Cyclists reach the end of the line; Group follows Underground Railroad route from Alabama to Owen Sound
May 30, 2007SCOTT DUNN
Local News
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After 46 days of cycling some of the same back roads and riverside trails slaves used to escape from Alabama to Ontario, 76-year-old Harvey Cain rode into Owen Sound Tuesday afternoon and rested under a tree.
"This was a tough bicycle ride," said the retired doctor. "But it's nothing compared to what the people who were escaping slavery had to go through. You just have to keep reminding yourself that you've got it really easy."
Cain, dressed in cycling pants, jersey and bike helmet., dipped the front wheel of his bicycle in the bay to mark the end of the journey he and 13 others made to Owen Sound, the most northerly terminus of the famed Underground Railway.
Local officials welcomed them in Harrison Park, home of the city's black history cairn, and again by the tourist office.
The tour included men and women in their early 30s and up from various races and places across the United States. One rider was from Japan.
Owen Sound was added to the trip after city resident Dennis Scott, who organizes the annual Emancipation Day picnic, learned of the ride and invited the tour here. A group of 80 or so cyclists will trace the same route to freedom again this summer and should arrive here Aug. 4 for the 145th Emancipation picnic and the city's 150th anniversary.
The hills in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky presented a total 23,700 metres of vertical challenge over three gruelling weeks, by far the most difficult part of the trip, Cain said.
The riders camped most nights, except when weather prevented it or campgrounds were full. They took seven days off.
They averaged about 100 kilometres per day and Cain looked forward to each new town they encountered. He said 77 communities had delegations ready to greet them, at times cook for them and cheer them on.
"I would say the highlight for me were the people that we met along the course. They treated us so cordially and marvelously."
Cain's mother was sympathetic to the injustice done to blacks by slavery and Cain learned the history from her at an early age.
He has read how the flight to Canada intensified after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which encouraged the recapture of escaped slaves from reluctant northern states and threatened federal marshals and other officials with $1,000 fines for not enforcing it. The cyclists visited places in Kentucky, where black people were traded in markets, and in Ohio, where abolitionist sentiment was strong. Time spent in those same places more than 150 years ago convinced Harriet Beecher Stowe to produce her influential 1852 work, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and other antislavery writings.
Scott said there is much of Owen Sound's black history which remains to be learned.
He suspects 50 to 100 escaped slaves made it to Owen Sound but doesn't really know. One-tenth of the city's population was black at the turn of the 20th century. His family is descended directly from slaves and it goes back five generations in this area.
He and his wife, Lisa Scott, sit on the Emancipation Celebration festival committee, which expects 1,000 people will attend the picnic this year in Harrison Park. Everyone is invited, they said.
The tour is a joint project of the non-profit Adventure Cycling Association, which promotes the benefits of cycling, and the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Minority Health.
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