August 16, 2004

The following is a transcript of the notes I wrote on August 5th, the 22nd day of my bike tour:

The stars vanished beneath a layer of cloud by the time I awoke and headed towards Owen Sound, a city that balances the industrial splendour of its harbour with the functionality and aesthetics of a small town. Its downtown streets are clean and crowded by shades of history, and its harbour seduced me with its floating monstrosities of steel.

I was blissfully photographing everything around a yellow caution line when a security guard approached me. He waved and smiled at me with a mouthful of bad teeth, his beady eyes sweaty and full of mistrust.

“I’m just taking a few pictures of the ship,” I said to him reassuringly. “I won’t cross the security line.”

“Unfortunately, you can’t take pictures of the ship,” he said. “We’ve got to go by the book.”

I was startled for a few moments and strangely out of words. After a long, uncomfortable silence I managed to formulate a question.

“Is there a law against taking pictures of ships?”

“That’s what the book says,” he repeated. “We’ve got to go by what it says.” He smiled again hoping I understood. The conversation was going nowhere.

“That’s an American ship, you know,” he added helpfully.

“Oh,” I said, and made my way to the other side of the harbour to photograph the American ship. I saw the security guard standing on the other shore, too far away to tell if he was still smiling.

Late in the afternoon, once I had my picture, I left Owen Sound full of mistrust of those Americans, and found a quiet beach where I could camp illegally.