Hitchhiking is a strange process. On long days it can be potentially full of despair and frustrations coupled with sometimes relatively brief moments of excitement. I say "potentially" because the real trick of hitchhiking is not in the clothes that I wear or how nice my sign looks but rather in the art of being relaxed for long periods of time - of deleting (not just pretending it is not there) all sense of urgency about the next ride or where I am going to sleep that night. Hitchhiking is not just about that high one gets when a car stops and a ride is offered, it is also about managing the times in between. I suspect that those of us who sometimes display some of the characteristics of a mild addiction to this activity are those who have learned how to enjoy the alone times almost as much as when we are in a car.
I would have lots of time this trip to perfect that art of managing the "in between times".
Dennis, my next driver, was on the way back from a funeral (of his great uncle) in southern Saskatchewan. He had not seen his sister from Ontario, cousins or other family members for some time so the funeral appears to have turned into a family gathering/reunion and auction of the property. He was on his way back to his home town of Mackenzie B.C.
(Mackenzie has a population of 5,452. It is located in the Central Interior of British Columbia, lying
at the bottom of the Omineca Mountain Range, with the Rocky Mountains
to the east. Mackenzie is 120 miles (185 km) north of Prince George and 18 miles (27 km) west of the junction of Highway 39 and Highway 97). ( source http://www.mackenziebc.com/).
Dennis was by profession a pipe fitter. He had lived and worked in the general area for over 30 years. For much of that time he had worked at a local pulp mill. It is always interesting talking to someone who has made their living at least in part because of clear cutting and the devastation of the old growth forest. Those who I have met see their industry as just that - an industry that uses the resources around them to survive. While almost all that I have met have an immense appreciation for the natural beauty that surrounds them, there is for them no disconnect between their love of the land (which I have found to be frequently far more real than some city tree-hugger) and the destruction of that beauty. I sometimes wonder if it is because they are part of the land and therefore can appreciate the life cycles of the forest or if it is because there appears to be so much untouched forest ahead of them that they never see the destruction behind them.
I don't think I have ever actually talked to a pipe fitter about what they did. It was interesting. Dennis had been re-hired to work at the mill after he had retired and the mill had been closed. Part of his job was to train the new workers who had been to a community college, had their papers as being a pipe fitter but in fact had little real experience in how to do the job. It sounded as if, at least from Dennis' mind, the colleges were doing a rather poor job of training the incoming batch of pipe fitters. I had no idea that pipe fitting which in itself is a rather simple trade is so complex in both in terms of its uses and the amount of creativity required to translate the design into something that works.
In spite of an interesting conversation that lasted for most of the three and half hours I was in his car, the thing that I will probably remember the most about Dennis was his teeth. Or rather the lack thereof. While I didn't stare too closely it appeared as if he only had four visible teeth in the front of his mouth. I suppose I shall wonder for some time whether he was just tired of wearing his dentures or if dental care in Northern BC was somewhat substandard.
Dennis let me out on the outskirts of Valleyview, Alberta. He was going strait to Dawson, I was turning left heading towards Yellowknife.
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