A Walk to the Refinery and Back

My intention this morning was to walk out into the country, but the strong winds, which were gusting up to 80 kilometres per hour, put an end to that idea. At least in the city there are trees and buildings that act as windbreaks; out in the country the wind hits you with all of its force.

When I left the house, I wasn’t sure where I was headed. I walked through alleys, hoping to see something new. Then I turned and walked up Albert Street, under the main CPR line. A brown cloud of dust dominated the sky north of the city, and the wind was blowing trash everywhere. Not just litter, either: big cardboard boxes, pieces of roofing, doormats. I saw a mailbox that had blown over. A half-dozen police cars were in a parking lot, and the cops, wearing bulletproof vests that said “POLICE” on the back, seemed to be preparing for a raid. I didn’t take their picture—I don’t need any trouble from them—and I carried on walking north.

At 1st Avenue North I crossed Albert and made my way through a neighbourhood of small houses. The street ended at a shopping mall with a drug store. I bought some almonds and a couple of pocket-sized notebooks and a pen. I thought I might take notes of things I saw, so I could refer to them later; maybe that would be a good idea. I ate the almonds while walking east towards Broad Street. Then I turned north again. I knew where I was, but I’d never been there before: Uplands, a neighbourhood built in the 1960s between the steel mill and the oil refinery. I turned and walked west. The wind was blowing harder and my hands and face stung from the grit it was flinging at me.

The street I was walking along ended at Winnipeg Street. I was across from the oil refinery, where the workers have been locked out by their employer for nearly six months. What a way for a company that calls itself a cooperative to behave. A robin flew across the road, into the wind, and a police car, lights flashing and siren screaming, sped past and turned down the street I had just been walking on. At the refinery, a plume of black dust was being blown from a pile of something—petroleum coke, maybe. Whatever it was, it didn’t look very healthy. I thought about the scabs living in trailers at the refinery, and how they could possibly be keeping safe from the novel coronavirus. I saw my second giant plastic animal of the day: a bald eagle perched on a stack of plywood in a lumberyard.

I considered walking east, past the refinery complex, but I was getting tired, so I decided to turn south towards home. I wandered through a neighbourhood towards Broad Street and then continued south. The flying grit was really bothering me, and I pulled my Buff up over my face as protection. The more I walked, the more tired I got, and the more tired I got, the less attention I paid to my surroundings. I was focused on my sore feet and back. My mind drifted. I was just a bundle of sore muscles buffeted by the wind.

I turned and walked through the Warehouse District—an older industrial area, where substantial warehouses from the time of the First World War are now loft apartments and dance clubs—and crossed under the main CPR line again. A man was walking towards me and for an instant I thought I was about to be mugged for my camera. He said hello and passed by.

The wind was still howling. I’m not a small man, but the wind was pushing me around. I was thirsty, and I wondered if the local brewpub’s off-sale was open on Sunday afternoons. It isn’t. I turned and walked towards home. Maybe tomorrow, if the wind drops, I’ll try my country walk, or else maybe I’ll return to the refinery. The trick will be to keep paying attention to where I am, even when I’m tired; I’m not sure how to do that, but perhaps I can learn.