south or

southwest – adjust north every couple km to maintain

the bearing – I am alone in a hatchback – following

lost men – a river with three names through the corn

– water bowing – doubling back – road plowing on

south – bridges flush with the road – you don’t feel

them – through the gate – Protestant graveyard –

Indian Rd – right to Chieftain St – left to Mohican Dr

– Woodstock – river straightens – or was straightened

– highway parallel to rails – parallel to river – a

museum of transportation – turn south – Lower Cow

Path onto Imperial Rd 73 – Mossley – Lyons –

Candyville – Copenhagen – police college on the left –

honey farm on the right – quilts printed on road signs

– ELGIN COUNTY’S SETTLEMENT STORIES –

former community hall – Aylmer Express print shop

– to the mouth of Catfish Creek emptying into Lake

Erie – a lone plaque – commemorating a royal salute

– THE SURRENDER OF BELLE ISLE TO HIS

BRITANNIC MAJESTY ON JUNE 7, THE DEFEAT

OF THE CHEROKEES JULY 10 AND THE

REDUCTION OF PONDICHERRY IN THE EAST

INDIES – farms backing onto the shoreline –

obscuring the lake – Port Burwell – HMCS Ojibwa –

a British submarine beached behind the pharmacy –

I turn south to the bluffs – back up to the bridges –

east over the tributaries – ploughed field on one side

– marsh of the national wildlife area on the other –

gauntlet of starlings line the shoulders – I fill the tank

at Dover – stretch my back – slip into the washroom

of the Dairy Queen – barbed wire blocks the private

road – solar farm replaced the continent’s largest coal

plant – still active according to Street View – 40 km/h

from here on – winding lane east along the lake shore

– summer homes – Erie encroaches – shrinking the

tract – each passing storm