Westlock’s Bryan Carnegie is closing in on the finish line of his cross-Canada journey in support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
The 57-year-old left Vancouver June 17 and is on pace to arrive at his final destination of St. John’s, N.L. in September. So far Carnegie has raised $11,730 for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and is hoping to hit $20,000.
“The fundraising’s going pretty good,” said Carnegie. “I’m glad to see people still donating, but I’m pretty happy with what we’ve raised so far.”
Over the past weeks he has followed the great lakes to Ottawa, where he stopped off for a tour of Centre Block and then went to Montreal and Quebec City.
“It’s really nice to see all the quaint French villages,” said Carnegie. “Going along the St. Lawrence River is a nice scenic trip, too.”
He said he is going to sightsee around Quebec City for a few days before getting back on the open road.
From Quebec City he plans to cross the St. Lawrence and head to New Brunswick. There he’ll cross the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island before heading back to Nova Scotia and then finally on to St. John’s.
Carnegie said he has a new appreciation for how large Canada actually is having now crossed most of it on two wheels. His love of biking has kept him going, but he admits even that has a limit.
“There hasn’t been a morning where I haven’t wanted to get on the bike and go,” said Carnegie. “But I’m not pedaling back. It would be winter by the time I made it back.”
It hasn’t been all sunshine and tailwinds for Carnegie, however as his adventure hit a bit of a speedbump on July 7 when his bicycle was stolen in Winnipeg. Thankfully he was able to get an identical replacement shipped to him within the week.
“It’s exactly the same as my other bike was, so there was no getting used to it,” he said. “It was all put together, so all I had to do was a little bit of tinkering and I was off the next morning.”
