My third Mayor. This is getting to be a habit. Honourable Mayor Dennis O’Keefe of St. John’s, Newfoundland, the oldest city in North America, is behind my wheel today on the LAST DAY.

I picked him up at City Hall, where my drivers presented him with the gift entrusted to me by Victoria’s Honourable Mayor Dean Fortin oh so many days ago at Mile 0 west. 32 days to be exact. And it’s been go, go, go since then.

11, 208 kilometres, 25 drivers. Whew! Mayor O’Keefe is driving the last few kilometres, expertly weaving through the tangled web of streets of St. John’s to the Botanical Gardens at Memorial University. 

After visiting or touring 55 Canadian environmental venues and citizens, driving out to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America, getting to Mile O of the Trans-Canada Highway in downtown St. John’s then picking up the Mayor, MUN Botanical Gardens is our last stop.

It’s a perfect day here with warm breezes blowing, sun shining, bees buzzing and birds bobbing among the native flora. We are enthusiastically and energetically toured around by Wilf Nicholls, Director of the Gardens as he explains that every natural setting of Newfoundland is represented here.

There are gardens galore including a Medicinal Garden (gingko anyone?), a Shade Garden, an Alpine Garden, a Rock Garden, a Wildlife Garden, even a Crevice Garden.

You think things don’t grow in Newfoundland? Ha! Pshaw on that common notion! Not only are the things that grow in Newfoundland beautiful, but they are super smart.

How about plants that grow in rock crevices to gather heat, or the many Alpine plants that conserve water by keeping low to the ground or growing fur on the underside of their leaves? The ubiquitous Pitcher Plant (you’ve seen it in the Newfoundland Tourism ads on TV) that grows in bogs and swamps even traps insects to get protein! A carnivorous plant? Wow, what a province!

The peaceful gardens are the perfect place to stop and gather thoughts after this trek from sea to shining sea. Think about the sights I’ve seen, the sheer size and heart-stopping natural beauty of the country.

I can sit quietly and recall the passion of the Canadians that I’ve met in defending and protecting the planet, Canadians like the spunky socially-responsible 3rd-grade students at Bench Elementary who saved a marsh on Vancouver Island from destruction, or Edmundston’s enthusiastic composting café owners, Louise Fyfe and Estelle Sabatier, or the entire eco-village in Craik, Saskatchewan.

I can’t forget about Heidi Reimer-Epp, owner of Botanical Paperworks, the Winnipeg company that makes paper you can plant, or Catherine Page who toured me through Canada’s ‘greenest’ zoo in Granby, Quebec, or Choleena DiTullio, a New Brunswick artist who makes beautiful art out of banished junk.

There are too many to name again here but please go back through my blog and think about what all these individuals have done and are doing for the Planet and then realize that, like Colleen Kennedy of the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism says, one hundred small steps are as good as one large step.

And take that step.

Insight Out.

The end of this cross-country odyssey is now in sight. Today, I’ve wound my way from Gander through the Terra Nova National Forest, then east along the shoreline of the Bonavista Peninusla. The route has been dotted with quaint little fishing communities nestled along the shoreline of Bonavista Bay, places with such intriguing names as Tickle Bay. 

I was taken on a short side trip to the hamlet of Keels, on the north shore, where I had my first encounter with one of Newfoundland’s many moose. It popped its head up from a gully as I was driving past, then climbed up onto the shoulder, seemingly unconcerned by my presence or my occupants. There was the typical flurry of snapshots before it ambled on, searching for munchies.

The road to Keels was rough, giving me several good jolts, but I pressed on to our destination, which was comprised of a general store, several colourful frame houses, some erected above the rocky terrain on poles. There were several local attractions noted on the welcome sign, including the Devils’ Footprint, a series of rocky outcrops that time and the sea and chiseled into unique shapes, something akin to layers of grainy wood. Such rugged beauty, yet so picturesque.

Mayor Betty Fitzgerald of Bonavista

My lunch stop was in the historic town of Bonavista, the place where John Cabot landed in 1497. The British explorer, in search of a shorter route to Asia and its highly prized spices, instead found a different treasure – a seemingly endless supply of cod. For the next 200 years, European vessels fished the sea off Bonavista. The community was settled in 1654 and pinned the livelihood of its residents on the riches to be found in the sea – some of the best cod fishing in Newfoundland.

The mayor of Bonavista, Betty Fitzgerald, has an unparalleled passion for her community, eager to share her knowledge of this town with visitors. I was honoured to transport Her Worship around the area as she pointed out sites of interest. The Ryan Premises, for example, is a national historic site officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997. The complex, which consists of five restored buildings, gives visitors a peek into the saltfish industry of the early 19th century. There are all kinds of artifacts from the era, as well as informative and interactive displays detailing the changing techniques used by cod fishers, as well as the key role played by women in the salting of the fish. There are also knowledgeable guides on staff that are keen to explain in detail and answer questions about the Premises.

Mayor Fitzgerald also wanted to have me see the Matthew Interpretation Centre, which includes a full-scale floating replica of Cabot’s ship, the Matthew. It was built by local craftsmen in this town of about 4,000 and gives visitors a real-like look at the vessel that brought those adventurers to this site centuries ago.

Full-scale floating replica of John Cabot’s ship, the Matthew. It was built by Bonavista craftsmen.

As the fishing industry has declined, Bonavista has refocused on a new industry – tourism. The town has been making a concerted effort to restore the many historic buildings that dot the landscape – and the mayor says those initiatives are now paying off as more and more travellers make it a must-see stop on their visit to The Rock.

The lunch stop turned into an afternoon exploring the historic sites and natural attraction of the area, but fortunately I only had to make short jaunt to nearby Port Rexton, where I’m bunking down for the night at the cosy Fishers’ Loft Inn before completing the final leg of this adventure tomorrow to the most easterly point of Canada in St. John’s.

Sea Caves Dungeon Provincial Park

I’m nearing the end of my cross-country journey in search of inspiring Canadian environmental and conservation stories.

So far, since leaving Victoria 31 days ago, I’ve visited about 50 different places and people in 9 provinces. The carbon-footprint-reducing efforts of corporations, communities and citizens of this vast country that I’ve had the honour of witnessing are admirable, significant, far-reaching and totally awe-inspiring, be the effort large or small in scale.

Now, I find myself in Newfoundland, the island, easternmost piece of North America, that juts out into the Atlantic, in its own time zone! From what I’ve seen since docking in Port-aux-Basques on a foggy, mystical Tuesday morning this week, this tenth province (Newfoundland and Labrador) is quite a bit different from the Island where I started this trek in British Columbia.

Newfoundland is a rugged, pristine, natural wonder that is so untouched by humans, they say the moose outnumber the people.

From Sydney, NS, it’s a 7-hour ferry ride across the ocean blue. I got some rest since it was a night crossing. Not much sleep though. The transport trucks around me snored like you wouldn’t believe.

The drive from Port-aux-Basques in the southwestern corner of the province was a wet foggy ride with breaks in the low cloud that showed a dark, majestic, mountainous landscape. I felt like I was the only one left on the planet.

Distances are big here and the destination of Norris Point is about 350 km away. We’re headed for Neddies Harbour Inn, a cozy inn with all the modern conveniences sitting on a point of land that is surrounded by Bonne Bay and the snow-covered mountains of stunning Gros Morne National Park on the west coast of Newfoundland.

Innkeepers Bettina Lori and Herbert Schuhmacher took an old nursing home and converted it into a well-appointed boutique hotel with a staff that feels like family and a restaurant serving world-class delectable local delights.

You can’t leave this area without taking in the sights of Gros Morne National Park but alas, the road and the finish line beckons so I have to push onward.

But first, a quick chat with Colleen Kennedy, the energetic Executive Director of the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism, a consortium of tourism industry players whose goals are to advance the quality and sustainability of outdoor/nature-based experiences afforded throughout Atlantic Canada, by providing developmental training programs respecting: sustainable tourism practices, experiential tourism services and eco-adventure tourism.

In the five years since the Institute was established, Colleen says that she has seen a change in the important tourism industry in Newfoundland. No longer is the bottom line the almighty dollar. The bottom line is becoming the environment and how to protect it.

It’s the same thing we’ve been finding out on this cross-country trek: one hundred small steps are just as important as one large step in making change happen.

Next on our route is Gander overlooking deep blue Gander Lake.

Norris Point

Olivia (L), Davide and Dad Todd Gillis, hosts of the sleepover for Insight Canada 1

Last night I had a sleepover in my new drivers’ cozy garage, but not before I was able to meet their kids and a darn big dog who had a good sniff of my right rear tire. Luckily it was just a sniff!

My first duty this morning is to transport those kids and the dog to their grandparents’ just up the road so my drivers can take me on the second-last leg of my cross-Canada tour today from Dartmouth to Sydney.

Uh oh, my driver just gave her co-pilot heck for putting the green bin so close to the garage door. Those green bins are a common sight around these parts. 

My new friends tell me that Nova Scotia is, in fact, a world leader in recycling and that it was the first province in Canada to actually divert more than 50 per cent of its solid waste from landfills. Wow! That’s good stuff!

Woo hoo, we’re finally on our way! I think my drivers are almost as excited as I am! We are taking the twisty #7 Highway up the Eastern Shore then we’re gonna knife through the middle of the province on up to Antigonish.

My driver’s are looking pretty relaxed. I’m tickled that they’ve chosen to celebrate their nine-year wedding anniversary with me.

This province has a lot of trees! And there are beautiful lakes everywhere. They look nice blanketed in the fog. Fog in Nova Scotia. Go figure.

There’s a lot of signs on the roadside here, too. My driver’s tell me there’s a provincial election coming in June. I hope all the candidates have the environment high on their platforms.

My navigation system is showing me all kinds of cool names that are coming up, like: Head of Jeddore, Popes Harbour, East Quoddy, Moosehead, Necum Teuch, Ecum Secum…

I’m an hour into my ride it’s 10:30 a.m. — and Great Big Sea is belting out Sea of No Cares through my speakers (how appropriate). My real-time fuel gauge is showing that we’re averaging 4.8 litres/100km on these bendy, hilly roads and my driver’s not all that soft on my throttle. Not to brag or anything, but that’s darn good fuel economy on these roads.

My drivers spotted a place called 522 Gourmet Coffee in Aspen. Ummm… it smells good here. Owners Ingrid and Manfred Schiefer have the coffee bean roaster fired up inside and they roast and sell Fair Trade and organic coffee.

Cape Breton here we are! Hmmm, raining here too I see. In the beautiful little village of Baddeck, we stop at the Bras d’Or Lakes and Watershed Interpretive Centre. The centre, my drivers tell me, is sponsored by the Bras d’Or Preservation Foundation which assists private landowners and communities to meet threats to the well-being of these breath-taking lakes, really a large inland sea in the heart of Cape Breton, surrounded by magnificent forested mountains.

Off to Sydney we go. My drivers are very happy with the smooth ride I’m providing in this awful weather. At least it’s warm and not windy. 

My gas needle just barely went under the half-tank mark a few minutes ago. I guess we’ll make it – 30 km to Sydney. I’ll pat myself on the roof now.

Next stop… Newfoundland!

Duane Gorman of Gorman Controls Ltd.

Charlottetown is in my rear-view mirror. The Inns on Great George were a comfy overnight stop. I’m starting to feel at home on this Island. It reminds me a bit of my homeland.

The native Mi’kmaq called the island Abegweit, cradled on the waves. A legend tells how the god Glooscap finished painting the beauties of the world. Then he dipped his brush into a mixture of all the colors and created Abegweit, his favorite island. And it shows.

Sadly I don’t have enough time to seek out the girl with the red ponytails that I’d heard so much about back home. Apparently, she lives somewhere on this island. Next time. I’m ready to move on.

Man, this wind is wild! I guess it’s the perfect day to go and visit Duane Gorman, an enthusiastic Islander who works in the family business, Gorman Controls Ltd.

In Duane’s backyard, there’s a thing of beauty, rising above the rough flattened grasses and no, it’s not a tree. It’s a single wind turbine and today, it’s having a field day, whipped into a frenzy. Duane’s two dogs, Coda and Timber, are also in a frenzy of play and Duane’s description of his wind turbine is punctuated by arching throws of a soggy stick that ends up back at his feet within seconds. Strange furry species, these dogs.

Gorman Controls Ltd. offers a range of wind turbines suitable for residential applications. Residential wind turbines allow people to decrease their carbon foot print while securing a reliable and cost efficient energy source. The turbines in this range will produce between $600 and $6,000 worth of electricity a year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 2 to 23 tonnes per year. Duane says, “When I built my house up here on this hill, there was no way I couldn’t use the wind for something.”

Pirmin Kummer, owner of Timber River Eco-Farms

Meanwhile back on the mainland, at our next stop, Pirmin Kummer, owner of Timber River Eco-Farms in Timber River, New Brunswick is noticing the wind too. Noticing how much more there is these days, noticing how the weather has been changing in the twelve years that he has been growing certified organic potatoes.

And Pirmin, a holistic, down-to-earth (in the true sense of the word) farmer originally from Germany, knows his spuds, Eco-Spuds, that is, his own brand of potatoes.

He also knows that it’s not just about eliminating pesticides on your farm. You have to do a variety of things to protect your crop. You have to grow potatoes that get along well with your soil. It’s good to rotate crops on a year-to-year basis so that soil is enriched and pests are discouraged from ‘coming home to roost’ so to speak. And Pirmin’s farm is far away from other potato farms which discourages fungal spore migration. Even the ventilation system of his storage warehouse is earth friendly and uses no fungicides.

And so, with a strong wind beneath my wheels, and big bag of Eco-spuds in my cargo area (thanks, Pirmin!), I roll into Nova Scotia, Canada’s Ocean Playground, and the second-last province on this great adventure.

Jemseg Ferry Crossing

Like Choleena DiTullio from Sackville, N.B., and Tim Van Hinte from Moncton, I think that caring about what we’re putting into the air, the ground and our water supply isn’t a fringe enviro-geekie-type thing. Nope, it’s just plain ol’ common sense.

I met Choleena and Tim on the Fredericton, N.B., to Charlottetown, P.E.I., leg on Day 18 of my cross-Canada tour. What can I say, I’m an extrovert.

Like me, Choleena is perky, genuine and likes to have fun. I get my kicks from saving fuel while providing a good time on the road, and Choleena, among her many “green” endeavors, makes art — more than 500 pieces so far — out of what other people throw away. I got a good look at her “fish art” and you can, too, at www.Choleena.com. Her next piece will begin as a throw-away bicycle and end as a sculpture that she calls the “life cycle.” I laughed my IMA (Integrate Motor Assist) off at that one. Choleena . . . you crack me up.

Choleena DiTullio and her painting "Adirondack Fish" made from all the parts of old adirondack chair!

She also maintains a blog to help people who want to do their green duty, but find the whole issue a little daunting.

“The environment is such a big thing that it’s difficult to know where to begin. I set out to do one thing ever day, no matter how small, to make a difference.”

It’s actually pretty easy when you break it down the way Choleena has at choleena.blogspot.com.

Tooling around tiny Sackville, home of the famed Mount Allison University, there’s a beautiful marsh with a boardwalk and the townspeople are progressive, yet laid back in an enlightened granola book-worm kind of way. I love it here. And apparently they love me, too, as Choleena handed me the keychain to the town, which I will wear on my dashboard with pride.

Just up the road a ways, bye (the Maritime accent is easy for a Honda to pick up, eh), Moncton is joined to Sackville with a stretch of road strafed with enough potholes to shake the lugnuts off any self-respecting car. I thought the potholes on the Toronto-to-Toronto leg of my trip were bad, but shoddy and crumbling highway infrastructure is just one problem this tiny province has.

Van Hinte, the Petitcodiac River Keeper

New Brunswick is full of forests, rocky terrain, marshes and rivers. And while you would think that’s a good thing, Tim Van Hinte, as the Petitcodiac River Keeper, feels the need to spend his working days using every legal means possible to make change. For all you flatlanders out there, the Petitcodiac is a unique tidal river that runs right through the middle of the Metropolitan Moncton area with a population somewhere north of 100,000 good-natured souls. Twice a day the water from the Bay of Fundy flows upstream (tide comes in), and twice a day it flows back out. For whatever reason, the river was bisected with a causeway some 40 years ago, and Tim the River Keeper, as well as his hundreds of supporters, have been trying to have it removed to restore the natural flow — and fish stock — such as Atlantic Salmon.

“There are 10 species of fish in the Petitcodiac and they can’t get up the river to spawn.”

The river is a huge issue here in Moncton, hard fought from both sides of the coin. Tim tells me that he and his group have finally won out as the causeway will be replaced by a bridge in a few years, but there’s another problem . . . there’s an old landfill right beside the Peticodiac. It looks like the River Keeper has his work cut out for him. You can find out more at www.petitcodiac.org.

Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island

But this is just one waterway. Today marks the first time since I left the West Coast that I’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean.

After wriggling my rock-hard low-rolling-resistance tires through a 50-kilometre pothole-infested stretch of two-lane in eastern New Brunswick — with patch on top of patch on top of patch — that somehow passes for the Tran-Canada highway, my headlights practically fell out of their sockets at the sight of the Confederation Bridge that links New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. If you’ve never set tire to the surface of Mars, P.E.I has to come close. The Martian dirt is everywhere, from the back roads and rolling hills of farmer’s fields to the sand on Brackley and Cavendish Beaches on the northeast shore that faces the mighty Atlantic. Next stop, Ireland.

How I actually found those beaches is a bit of miracle since a map of P.E.I. reveals a Web of narrow highways that run parallel but not north, south, east and west. Thank goodness for my onboard Navigation system that apparently requires more skill than the onboard journalists have to actually use it, because there’s so much to see here that it’s easy to lose track of where you are and the direction you’re heading. P.E.I. is a giant playground and Land of Temptation: parked at the foot of a ski hill wondering how much juice it would take to slalom uphill; parked with two wheels in the sand wondering how to get around a gate to gain beach access; parked on the shoulder of the road by a lighthouse knowing I could cover every road on this entire island without having to fill up.

Although I had consumed less than a quarter tank of gas en route to a 5.2-l/100 km for the day, my human counterparts spent the better part of the evening refueling at Fish Bones, located in Charlottetown’s quaint downtown, where they feasted on raw tuna, salmon and oysters that were served up by Ontario-transplant Beth who simply loves island life. I can see why. The slow pace here is perfect for a certain Insight Hybrid to do what I do best: conserve while having fun.

I feel like I’m doing this backwards… this cross-Canada thing. Leaving historic resplendent Quebec City behind and heading east is not the way the Europeans did it when they were first exploring and settling this New World. 

But here I am, re-tracing the steps of those intrepid pioneers, backwards. Starting from where the river narrows, sunny 400-year-old Quebec this morning, my drivers propel me back along the Saint Lawrence River. 

Ho hum, another day, another film crew follows me as I wind my way through the cobblestone streets and out of the only walled city north of Mexico.

I guess I’m like a pioneer myself, with my ultra-thin compact electric motor. And I’m heading into unchartered territory, Atlantic Canada. Well, unchartered for me and some vehicle navigation systems anyway!

Louise Fyfe of Café Lotus Bleu

But first we (drivers, filmers and me) ooh and aah over the fertile farmlands just beginning to pop and the roiling St. Lawrence River that’s wide like an ocean.

We hug the south shore of the River and peer across the bright waters trying to see belugas and blue whales that we’ve heard come to feed in the Saguenay – St. Lawrence Marine Conservation Park. No luck. Too early in the year.

We veer away from the river ‘inland’ and start the trek into New Brunswick, the largest of Canada’s three maritime provinces and the only official bilingual one in the country. Bon! I get to keep practicing mon français!

New Brunswick is virtually covered by forest, teeming with bear, deer and moose. The province is considered a North American leader in forest management. There are also rivers galore brimming with salmon and trout and perfect for white-water rafting. It’s the perfect spot for a planet-lover like me!

And speaking of planet lovers and pioneers, I have to tell you about our lunch stop in Edmundston. Pulling up to Café Lotus Bleu, on chemin Canada, you wouldn’t know about the exciting things going on inside. Until you talk to owners, Louise Fyfe and Estelle Sabatier, that is, two vivacious young ladies who are so passionate about their conservation efforts in their café and in the community that you almost want to hug them and run around spreading their spirited message. If I had arms and feet, I’d do both those things!!

The City of Edmundston has no recycling or composting systems in place. When Louise and Estelle set up shop, they took it upon themselves to do these things and more. They take their compostables to the New Brunswick Botanical Gardens, they recycle and re-use everything right from the counter top in the café (used to be the floor of an old hardware store) to the tables that come from a schoolhouse that was torn down to donated paint collected by word of mouth on their Café Lotus Bleu Facebook Group. Hence the wacky warm colours on the walls.

The food in the café is all organic, locally sourced and if you order the Pad Thai, there’s a chef from Thailand there to prepare it for you. On some days, an Edmundstonian originally from Iraq will cook you one of his special dishes.

And, in all of Louise’s spare time (not!), she even has Rainbow Factory, the biggest ‘socially responsible little tie-dye shop in the world. Geesh, their fair-trade coffee sure gives them wings!

Okay, okay, I know it’s time to go… we’ve still got Hartland, with the longest covered bridge in the world, and more forests and rivers to sweep by. 

And then Fredericton, lush river city and capital of New Brunswick, which claims the longest pedestrian bridge converted from railway in the world, a 581-metre-long bridge that forms part of the Trans Canada Trail, a cross-country network that has acquired and improved abandoned rail corridors and re-appropriated them for walking trails.

Oh, Canada. 

These statues depict the original meeting of Loyalist William Orser, one of the first settlers of Hartland area, and Maliseet Chief Pierre Toma. A blanket from Orser and a salmon from Toma were likely their first exchange of gifts.

I thought today was going to be a short journey through the heart of the province of Quebec: a straight line between the big cities of Montreal and Quebec. But surprise, surprise! Not only did my humans treat me to the hilly roads of the Eastern Townships, but they let me live a child’s dream: a visit to the greenest zoo in Canada… even before its official spring opening.

Yes, if you want something green, the Granby Zoo is one of a kind. More than 75% of the zoo’s buildings, including the homes of the elephants and the giraffes, are heated and cooled by a geothermal system comprised of 60 wells that go about 150 metres deep underground.

In addition, the zoo has storage heaters made with boxes filled of special bricks that collect the heat in peak hours, and then release it when demand is at its highest.

Catherine Page, Zoo Granby

Of course, the Zoo is also a model of recycling for its own operations. Everything in the hands of the employees is recyclable. The Zoo uses phosphate-free soap and is styrofoam-free, too.

But enough about all this Green stuff. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty… the animals! How green are the animals?

Even the hippopotamus pond is filtered by an ozonization system, similar to the ones used in municipalities. All these environmental concerns wouldn’t be possible without the deep conviction of the employees though. Our tour guide, Catherine Page, a strong believer in protecting the environment, drove me around the parking lot, just to check my ecological bloodlines. My two drivers? Well they seemed like kids for most of the day, applauding every time they saw a tiger or a jaguar.

Sadly we had to leave the Zoo and hit the road to Quebec City. 

What a great day! We did 413.6 kilometers with a fuel average of 5.3 liters/100 km. Not a record like yesterday, but a darn good average considering my drivers were on the hop!

There are two routes from Ottawa to Montreal: the slow route with large trucks, and the fast route with large trucks. What’s an Insight driver to do?

Take both, is what my driver did today, moving with the flow of traffic when the roads were busy, and slowing a bit when they weren’t. My routes took me from Ottawa to Hawkesbury via the two-lane Highway 17, and from Hawkesbury to Montreal on the multi-lane 417. A sunny day, 15-degrees, and Honda’s celebrated “blue skies”—seemingly provided to order—set the tone for this portion of my cross-country journey.

My driver’s task was to drive me, Insight Canada1, to Montreal’s Biosphere Museum, a distance of about 220 kilometres, and do it as fuel efficiently as I could. They told my driver that I had already returned 4.1 L/100km on a couple of my Western legs, and that’s already better than my “official” rating of 4.5 L/100km (highway).

My driver knows that I generously reward the driver who employs a fuel efficient driving style. So, no ‘jack-rabbit’ starts, he mutters to himself, no excessive speed, a smooth application of the gas pedal. ‘Timing’ green lights to avoid stopping pays off. These are techniques that will save fuel in any vehicle, by the way.

I further help with my display that indicates fuel consumption (cumulative and actual) and another that graphically represents the IMA drivetrain in action. This latter display can help you practise fuel efficient driving by indicating whether electricity or gasoline (or both) is providing motive power. Obviously, the more you can drive me on battery alone, the less gasoline you’ll consume. 

This technique is not particularly easy, in the sense that you can’t simply set me to run on battery, then engage “cruise.” When I need torque (accelerating for any reason), my gasoline engine kicks in. But when decelerating, even slightly, taking your foot off the gas pedal for a second will shut down the engine and you’ll see I’m running on electricity. You can do this for 100 metres, 300 metres, 400 metres. On a few occasions today, my driver ran me for 500 metres like this! Over a couple of hundred kilometres, you’ll save maybe 10-percent more fuel using this approach.

So if you’re not in a hurry, you, too, can get 3.8 L/100km (74 MPG) in a 2010 Honda Insight!

One more thing, if you’re in Montreal, do check out the Biosphere. The building, a geodesic dome, was designed (invented, actually) by R. Buckminster Fuller. Here’s a guy who would have loved things like me, a hybrid car and Integrated Motor Assist systems. Ah, oui!

Demain, la ville de Québec!

Lots of people want to know: am I a female car or a male car? And I say yes! That’s one of the things I’ve come to like about Toronto during our two days here. Nobody cares which side your gas door’s on: it’s just drive and let drive.

Strange, though. On the way, I heard several of my journalist drivers badmouthing Toronto. That must be the beer talking.

Sure, this place is an easy target: it sprawls unnecessarily – not as environmentally enlightened as some of us. There’s a cornucopia of monstrous architecture (even the good stuff’s ugly; how do they do that?). And the natural landmarks aren’t as apparent as the mountains in cities like Vancouver, Montreal and St John’s. But it’s not without its own beauty too.

Natural beauty formed when the mile-high glaciers of the last ice age receded. Consider the Toronto Islands. Our day began at the Harbour Castle Westin (it used to be the Hilton and rumour has it that Niki was going to be called Hogtown) with a view of these magnificent islands. Several are inaccessible and have been left utterly wild, populated only by birds and butterflies.

In some ways Toronto’s been conservational since long before it was cool to be.

We drove north to the 401 through the Don Valley. Here again, it’s not all bad news. Hikers and cyclists love this wild corridor which funnels wild life into downtown Toronto. It’s not uncommon to see fox trotting the streets of tony Rosedale. And a wild coyote is evading the residents of the Beach (Toronto’s answer to the ‘couve’s Kitsilano) appearing regularly on the news but never standing still long enough to be caught.

Ah, nature!

We quit the Don Valley for the 401, heading east through Scarborough. (Insert tired joke, here.) We crossed the Rouge Valley, a vast, protected wilderness in the middle of Canada’s worst sprawl. Imagine seeing deer just minutes from the Scarborough Town Centre. It’s another of the region’s unsung stories of conservation that deserves singing.

Then we were in Pickering. Then Ajax. Then Oshawa. Then the sprawl was lessening somewhat and genuine country would appear. It’s lovely right now. After a virourous winter and genuine spring with lots of rain and very few freak heatwaves, things have responded appropriately and the blooms and blossoms are frothing.

Whoops, keep your eyes on the road, human.

The 401 between Toronto and Kingston (aka the Highway of Headaches) is reputedly the worst stretch of road in the country. I thought the road was fine – but oh, the drivers.

So after two dull hours I was glad to exit at the Wooler Road and head into scenic Prince Edward County. It’s a lovely corner of the province. 150-year old stone buildings grace farms so quaint Norman Rockwell would pinch himself. What a delightful spot to simply revel in nature. We visited Birdhouse City. This Valhalla for folk art loving conservationists features rows and rows of handbuilt birdhouses (hence the cryptic name) mounted atop 15-foot poles.

Minutes later in Picton, the humans parked me at a charming Victorian Inn with a breath-taking view of the Bay of Quinte. The Inn was also a Spa (a detailing shop for humans) but they limited their stay to a fuel-up.

Next we crossed the Bay of Quinte (aka the Bay of Quainte) aboard the Glenora Ferry. Garry, the human with the racing world record, suggested we stay off the 401 the remainder of the day. It added perhaps a half hour to our drive but lowered the humans blood pressure and likely added lots more time to the back-end of their lives. We arrived in the nation’s capital feeling fine, not at all stressed by a day on the road.

Insight out.