A Preview of Things to Come

I'm setting this blog as an output for my experiences as I set out on a journey across Canada. I'm only going to be travelling for a month so I'm sure that it will be a whirlwind adventure of sight and sound. I'm sure in retrospect it will seem like I set this up with the goal to show off this trip to all my friends and family who aren't able to go, but in reality I don't think you can contain something like this inside you own head or by simply taking pictures. As well, I'm hoping that by having this rolling monologue I'll avoid losing important details of the trip as it goes by, and prevent burnout of retelling stories to so many people when I get back.

This trip is going to be an epic 31 day tour of the country from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. Accompanying me with be Geoff, a friend of mine since our misadventures together at Harry Miller Middle School in Rothesay, NB. Unfortunately Newfoundland, PEI and the Northern Territories had to be axed from the trip for sake of time and expense. Newfoundland is the big loss because I was interested in seeing Gros Morne, but the scale of that park would make it a trip in itself. PEI was mutually agreed upon because we had both had multiple excursions there with family in the past. The Maritimes will only be the first 2-3 days of the trip since it has been our regional home for the majority of our lives, and most of the big landmarks we've probably already seen.

I've wanted to embark on this trip since I was in High School. Although then I was less confident in my driving abilities and my bank account wasn't quite as flush with funds. I delayed it to being a trip I would take 'some point in the future' a sort of grey area I could continually push back, yet still dangle in front of my hopes and dreams whenever life was stuck in a dull rut. Fortunately for me, when I signed on to work as the Stacks Manager during my year off school after graduating from my Undergraduate (I had decided to evaluate my options and to see whether I wanted to return to school for further study) the job came with an expiration date: March 31st 2011. With this date in hand, and the lease on my apartment in Halifax expiring at the end of April, I decided that I was going to go back to school, and that I would take a 3 month road trip at the end of working to celebrate my life achievements so far. However, budgetary concerns and the fact that some people still needed to get a summer job (I'm looking at you Geoff) pared the trip down to one month.

I still plan to make the most of it, by getting a Parks Canada Discovery Pass I should get free access to all National Parks and Historical Sites, and I'm sure there are lots of stuff along the way to see. Really this trip is about discovering what it means to be Canadian. Canada is a big place, and it means lots of things to plenty of people, but we don't really have a national identity. I hope to get a greater sense of what it is to be 'Canadian' by traveling across the whole country. I have never been West of Ontario, so I don't really know what it is to experience the rugged Canadian Shield, the flatness of the prairies, the majestic Rockies or the BC forest and Pacific Coast. Maybe I'll learn a thing or two along the way about myself, either way I'm sure it will be memorable.