Epilogue

Having had a few days to think about what to write here, I'm still not sure if I've got a complete idea of what this whole trip meant to me but I had a bit of a brainstorm this morning so I figure that I would at least start putting it down here.

This trip started as an idea I had for high school. I figured that after twelve years of the Public Educational system I was ready for a treat in the form of this trip. In the idealized plan, we would specifically drive up to the school in a van on report card day, grab our report cards and steal the 25 cent candy machine in the front lobby of the school that our group had collectively spent so much money on over the four years we went to Rothesay High School. 

As with the original plan, the original roadtrip was going to have my whole high school close knit group of friends so about five of us (hence the need for the van). However, high school graduation came and went, and suddenly it was University that needed planning for. Out of the blue I realized how underprepared for University I was and everyone else just sort of slinked away into summer jobs or university prep (Myself included) and the plan just fell by the wayside.

So University came and after three years came and went it seemed like University graduation was coming on as quickly as high school did. The plan for this epic roadtrip to celebrate a new sense of completion came up again. However at this point the old group was divided between school, work and just plain life. It appeared that of the original five roadtrippers, the pool had shrunk to four, which isn't that bad as it allowed planning to have a car rather than a van.

Unfortunately, fourth year of University turned out to be soul crushingly difficult, busy and more life cross-roadsy than I imagined. By the end of the academic year I was just happy to have made it out alive and was more concerned with my immediate plans than with this amazing trip that would celebrate a true milestone of my adult life. So University graduation came and went, I got a job and an apartment within Halifax and all of a sudden I was 400km away from this group I had made this vague roadtrip pact with way back in high school. One roadtripper ended up doing his own bike trip that year and was then out of contention. The other roadtripper ended up taking a fifth year to complete his degree so when this roadtrip came around the timing was too early.

Thus the roadtrip ended up being a serious venture between only two people: Myself and Geoff. With no academic pressure to worry about and the freedom of thought that came with following a routine of work and not work, the idea of this country spanning trip started taking shape. I didn't know at the time that I would be going back to school, I just knew that first I was working a summer job, and then after that I ended up on contract at the same place (The Saint Mary's University Patrick Power Library), the contract that would be terminated at the beginning of April 2011. This gave a sense of a framework that this trip could be worked around. I knew that at the very least, I would have at least one month without work stretching to however many months I chose, and as long as I saved enough while I was working, I wouldn't have to worry about the financing of this trip.

And so, through the long winter months I started fleshing out the planning for this trip. Originally going to be three months long, a conference with Geoff over winter break hammered some reality into it and shortened the length of the trip to one solid month of travelling. Although plenty of people warned that one month isn't enough time to cross the country, let me assure you that it is, it just isn't enough time to do it thoroughly.

People have asked me what my favourite part of the whole trip was. I didn't think this was going to be a very difficult question to answer but upon reflection it turns out, it really is. I want to say that each province had it's own charms but even that isn't fair to some provinces that simply have to be visited if you live in Canada and others that don't work very hard advertising themselves. I would have to say that my favourite part of the trip was simply having the opportunity to do so. I know that not everyone has a month free, a few disposable thousand dollars and a friend in the same situation, and while I feel that at some point in their lives everyone should drive, fly, train, canoe, walk, whatever across Canada, I was lucky to be able to accomplish this at my age, when most other people fresh out of school are grappling with debt. 

If I had the chance to do it all again the only thing I might change would be to convince more people to go with me, but then again that might change the whole experience so who knows what I would do. I do know for sure that if I had the chance to do it all again with the knowledge I have now I would do it all again, although I think I might figure out a way to do it with less driving! Even though I planned for this trip to be mostly driving across the Trans-Canada Highway, in reality it turns out to be even more driving than I expected it to be.

Also as a note to past self and future travellers, DO NOT plan to camp before Victoria Day, very few campgrounds anywhere will be open, no matter how hard you search. Although this added a bit of cost having to stay in hotel/motels most of the trip, I would advocate that the extra expense is worth it. The one day we did camp we had to get to the campground while there was still light out, set up the tent, get all our stuff inside, and sleep. Then the next day you have to spend time cleaning out the tent, taking all the stuff down and repacking the car. At least with a hotel you can show up at 10pm, go right to sleep and get up at 8 or 9am and be on the road in 30 minutes if you want to.

In conclusion, after reflecting on it I've decided that the best way to sum up the trip is this: Canada is a glorious country. All the verses in our anthem about the true north being strong, free and beautiful are there for a reason. The natural beauty is enshrined in our National, Provincial and local parks, our historic sites and in the very people who populate this great country. However, you don't have to travel across the country to see it, every province we visited had some sort of nice park or neat historical site that the local population can easily access. I know this sounds a bit like this blog was bought out by the heritage ministry but that's really how the trip ended up being. I was hoping to be inspired by all the sights I saw, and while I'm not going to write any great poems or paint any great works, I can at least pay lip service to the sights that I saw, and that by association all you people reading my blog saw. 

As a final side note, I'd like to thank everyone who followed my blog. I wasn't sure how popular of an idea it was going to be to have this running dialogue of my trip, but I the response I got surpassed even my expectation. I was hoping it would be a way for family to keep in touch while I was away and a touchstone for when I get back so I didn't have to jump into a two hour lecture on my trip (That is saved for my slide show!). Soon after however, co-workers, friends and others were responding to my posts, I was getting stories from my parents that people they referred to the blog were following it AND enjoying it as well. So that really gave me the motivation to start posting every day, for the benefit of the audience. I want everyone to know that I derived great pleasure summarizing my experiences of the trip every day into post form and even more pleasure from the fact that people were not only reading the blog, but thinking it was funny, or informative or just plain entertaining. It really meant quite much to me.

So now it's back to reality. I had a month and a few days to escape from the normal routine, but after days of take out food, hotels (seedy and nice) and what seemed like endless car trips I'm ready to inject some normality back into my life. I'm settling into Oakville quite nicely, and while I miss people from Halifax, I'm looking forward to starting school again in the fall. As well, a good chunk of people I know from Halifax and Saint John are moving to Ontario anyway, so it seems like a started a bit of a trend.

For anyone coming to this blog months (or years) down the road, it is a blog of excitement, new discoveries and (sometimes) hardship. While the specifics my fade from my mind, the memories will last forever, and the specifics will always be transcribed on this internet site until the end of time or someone finally presses the giant internet off switch we all know they have hidden away somewhere.

Oakville Outlook

Well, it's the last few days of the trip and I have to say in hindsight this trip has been great. We're currently in Oakville taking the opportunity of free lodgings at my Dad's house. Once again we didn't really do much today because we spent most of it driving but we did get a chance to stop at that ghost town. I have to say though, it was a little disappointing.

This isn't really Depot Harbour's fault (the name of the ghost town), when the town finally went belly up, the sold most of the buildings for scrap (because you can do that somehow) so all that remains are the foundation. On top of all that it's smack dab in the middle of some Ojibwa territory who are very hostile to the federal government, so I felt a little uneasy the whole time.

After driving across a turning bridge (it turns to let boats through) you're stuck on a dirt road the whole way there. The surrounding area is very nice and green, but not very developed. You come in from a fork in the road where some ruined buildings stand guard at the old entrance to the town.

All that is left of a three storey hotel. I guess ghosts don't pay the daily rate.

After that you come into the town proper, where all that remains of actual structures are two log cabins with no roof's. The whole area is overgrown with vegetation other than the roads that run through the place. There are trees growing right out of the houses themselves, which shows that nothing we build can last forever.

Abraham Lincoln's house got to be a national monument, this one isn't so lucky.

Inside the log cabin there was a frog. He was almost like foul bachelor frog but not a bullfrog. I missed him on the first pass but Geoff pointed him out to me when he looked through himself.

Wake up, people are looking at me: Go back to sleep.

The story of Depot Harbour is a sad one, as many ghost towns. Basically this guy owned a lumber mill near Ottawa when he was awarded the contract to build the National Parliament Buildings, so he needed more wood for the construction. So he bought up all the Algonquin forest permits, and built a railway to ship it up to Ottawa. Later he got into the grain market and extended his railway to Depot Harbour, the largest, most calm and most protected harbour in the Georgian Bay, a town he founded himself. The town grew as it took advantage of the surge in the international grain markets, eventually reaching a population of 650 in 1911. Unfortunately by the 1920's CNR had bought up all the railways in Ontario and shut down the Depot Harbour railyard. Later in the 30's a ice jam broke the railway trestle in Algonquin and cut off the railway link to the town.

In the 1940's they stored cordite there (An explosive powder used in artillery shells) until a post war Arson destroyed the harbour in a spectacular explosion, subsequently most of the people moved away. After about 20 years, all the buildings were scrapped so only the foundations remained.

All that remains of a mighty man's office

There wasn't much left of the harbour (due to the explosion) but there is still the moorings left on the far side of the harbour (near where we parked). It's shows that human construction can sometimes take more than a huge explosion and still stand. Unfortunately that couldn't be said for the rest of the town.

A little concrete can go a long way I guess.

Conclusion? Don't go to Depot Harbour without a tour guide, or at least make a half day trip out of it rather than somewhere you expect to spend only an hour. I think there were more roads that went elsewhere to the ruined town, but it wasn't well marked and we were in a hurry.

Unfortunately this is likely to be the last post for a while. After today we're just driving through Quebec and then back down to New Brunswick to drop Geoff off and grab some stuff to bring back to Oakville. This trip has been amazing and I would recommend anyone interested to repeat the trip, or at least go to some of the highlights. I plan to have a epilogue to this blog, but it won't be posted for the next little while.

Wild Ontario Roadways

Another driving day today, got up early in Thunder Bay and hit the road for Sault Ste Marie. For anyone expecting awesome ghost town stories, my apologies but it was actually past Sault Ste Marie so I won't have any stories about it until tomorrow.

However, that does not mean that today was devoid of awesome memories. This trip has had a few objectives that I've been hoping to achieve since the start. I wanted to see how flat the prairies are, I wanted to walk in Banff National Park, I wanted to see lots of wildlife and I wanted to get ice cream from a highway roadside ice cream stand.

Now obviously I have done the majority of them, and while I have seen lots of wildlife there has been one animal that has been eluding me: The Moose. I don't know if I somehow travelled across the country in some sort of sub-par Moose season, but I assumed that going in the high season of spring, there would be Moose stumbling out of winter hibernation (Or whatever they do) and want to have delicious food and salts that could both be located near people. However I was spurned at every turn, driving the entire distance west (save Newfoundland) of the Trans-Canada Highway and then coming back almost 3/5th's east I had yet to see a single one. Even walking through multiple national parks and a few provincial ones, still no Moose. It's almost like they have some sort of Moose Information Network and they warned all Moose to stay 500m away from me. Either way it doesn't matter because today I saw not just one, not just two, but five Moose spread out across a 50km stretch of highway.

I'm like the paparazzi, I don't stop until I find wild animals in their most vulnerable

So that made me feel that much more accomplished in the perspective of this roadtrip. Geoff and I have had spirited debates on whether the side of the road ice cream stand on highways are more or less extinct. He hypothesizes that because people are lazy, they figure they drive right on past ice cream stands knowing that they have tubs of it at home, or can just get it where ever they are going. I feel that side of the road ice cream stands, especially by gas stations strike at you when you're most vulnerable. Picture it: you're driving down the highway, it's really hot and you're super bored, when suddenly an ice cream stand appears like a mirage in the desert. As you approach it, you realize it is real, and you pull over and get a cone.

The ice cream stand was turning out to be like the moose of the trip, but since we've gotten past Regina we've passed more and more of them, especially in Ontario. It appears that they just don't open until the Victoria Day weekend so they sort of spring up like toadstools across the way. Unfortunately I haven't stopped at any of them because of our 'no turning around-sy's' on our roadtrip. Basically if we pass something on the highway but we've already passed it, it's gone forever unless we travel back in the opposite direction later. While this may seem heartless, if we turned around for everything that seems interesting, we'd still be in Alberta going towards BC at this point. Suffice to say, I haven't gotten any ice cream yet.

We stopped at a rest stop after a while and I took the opportunity to take in the sights. While I'm going to show everyone a nice picture of the river with the overpass, you need to be warned that this place was not so idyllic. We discovered a veritable murder ground of small woodland creatures. Normally I wouldn't worry about this, it's nature and stuff gets eaten all the time, since animals need to eat too, and large animals sometimes eat smaller ones. However today I found a rabbit's foot, then I found another one, and then I found a disemboweled bird carcass. It was like there was some sort of woodland party going on at the rest stop and something just came in and ate the stuffing out of the whole lot of them, then left pieces of the lesser animals everywhere as some sort of warning. Maybe there was some sort of animal kingdom serial killer on the loose! I didn't think about it too hard because we really needed to get back on the road.

Looks like a job for CSI: Ontario Wilderness. "Looks like the killer couldn't bear to stay around... YEEAAAAAAHHH"

Finally we made one last stop in Wawa before getting to our destination. Now we didn't actually go into Wawa, we just visited the tourism centre because of the giant goose. The giant goose has a bit of a story, it's a 9m tall steel Canadian Goose that stands on the intersection of Highway 101 and Highway 17. The town of Wawa means "Wild Goose" in Ojibwa, so they wanted to make a statement that reflected their heritage. A local businessman wanted to build this statue to commemorate the construction of Highway 17 across the shores of lake superior that created an access point for Wawa. Up to the construction of Highway 17 (Which wasn't completed until 1960) the only way to get to Wawa was by ferry or train, so getting a highway was a bit of a big deal.

Most the town thought that a statue was a stupid idea, but he went and built it anyway from his own pocket. Unfortunately he made it basically out of plaster and chicken wire, and anyone who knows anything about Canadian weather can see this is a bad idea. After a total of two years the statue was basically falling apart, but it had done it's job, it was a draw to Wawa for motorists and it was a rallying point for the community, so they replaced the statue with a huge foundation and topped it with the steel bird designed by a famous European immigrant who has designed other monuments across the highway. So the giant goose stands to this day.

All that was missing was mounds of poop everywhere and it would be completely realistic

The statue was build with support from the Federal and Provincial Governments of the time. I figure this was sort of the 'stimulus spending' of the 1960's. Instead of funding the replace the doorknobs in Universities and public buildings, they just build giant animal statues across the Trans-Canada Highway. Probably about as useful.

Tomorrow we're planning on getting to Oakville for a free stay at Dad's house and some all you can eat sushi. Oh also the ghost town too! Hopefully we don't get possessed! As with when we went to the mint, if there is no post tomorrow or you get one that suddenly has a change in tone or content, call an exorcist.

Great Canadian Mint Tour

Although we spent the day driving from Winnipeg, MB to Thunder Bay, ON we still had time to stop over at the Winnipeg branch of the Royal Canadian Mint and take a little tour there. The first floor where you can mill about without paying for a tour was neat enough, there was a machine where you could print your own currency, a gold bullion bar and some interactive features.

While we were waiting for the tour we took a look around at some of the features. The first thing we saw was their set of 2010 Olympic metals they had on display. Close up like that you can almost feel like you won one! It was neat because they had patterns on the metal that linked up (If you somehow won multiple metals) into a larger pattern, sort of like a puzzle. Unfortunately the metals aren't pure bronze, silver and gold, they're just electroplated metals, which makes sense because I can't see the Canadian Government issuing $50,000 gold metals to every person who ranked first in every event.

I just saved myself hundreds of weeks of intensive athletic training

What I thought was really cool was the fact that they had a gold bullion brick. They just had it sitting out there in the open for anyone to lift up, and I have to say: That this was heavy. I mean, it was attached to the pedestal by a chain, and there was a security officer who's sole responsibility seemed to be ensuring that no one steals the gold, which is worth approximately $10 million dollars. The mint took is seriously enough that the security person had a gun, which she jokingly threatened to use if we tried to run off with it.

"What'd you get from the mint?" 'Oh, you know, just millions of dollars in gold bullion"

Of course, Geoff just had to try his hand at moving the gold bar, although it wasn't too hard to move it around, I think you'd have a hard time running off with it. Fortunately because I am blogging this post, we didn't get arrested for attempted capital theft so we're not currently rotting in jail.

Geoff wouldn't do very well in stripes and chains

Before we went upstairs, I took advantage of the coin making machine. Unlike the traditional ones that take a piece of bronze or copper and pressing it into some crazy shape, this one was more awesome. Although it cost $3, it used a machine that was actually used to print currency between the 1940's to the late 1960's. While they use more efficient machines now, the older ones are still quite useful for tourists. What I made was effectively a silver dollar, but I thought it was pretty neat.

Vacations: Exchanging money for sentimental memory since the 20th century

After that, we went upstairs to see the whole currency making process in action. Unfortunately they only made coins here, collector coins are made in Ottawa and they outsource the bill making process. However, did they ever make lots of coins! The tour guide said at full production, they make 20 million coins a day! While the Canadian economy has no need for that many new coins a day, the Mint actually uses it's excess capacity to make coins for other countries. At this point there are about fifty countries that outsource some or all of their coin currency production to Winnipeg. They claim that if you take 10 of any collection of international coins, at least four of them would be made at that location. Pretty neat huh?

While I wasn't allowed to take pictures of any of this process, I did have a good picture of the outside of the mint, which I guess will have to be good enough for everyone not actually on this roadtrip.

The Canadian government: Protecting it's secrets against tourists since 2001

Tomorrow we're going from Thunder Bay to Sault. St. Marie, with stops at the worlds largest Canada Goose (Statue) and a bona fide ghost town. Should be exciting!

Pleasant Prairie Days

Well today went perfectly as planned, which was a nice change of pace over the last few days. We started the day at our hotel and usually I don't mention the continental breakfast that most of these places have because they're pretty bland. For a continental breakfast you can usually expect some kind of cereal, some toast, maybe some bagels. If you're in a two star set up you might even have more than one type of bagels and some muffins.

However this place, the Days Inn in Regina had the option to make your own breakfast sandwich. That's right they had friggin' English Muffins, a heated tray with egg patties and sausage patties, it was amazing. I still only had one but it was a great way to start the day. I'd definitely recommend a stay at the Days Inn Regina if you're there for a few days and want to spend more than a rate that would get you a bed bug infested room but not so much you have to remortgage your house just to stay for a week.

The goal was to go from Regina to Winnipeg, which is about 600 km. Normally that wouldn't be too bad but you lose an hour going over the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border so it is like driving 700km. We were hoping to stop over at the Spirit Sands Park (The mini-desert mentioned in the blog posts a ways back) and check out the Artillery Museum in Shilo, MB. Unfortunately the park was no longer underwater, but it was still closed to visitors as they waited for it to drain out. Apparently there was so much water they were afraid the whole area would turn to quicksand for a while, and they didn't want to take any risks. While neither did we so we just kept on going.

We did get a chance to stop over at the Artillery Museum in Shilo and that was a pretty awesome time. It was neat because unlike other museums this one was in a working CFB so you got to see modern day military stuff going on while you explored the past. The Canadian Artillery Regiment is based there so it makes sense the museum was set up there. Many pieces that all saw active service were housed there so it really gave you a connection to the past. They had tiny 6 pound guns that would have been shipped over from Britain and France to see service in the colonial periods, to great big howitzers that saw use up to as recently the 80's.

The some of the artillery pieces had little diorama's set up to show how they may have been used in action. For the little 6 pounder it would be more impressive if I hadn't lived near the Citadel for five years to see what they actually looked like in action.

Unfortunately for all you internet denizens, this is not some sort of rule 34 request involving 18th century cannons 

Inside the building they also had a very concise military history of Canada that I really enjoyed. It basically took the 5 hour experience that was the Museum of War and distilled it into a 20 minute walk through. It wasn't as graphically pleasing (No pictures) but it got the job done. If you're any fan of military history I would recommend taking the inside tour for the $5 charge.

The outside of the building also housed some larger artillery pieces that wouldn't fit inside the building. They were a little more worn but they gave you a better idea of what they might have looked like when they were in service. The collection also allowed you to see the evolution of artillery over the generations of war. You start out with the little cannons up there and they got bigger and bigger until World War One when they were really big. Then in World War Two mobility was more of an issue so you started seeing them get smaller but still more powerful until you ended up with this:

I'm sure some people wish they had one of these strapped to their car during rush hour!

They even had a rocket truck in their yard. I didn't think Canada ever had any of these but apparently they made up the missile deterrent defence that replaced the Avro Arrow. I think we sort of lost points for gracefulness in that trade off:

Put a Nuclear Missile on something that just about anyone could hijack? Seems like a good idea to me!

That was pretty much it for the day. The rest of it was spent driving to Winnipeg. Tomorrow we visit the Mint and make our way back to Ontario. If there is no post for tomorrow, it's because we got arrested for Geoff trying to steal gold bullion, and need someone to come bail us out!

Run-down in Regina

Finally got out of Edmonton today, but at what cost?! When we went to load up the car, Geoff noticed one of the tires was a little low, so we went and put air in it. Being surprisingly cautious for Geoff, he checked to make sure there wasn't air leaking out of it, and low and behold, there was. I was planning to waive it off but Geoff convinced me otherwise. I figured that if it was from the pothole that was three days ago so obviously it could wait until Oakville. However, the car was driven very little between then and now, so we probably shouldn't take the risk with so much distance left to cover. 

So we went back to the Canadian Tire who so gladly fixed up the car hoping that for a quick patch to solve the problem. They were able to take the car in quickly enough and tested it fast enough. Then low and behold it was deemed irreparable and also have to be replaced. Also I found it was interesting that as soon as I authorized the repair, there was not a mechanic to be found, it took them an hour to go over to the pile of tires and put it on the car. So we left about three hours behind schedule (We got up late).

I can only hope that this car and pull itself together and make it over the rest of the way of the trip. The rest of the day was subsequently spent driving the 8-9 hours over to Regina, SK, where we find ourselves now. As a final insult it would appear that some big thing is going on here so every hotel in the city was booked, we managed to find a spot after much searching, and it is nice, but it was added, unneeded stress.

It would appear that this trip is trying its hardest to end on a sour note, but we'll see how that goes. There are still a few more spots to hit up so there is hope for cheerier blog posts over the next few days.

As promised, due to no pictures today, more video on cats:

Wasting away in Edmonton-ville

Super short post today with no pictures unfortunately. Basically I got a call this morning around 9:30am with the final quote for the repairs, in the end it cost $466 to get he car all fixed up, this was fine since at least we could get back on the road. Unfortunately they also informed me it would take about seven hours to get the part in and then put it in the car. I accepted this as one of the many uncertainties of life and went and booked another day at the hotel through priceline.

Then I get a call at 11:30am from the repair shop and they say they have all the work done. Somehow magically they have converted seven hours into two. Unfortunately with priceline all bookings are non-refundable, so we just decided to write off the day and claim it as another rest day. Unlike the other two days this was a true rest day, Geoff watched War Movies and played Okami all day, and finally got through the rest of the book I've been trying to get through this whole trip (A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, an excellent read if I have to say).

Suffice to say there was not much to blog about today, although it was a truly excellent day. Tomorrow we're headed to Regina at the break of the day!

To ease your pain of no pictures, here is a video of a cat doing cat things:

Hope to have better stuff for tomorrow!

...Are doomed to fail

So today I got the bad news that although the garage was open, they didn't stock the part. Surprise, surprise. I mean, I really shouldn't be surprised, I roll up in an older model of a car that GM hasn't produced in 6 years, and now no longer even supports the brand itself, and Canadian Tire South Edmonton Branch doesn't have the part. Unfortunately that means they'll get it from a GM dealer, which don't tend to be open on Sundays (At least not around here, or at least their garages) so we were stuck in Edmonton another day. 

Fortunately I have CAA coverage so they should theoretically cover whatever hotel and food expenses I incur while I'm here, but I won't know until I claim it in Southern Ontario.

So we found ourselves at 12pm with no car and no hotel, fortunately we pricelined our way into the same hotel we stayed at last night so we came crawling back and politely asked them if they could pretend we never checked out. They were very accommodating so even though their 'official' check in isn't until 3pm, we got into our room around 12:30pm. Geoff wasn't feeling well so it appeared that today wasn't going to be a very touristy day. We went to lunch and got back around 2:00pm. I decided to say nuts to Geoff while he napped and went downtown anyway.

I taxied there because it's about 6km away from the hotel where I'm staying at but when I got there I was finally able to start taking pictures. I got over to the Alberta Legislature to get the picture for my collection and discovered a very well kept ground. Apparently it has a very nice 'mall' type pond, but it was all closed down for maintenance unfortunately. I still got a good picture of the legislature building itself, which was built in a very similar style to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which makes sense because they all joined confederation very close together.

This is the place were they pass laws to 'freeze the bastards out'

The grounds of the legislature was covered in parkground littered with statues commemorating one thing or the other. I found one that was particularly neat because it commemorated all the people who lost their lives in the line of duty, and not a single one of them was a soldier. There were police officers, parks officers, firefighters, etc. I really think that those occupations really don't often get the commemoration they need sometimes. I mean, they don't lose people as often as the armed forces, but they still do sometimes. I thought the statue was nice.

Not sure what the statue is supposed to be, but the thought is nice.

After all that I went across the Saskatchewan River (via bridge, I'm not some sort of triathlon ironman) to check out the Queen Elizabeth Park over there. It had an extensive trail system that I explored somewhat, mainly the paths near the river. From one lookout point I was able to get an excellent view of the downtown area. It's interesting to see that the downtown is strictly separated by that river, once you get on the other side it's like all commercial development just ends.

Maybe it's a water wall to keep all the businessmen, lawyers and government workers away from everyone

By the time I got a ways down the trail it was starting to get late so I started to head back. Now I knew that the hotel was 6.5km away, and I knew that it was a bit of a cab ride downtown, but I decided to walk back anyway. Now I don't regret the decision, it was a fine walk, but my feet and legs certainly aren't happy about it.

Along the way I was able to walk through the Strathcona Heritage District. Similar to the place in Winnipeg, it was an old CN rail yard that went into disuse. However it had the added charm of having its own his min-history. Basically it was established as a sort of competing town to Edmonton by a rival railway to the CPR. They hoped to run rail development between Calgary and Edmonton, it certainly paid off, as the city grew faster than Edmonton for about 15 years. Unfortunately it worked too well as it was incorporated into a city in 1906, and in 1911 it was amalgamated into Edmonton anyway. The whole area eventually fell into disuse until it was revitalized in the late 70's. Now's it's a bustling business district with an eclectic mix of restaurants, used book stores, coffee shops, artisans and specialty shops. When you walk through it from the West Gateway Drive side there is this big iron wrought gate celebrating that heritage.

They don't really need to call it 'old' Strathcona since there is no new one... yet.

Now we've had supper, Geoff's feeling a little better and we're turning in early. We don't have any reason to be up early tomorrow since the Canadian Tire is going to call us when they have the full quote. So hopefully I'll have this whole car situation resolved by tomorrow and we can be on our way. Don't get me wrong Edmonton is a nice city, but if I'm going to be sitting around in one spot for multiple days, I'd rather be staying for free or just at home.

The best laid plans...

We got to hang out more with Geoff's friend Nikki today, that was entertaining. We hadn't gotten in to Whitecourt until later yesterday so we took the opportunity (We have a plan laid out for getting back into NB for this Friday) to just take it easy today. Geoff wasn't feeling too well so we hung around Whitecourt swapping stories with Nikki. We also got to see the inner workings of an air tanker base so that was pretty exciting as well (Complements to Nikki).

So when we finally got on the road it was about 3pm, but that was OK because Edmonton was only about a 2 hour drive away. After an uneventful drive down we arrived in the capital of Alberta without much fanfare. We decided to pay a visit to the West Edmonton Mall before we checked into our hotel since it was in between the highway and the Travelodge. I have to say, it was a pretty big mall; I've been in huge malls before (I'm thinking Vaughan Mills) but this one takes the cake. It had an indoor theme park, an indoor water park and an indoor undersea adventure world on top of having a hundred bajillion stores (That is barely an exaggeration, it had two floors of wall to wall shopping and it felt like we were walking around in a labyrinth). Did I mention it had an indoor skating rink? It had an indoor skating rink. That means that summer or winter, you could go and swim in a wave pool, travel in a submarine and go skating all in the same day.

This place had it all, the roller coaster was in a special section of the mall with a raised roof:

Great, now I can get those stelleto's AND do the loop de loop

The skating rink was somehow cooled from the bottom, mainly because it really wasn't that cold in the surrounding area until you were practically leaning over the rails:

Skating: As if your feet didn't have ENOUGH to do with those bajillion shopping destinations

The Undersea adventure was really neat too, right in the middle of a section of the mall. It had a pirate ship, a bridge and a sea lion exhibit, although thankfully there was no piracy in this adventure:

This undersea adventure has 3 working subs, the Canadian Navy has 2, that's what I call scary.

Finally the wave pool was in another specially designed area of the mall. It's temperature was so different than the mall, it created a pressure vacuum when you opened the door to the observation deck:

You can call your friends in Florida in January when it's like + 10C there and say 'Ha! It's -30 here and I'm STILL catching the waves, wooooooo"

To give an impression of the size, it had a regular food court for the people who were just there for a few hours to shop, but then it also had a restaurant court where about a half dozen full service restaurants were clustered to service the general public who decided to make a day of the whole thing. Geoff and I checked out a few stores but after about two hours we decided to go check into the hotel.

I should have known things weren't going to end well when we got lost trying to find the hotel the first time. Using our GPS we managed to blunder into a subdivision where all the streets were the same name (Donsdale was the place, and it was a subdivision where all the roads were named Donsdale, so there was Donstale Road, Donsdale Street, Donsdale Crescent, etc). So we called the hotel and got proper directions. Once we found the highway to take us there it was all f'ed up from construction so there was traffic and construction and closed lanes everywhere. We manage to survive that and get off at the appropriate exit.

This is when I thought I could have sworn I saw the hotel from the offramp. Unfortunately it was the wrong way up a one way street so I just kept going straight. I turned onto the first side road I could find to make my way up so I could turn the proper way up the one way street to the supposed hotel. Well unfortunately it was the middle of an industrial park and all the roads were awful.

This road looks so innocent, little did we know it harboured a secret, a deep, dark, watery secret.

Before I could see what was going on I drove into the worlds largest pothole (Or what could be a good contestant for it) and blew up my transmission. Well, it probably wasn't that dramatic but we definitely scraped up the pan that holds all the transmission fluid and it leaked out all over the road.

That line down the centre there is my car's lifeblood that leaked away as I drove from that cursed pothole

I didn't want to risk starting the car so we got on the phone with CAA to call a tow. Apparently it was a busy night so we waited, and waited... and waited. About 40 minutes later the sun is starting to set and we're still in the middle of this industrial park where no one is there (Due to it being Saturday) and no tow. We're about the leave the car in search of the hotel when we finally get through. We get the tow all set up, but it's going to be about 3 hours before they get to the car. So we walk over to the hotel and... it turns out it's not the one I thought it was.

Fortunately for me, not all is wasted because our hotel is actually just down the road from the faux-tel so it's about an extra 5 minutes. Once we get all checked in and settled, the phone rings, it's the tow truck driver saying he's almost there. So we have to run all the way back to the car to meet him, he hooks up the car and tells us where he's taking it, a Canadian Tire which is also fortunately about 10 minutes down the road from the hotel. So that has all been settled, I confirmed the Canadian Tire garage is open tomorrow so hopefully we won't have any delays from there.
It's funny because I was commenting to Geoff that I wasn't going to have much to write about in the blog today, but this isn't what I meant to happen! Hopefully that'll be it for misadventures, Geoff got a speeding ticket and I frigged up the transmission fluid, at least there are supposedly only six days left in the trip, what more could we do to ourselves at this point? *Fingered crossed that the answer is nothing*

The Angry potholes desire more car parts! Om nom nom nom

Precious Jasper

Jasper National Park may be one of Canada's more underrated park. During my talks with people when I was planning this I got many recommendations, 'go to Tofino, it's beautiful' or 'make sure you get to Montreal, it's got a rocking nightlife' etc, etc. However, no one ever suggested Jasper National Park, north of Banff, I think it may be the most exciting park we went to on this whole trip.

This place had everything, climbs, valleys, gorges and Animals! I found that with the other national parks they were very sterile. They had lots of plant life, trees, natural wonders, but they never had any animals bigger than a chipmunk. I don't know if I just went at the wrong time of year to see anything, or if I just had a bad location, but I just didn't see any. Now with Jasper, it seemed that I couldn't go more than 5 feet without seeing something. It was very fun.

Starting off the day we went for a hike to Old Fort lookout. On the way we saw a snooty fox who seemed he owned the path that was ahead of it. He just sauntered across the path, not even sparing us a second glance as he wondered off.

He's a bad mother-shut yo' mouth!

Once we got to the top of the hill we were able to get a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. That is, it would have been breathtaking if it wasn't starting to feel like a 'same old, same old' thing. I have to say if you're going to travel across Canada, space out the time you spend near the mountains, the best thing about them is that you can climb to the top of them and see the sights. Unfortunately after about the 10th climb, the whole idea starts to wear a little thin. It was still really fun though, and we got a great view of the town of Jasper itself.

Not as big as Banff, but better than one gas station as well.

On the way down from the Old Fort lookout we saw a few things worth noting. First, supporting my animal comments we saw a group of mountain sheep, complete with giant horns and all. They were more interested in chewing the grass on the side of the hill than us, so we were able to snap a few pictures. I wanted to get closer, but I also didn't want to end up in Jasper Hospital with blunt force trauma wounds.

Fortunately none of them decided to go all 'RAMbo' on me

Going back down the hill we were treated to an awesome sight of the athabasca river. It looks really cloudy but the water actually was quite clear. It was also freezing, once again we tested this with our own fingers so you know it's legit.

One Panorama of Many

After the hike up the lookout, we went over to a really nice lake, the water was literally clear as day. We were unfortunately not able to do the whole trail since there was a nest of eagles across part of it so it was closed down. However it will offered very nice views of the rest of the lake and it was still a nice hike along a handi-accessable trail (So it wasn't too difficult). As always, the walk was ringed by the omnipresent mountains of the region.

I have to say, don't go to national parks unless you REALLY like Lakes, Trees and dirt

On the way back to the parking lot we encountered a group of deer things. I think they are deer, Geoff thinks they are elk, he's the forest guy so he's probably right but I who knows? Just like the sheep they were more interested in lazing about than worrying about us. They didn't approach us for food or anything, but they just sort of glanced at us and when they deturmined we weren't going to eat them, they ignored us.

Just like when I go to the bars.

The final stop was the Malingne Canyon. This place was huge, basically a really deep, narrow canyon that had been warn away over thousands of years. It got its name when a Belgian Jesuit tried to cross the river with much difficulty, which I thought was hilarious. What was also interesting about the canyon was the surrounding area, the rocky cliffs surrouding it were riddled with underground rivers that came literally out the side of cliffs, feeding into the river. Eventually the river also goes underground, feeding into a lake that apparently is created out of nothingness. We didn't see the lake, but I did see the areas where water just came out of the cliffside. It was neat! Also the canyon was really friggin' deep.

It hard to tell, but that is about a 50m drop. That's 5 tens, and that will leave you in a bad way.

Finally we were on our away again. On the road we got one last shot of the mountains, these ones were wreathed in clouds so they almost looked like volcanoes. Fortunately we don't share the same geological conditions as Iceland so we don't have to worry about stranded flights anywhere around here.

Also, our mountains have pronounceable names

We're up in Whitecourt, AB so that Geoff could visit an old school friend. I have to say this much about Whitecourt, if you're looking for an idylic Alberta town this place is a good start, but for the love of god don't stay at the cheapest hotel. The Howard Johnson here is an absolute dive, I'm glad that we went out for drinks and food before we came back to sleep. Otherwise I think I would be grossing myself right now with thoughts of sleep. Fortunately I think I'm tired enough to ignore that fact for now, but I think from here on in we'll be sticking with Super 8's or Travellodges, at thest they seem to have standards.

Hard Days Drive

I hate to disappoint everyone today but we didn't really do much. We got out of the Vancouver International Airport Travellodge that we were staying at and drove 800km up to Jasper, AB. I think this was our longest driving day yet. Normally, even the days that we drive 'all day' we usually stop somewhere that I can comment on, but today it was really just all driving.

We hit up timmy's for breakfast and then drove flat out for four hours until we stopped for gas, switched over and then drove for another four and a half hours until we got to Jasper. The only thing I can comment on is that we almost stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Lodge but due to the fact that we didn't decide we were going to stay there until today and then it was too late.

Tomorrow we're hiking in Jasper the park and then driving up to visit a friend of Geoff's, so we should have some more interesting pictures. The drive itself today was nice, but it was very similar to the drive from Golden, BC to Vancouver. Basically it went from city immediately to mountains and haven't stopped. According to Geoff about 70% of BC is apparently mountains, and based on what I've seen I'm inclined to believe him.

The motto of BC shouldn't be 'Beauty without diminishment' it would be 'We got all the F*&@'n Mountains'

Also Jasper had lots of Elk. Pretty much 3 elk for every person in Jasper. I hope to take more pictures of them tomorrow on the hike. For now, you'll have to make due with the speedy Gonzalez version I snapped when we drove past a herd of them on the highway.

If you look really close, I think you can find the one that's on the quarter.

Jasper Hiking Tomorrow!

Adventure at the end of the country

Tofino truly is a wonderful place. I'm left with no doubt that this place has lived up to its reputation as a resort town. Basically anything you can do in BC you can do in Tofino, weather you want to Kayak, go whale watching, climb a mountain, go to a beach, etc, etc you can get there from Tofino. Often within a few minutes of the town. The only complaint I have is that the weather wasn't very nice for the time we were there. If it was a sunny day I think we could have taken in the town in it's true glory.

We started off going to Tuff Beans, which has a really amazing breakfast. As well, I got to have a Hollywood moment when I realized it was the same store that the main character ate at in "One Week". The tea is pretty awesome as well, great start to the day.

We chartered a boat to take us over to Meares Island which apparently has really big trees and an awesome walking trail, but we had some time to kill so we went over to the town's boardwalk. The boardwalk itself wasn't very long, but it led down to a really nice beach. It was very pristine and once again, if it wasn't raining and cold would have been quite a beautiful spot.

Imagine this picture as if it was sunny out!

After wondering around the beach for about 30 minutes and scampering up some rocks we decided to head back into town to check in with the charter and make sure we had everything we needed. At around 12pm we were on our way across the bay to Meares Island.

I'm on a boat!

Once we got to Meares Island we were given two hours to do whatever we wanted before the water taxi came to pick us up. There was a nice board walk that went into the interior of the island, so we started there. The thing about Meares Island and many of the other islands that dot the coast of BC is that there really isn't much reason to settle there other than to build cottages. In this case, Meares Island was native territory and they only occupied one part of the island so the majority of it was undisturbed rain forest. The big thing about this walk are the trees themselves, they have a few there that are upwards of 1,500 years old! You could definitely tell based on the size of them (Although Geoff says this is a poor way to determine a tree's age).

What does the scouter say about that tree's power level?

Look at that tree, we don't know how old it was but it was wider at it's base that Geoff and I are wide, which is saying something. What's more is that this wasn't even the biggest tree, this is just the best picture I have representing the trees of the island.

The boardwalk ended about 800 metres in and was replaced by a trail, a very muddy trail, which led to... you guessed it: The Mud Flats! Other than that it went through undisturbed rainforest which was almost like stepping back in time. The trees are so big and so covered moss it seems like no human has been through this place in all of history, other than this muddy trail. It gave us the opportunity to see places like this:

That muddy strip in the middle of the picture is the trail

We were also able to see some of the local wildlife on the trip. I have to say it was less than inspiring:

We didn't linger long, this is the slugs territory.

Finally, what was really interesting about the trail was the minimal environmental impact. The trees in the area are really resistant to decomposition even after they've died. So the boardwalk was made out of planks cut out of a downed tree on site with saws and other traditional methods. In particularly muddy areas there were cut up trunks of tree as hopping pads, and in other places fallen branches were just used as impromptu bridges. There was no modern machinery used on site to make the place and nothing had to be shipped over. It also made for some really interesting furniture.

The boardwalk made from trees, chairs made from trees, EVERYTHING made of trees!

On our trip across Meares Island there was another couple with us and their dog. They were troopers and we kept close together for most of the hike. Sometimes we would be leading ahead and sometimes they would take the lead, that was until the later part of the mud trail which got a little rough. What ended up happening was their dog kept running ahead to us and then back to them, until we got too far ahead and it just started following us. When we got to the end we had the dog, and their owners were nowhere to be found. We weren't sure what happened to them, and there was only 20 minutes to spare, but we went back into the path and managed to find them after much back tracking. They were looking for the dog so they were glad to have it back. We all caught the boat together and returned to the main island and Tofino.

Our motley crew.

Once we returned to Tofino and made our way out of town. Not before stopping at Long Beach of course! Apparently this is the go to destination in all of Vancouver Island, if you go to one place on the whole island it better be there. This was concluded after exhaustive research involving the questioning of one shoppers cashier in Nanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in ShediacNanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in Shediac. Of course it would be much nicer if it wasn't freezing and raining the whole time.

The tide was out, so we had to walk forever to get to the water

Even though it was cold, wet and windy, we still took the tradition step of walking over to the true Pacific Coast, and yes Nancy, I even stuck my feet in the water. Once again, the Pacific doesn't seem that much different from the Atlantic, it's cold, it's powerful and it's really nice to be close to. I guess you'd have to live by it for longer than 20 minutes to start to see the difference.

My feet are white with terror, frozen and not ever getting exposed to sunlight.

After that experience we made our way over to Nanamio to catch the ferry and get back to the mainland. We stopped over at Cathedral Park to take a look at more trees. I have to say, if there is one thing that BC does really well at making you rethink what you know about something, it's trees. Although Geoff thinks differently, he thinks that it may be the best province in Canada, it has pretty much everything, mountains, coast, beaches, hiking, trees, clean cities, everything. I personally think it has plenty going for it, but I'm reserving my judgement for now.

This is what BC looks like when it isn't a city or a mountain.

We managed to catch the 7:30 ferry over to the mainland so we ended up getting in at a reasonable time. Tomorrow if the weather is nice we'll be taking the Sea to Sky highway to get to Kamloops and then Jasper, but if it isn't we'll be taking the Transcanada and then the Yellowhead trail to get to the same place. You'll know tomorrow!

Go West Young Man

Well, I think this is as far west as I'm going to make it on this trip. Today we made it all the way to Tofino, BC, situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island on the tiny Esowista Peninsula. However, before we got there we had another full day of driving and sight seeing.

We got all the way down to Victoria and took in the sights. I was able to see the Legislature of British Columbia, which means that when we go back through Edmonton I'll have seen all the province houses with the exception of Newfoundland.

They're laws are extra removed from reality here. It's so far away from everything.

The grounds were really nice too, as with the others there were lots of statues and other things. However, with this one they had a few totem poles to represent the coastal native heritage of the Province. This one was particularly interesting.

Apparently the coastal native peoples were a fan of multiple piggy backing.

On the way back, running the tourist shop gauntlet I discovered that Victoria is one of those cities with statues than run along a theme. In this case it was leaping whales. They had a bunch of statues around town with these jumping cephalopods in a variety of designs. This one was a mosaic of stained glass and was particularly neat.

This was right before it leaped to freedom into the harbour.

Once we got out of the downtown core we made our way over to Beacon Hill, the location of Mile 0 of the Trans-Canada Highway and a nice park in it's own right. Including lots of really huge trees that BC is famous for, and a fountain/pond that was swarmed with ducks and geese, and even a petting zoo! The zoo was meant for children but it didn't mean we couldn't go and enjoy seeing the farm animals, and as with the Toronto Zoo, there were peacocks everywhere, being quite noisy.

The star(s) for the petting zoo were the two alpaca's, Donny and Osmond. They were pretty tame, but they made lots of noise.

They didn't break out into any duets, disappointingly

Finally, we made it over to the Mile Zero marker. It was a very subdued place, just a park with a nice sign. I think it was a good technical end to our roadtrip. We drove from Sydney, NS the start of the Trans-Canada on the mainland, and made our way across the country, faithfully following Highway 1 all the way into British Columbia until we got down to Victoria, the other end of the highway. Travelling over 7,700km of national highway that in points is a 3 lane divided highway, but other times is a 1 lane (each) undivided highway. While the country lacks a comprehensive national highway plan (highway construction is responsibility of the provinces) I think the Trans-Canada does the trick.

This is the end, my only friend, the end.

While Mile 0 Was the technical end of the trip, as I said we made the trek over to Tofino. If you've never made the trip, the Highway 4 you take across the Island is basically a windy ribbon of asphalt that hugs a mountain on one side and a basin of water on the other. Rocketing up elevation and back down again, and we did this all during dusk. It was fun for a while, then we were just hoping to make it into Tofino before we went careening off the road. Well we made it safe and sound, and after some hiking and beach combing tomorrow we will start heading in a new direction: East!

This was when the road was good, it got much, much worse.

We'll be back soon everyone! (At least for Rothesay and Toronto Peoples)