“Hands down, no question about it,” is an emphatic phrase.
There’s one story that resonated with this writer during this past year. And the storyline continues. We’ll get to that.
The year on both sides of the June 21 event saw the usual diverse type of northern Ontario stories on the back roads.
It is time to look at 365 days past with reflection and updates with almost 50 stories.
New year - The ice road
We did it!
We traversed the longest ice road in the world. The “we” included sidekick Brian Emblin from Timmins. And the story started like this in March 2025.
“Road trip.
“This is what happens when you don’t take a winter vacation to a destination anywhere within the 'Gulf of America.'
“Your mind wanders, and wonders about what’s next to underline you are a true Canadian, especially during these times when a rise of Canadianism underlines our 158-year sovereignty.
“What does being a Canadian mean anyway? Wearing mittens and a toque, snowshoes, canoes, back bacon and Bob and Doug McKenzie, maple syrup, poutine - the vanishing Hudson Bay blanket? There are many recognizable symbols to interpret.
“The Wapusk Trail then becomes more than a random thought, it becomes cultural and personal, it is why we are shopping made in Canada and planning trips on our own back roads.
“For some, braggin’ rights is a winter road that starts in Gillam, Manitoba, where the all-season Provincial Road 280, from Thompson, ends.
“At 752 kilometres (467 mi) in length, one way, this access is the longest seasonal road in the entire world. For about five weeks, the winter road is a lifeline to remote communities isolated with only air access.”
There were two stories, the first one and the second, related to this epic north adventure.
The Wapusk Trail is rebuilt every year out of packing and dragging snow, from Gillam eastward first, to Shamattawa, Manitoba, then a very long segment to Wasaho Cree Nation-Fort Severn, the province’s most northern settlement. You cross a provincial border, with no sign, no apparent tariffs and a time zone. The Arctic Ocean is reached on the Hudson Bay coast. Here is the map link. And the Donald Trump antagonism continues.
Cold War connectivity
We planned a return visit to the Cold War bomber-fighter jet crash site in the early spring of the past year to bring closure to the story and its subjects.
The story tells me how to write descriptive text based on personal experience.
“I was cold.
“Chilled to the bone, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, about 100 km NW of Constance Lake First Nation on the Kabinakagami River (Kabina). There was more than a breeze, and it was building.
“Just yesterday, it was different. Arriving in Hearst, it was 25 C in the late pm, shorts weather finally, very still, but within 30 minutes it suddenly plummeted to 17 C…a harbinger of what was to come.
“During the night, there was freezing rain and a smattering of snow. The defrost setting was full on for the windows, and the car was splattered with ice pellets. Winter layers were the order of the day, and the telltale boreal trees were swaying.
“Winter had returned.
“The next day, by my side is Brian Emblin, we are in a 22-foot wooden voyageur canoe with a 25 h.p., and Mylène Coulombe-Gratton, who is 21 years of age, is handling the tiller. She’s our guide, and a competent one she is, taking two older guys on an adventure.
“It isn’t really one of those this time – this trip is a planned commemoration, a day to pay respect to a father and son I have come to know through strange intersecting circumstances, starting with two planes colliding on December 17, 1959, high above this place.
“The motor finally turns over, the first run of the season. Dwindling snowbanks line the course; the water was strewn with tiny iceberg-like pieces of chipped ice headed north. The Kabina River has awakened with the land.
“The north wind is gusting, telling us something.
“In many indigenous cultures, the north wind signifies elders, death, and the wisdom gained through life experiences.
“Just about another year has gone by…”
But this stranger-than-life story started five years ago, in the summer of 2020, when a trek was planned to visit a crash site involving a Cold War bomber and fighter jet that collided high in the sky. “Something went tragically wrong on December 17, 1959, during the height of the Cold War.”
What transpired is now believable. I went on to find the young son of the pilot, who was never found. Why would I do that? This is an avocation, not a job.
In 2023, within a transitional story, I wrote this.
“I have talked to those who claim to communicate with spirits or those who have been led by spiritual guides. The answer I get is usually “for that moment you were in, you were the conduit between the son and father.” Son Denny Treu is planning to come north with his family and visit the site, and leave a memorial.
“For what it matters, I wonder if United States Air Force (USAF) Pilot 1st Lt. Gaylord Treu, MIA, has a casualty classification? I do know he is somewhere out there among the boreal black spruce bogs of northern Ontario waiting for his son. Maybe Denny will leave his dad that knife? He is not missing anymore. He remains missed.”
The planning started for the 2024 visit. Everyone was anticipating.
Listen to Denny Treu on the Back Roads Bill podcast, January 10, 2024.
Then he died, just before he was to journey north in the spring of 2024.
Another year went by, and there had to be a conclusion. And after much planning again, off we went to leave our own memorial to people we have never met.
In the story, entitled The Final Chapter, there is a compelling comparison photo of father and son. I reviewed the past stories for this end-of-year review. Their eyes go right through me to the why of my heart.
Here is the map link with more than 53,00 views to give you a sense of where all this happened.
I think by reading the three Village Media stories over five years and listening to the podcast, you will get a sense of this story of connectivity. That’s the only way I can explain the unexplainable.
Bizarre. It is one of those stories you can’t make up.
Updates
The best photo I captured in 2025 was a full-face picture of a wolf featured in this story. It accompanied interviews with experts and captured the essence of trying to identify wolves.
It takes a great deal of perseverance to get a daytime shot like this. You must find the deer carcass, set up the cameras and then wait. Each day, checking the batteries and the microSD card. There are hundreds of nocturnal photos to scroll through, showing the wary, elusive behaviour. But then you know how lucky you are to capture such a moment.
The beginning of this saga, “Winter is a good time to view animal tracks,” is so true.
“There is nothing like seeing an enormous wolf forepaw printed in the snow. The forepaws are larger – there is then an image created of our largest carnivore in the wild.
“Better still, when you see a fleeting one in real time.
“If you find yourself asking, 'Was that a wolf or coyote or what?' The answer is complex, and we are as curious as the Canidae are.” There’s a lot of new snow, and I am again tracking wolves this New Year.
A recent update on the state of health of Canadian children’s author Robert Munsch. Gah-Ning Tang was the little girl who provided the inspiration for the author to compose ‘Where is Gah-NIng?’ She was featured in this story.
Robert Munsch has chosen the M.A.I.D option - Medical Assistance in Dying. He has been quite vocal about his wishes in the media.
She recently visited him in Guelph.
“Bob is doing as best he can. It's more evident that he is forgetting his words now, but he's still mischievous in his way. He still falls. He's slower than he once was, but his humour is still there. What I admire most about him and all of this is that he is very cognizant of what is happening to him. I have seen many people get diagnosed with dementia, deny it and go downhill quickly.”
Another recent story was on postcards, and there are always new dots to connect.
I receive feedback all the time, this from reader Mike Allen. In it, there are lots of dots to connect.
“Hi Bill, how are you doing?
“I've been collecting postcards for the last 30 years. My main subjects are tourist resorts from Thessalon to Chapleau on Highway #129.
“My great-grandfather moved from North Bay to a little settlement called Hooverville north of Thessalon in 1923 and opened a tourist resort.
"My grandfather moved another 8 miles north on Chub Lake and started Lynn's Camp, that’s where my mother was born and when she got married. Her and my dad started Allen's Camp, which later became Aubrey Falls Trading Post.
“When the Second World War ended, two of my great uncles came back and opened up Walkamata Shores Resort and Snowshoe Camp. In 1990, my wife and I bought back my grandparents' camp and ran it for 34 years. It was called Kegos Camp.
“In 2020, my daughter bought it from us, and we retired. So, she's actually the 4th generation of owning that camp.
“I have probably 200 postcards from camps in the area, including when my grandparents owned it.” Mike has invited me to stop by and see his collection this year.
The storm
For me personally, a major life event occurred on June 21, 2025.
I was encouraged by my long-suffering editor, Carol Martin, who has read too many Back Roads Bill stories over six years, to write about what just happened. Intuition, I think so, I have to thank her, as it was good therapy, as I was in a spiralling state of recession.
The storm was described in part one, starting like this.
I lost a good friend that night; there was the overwhelming, enduring feeling – a loss of a loved one. The story started with this statement.
“Ever felt out of sync with a friend?” (The words began to flow.)
“A 'storm cloud' is a metaphor for someone being upset — conveying the intensity and potential for a sudden, powerful outburst of emotion.
“Most of us remember specific dates like birthdays, times and places — where you were when something significant happened, like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landing, and more recently 9-11.
“This summer solstice of 2025 will not be forgotten by many or me, nor will the time and place when the energy created from a very severe weather event hit Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park (SAM) and the Canadian Ecology Centre (CEC).
“For me, it was 9:12 p.m., June 21, 2025, when I found myself on my knees down on the hardwood floors of Cabin #35, with my hands cupped over my head. It is an event that will have profound effects on many and in so many ways. This is part one of three stories, starting with the 5 W’s.
A second story was different, but connected.
There were many readers who thought the Indigenous wooden sculpture was angry that evening of the fateful storm.
This story told how, through what is comparable to a funeral mass, the sculpture returned to the forest floor.
The details followed this.
“There is an unknown energy out there in Nature – maybe this time in the realm of the paranormal.
“It was the first day of summer – National Indigenous Peoples Day, Saturday, June 21, 2025 and Nbiising had been lying down to rest for two days.
“But it wasn’t a peaceful slumber, a bad dream maybe?
"There was anger and fury through what became a natural disaster. The storm spoke that summer’s evening.
“All part of a longer story – this being Part II.
“We start with a recent ceremonial day, go back 47 years, and then forward, with some dialogue, to the present. And what of the future? There’s some conjecture.
“It was a steady, intense rain, a downpour on Thursday, June 19. An all-day deluge, most would be uncomfortable in this scenario, ideal for ducks, some say.
“Here, there are surrounding tall white pine trees and long piles of grandfather rocks on the knoll, once used for many sweat lodge ceremonies. Sage grows there, and sweet fern – medicine plants. It is sacred ground. The sign says: ‘Sacred Area - Show Respect.'
“It was the setting for a funeral service, like no other, on the back roads.
“But Nbiising was lying there, being returned to the land, a final resting place, in a very special way this day, through a ceremony seldom seen. The sculpture is truly 'iconic' in the application of the descriptive adjective.”
Au contraire, I say Nbiising saved the lives of hundreds of campers that evening. Every first responder interviewed would tell you, “someone should have died that night; it is a miracle someone did not.”
Story three is one of promise and what lies ahead.
“It has now been 21 days."
The lede was: “Do you know the story of the Magic Lamp and Aladdin?
“The moral of the story is about finding happiness, not in gold and riches, but within.
“I have been wishing for solace and explanation since that night on the back roads.
“Things changed at 9:12 p.m. on Saturday, June 21 – the first day of summer and National Indigenous Peoples Day. This is the final installment. The previous stories dealt with the storm, and then a legacy twist connected to the devastation that rumbled through Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park (SAM) and the Canadian Ecology Centre (CEC) near Mattawa.
“When you know a person who cares, by context, they can be addressed on a first-name basis.
“So, the thought was to reach out to some Friends of the Forest.” And I did.
There are plans for renewal; stay tuned. The process of grieving continues. It is anticipated that the Park and the Canadian Ecology Centre will open this coming spring. It has been difficult, in many ways, and the story continues. I continue to post every day on social media… “x” number of days from the storm. Today it will be 196 days since the storm on June 21, 2025. Tick tock.
For 2026, the back roads beckon as they always do.
