Top: The Arisaig Lighthouse on Nova Scotia’ s mainland helps mariners avoid the rocky coastline. Bottom: This tidy home and barn overlook Margaree Harbour on the eastern shore of Cape Breton Island.
Thirty- some years ago, in a locker room in Springfield, Massachusetts, I learned that two guys I played hockey with also rode motorcycles. This prompted an invitation:“ You should ride with us.” On a cool autumn Sunday, I pulled into John Colleton’ s driveway at the appointed time, riding my 1989 Honda PC800. A year before, I bought the bike new- in- crate, two model years old.
“ This looks like a good touring bike,” John observed.“ So where are you going on it?” I told him I’ d been out to
the Berkshire Hills and up to Vermont.“ With a bike like this, you can go farther.” Proving his point, John opened a photo album. There he was, on his BMW K100RT, along with his friend Gary Monte( our hockey goalie) on his Yamaha XZ550 Vision. Stretching out in the distance behind them was a road carved into the side of a mountain overlooking the ocean.“ Where is that?” I wondered aloud.“ Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Gary and I went there, and you could ride there on this bike, no problem.”
Instantly, a switch flipped inside me: I wanted to go far on a motorcycle.
I began planning a trip to Cape Breton for the next summer. John and Gary advised me to make a list of everything I wanted to pack, lay it all out on my bed – and remove half of it! From there I made further reductions. This taught me to address needs before wants for a longdistance trip. More than three decades later, I still go through this packing exercise.
My idea was to ride to Cape Breton alone, but that winter, life introduced
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