On the Road Again 2012 #20

I have been to Jasper twice. Once on the train when we stopped for an hour or so and this time when I didn't spend anymore than two-three hours walking around. But in spite of my very short time in Jasper I do not particularly like Jasper. There is nothing wrong with it, it just holds no special attraction to me. Outside of the downtown core it is quite a beautiful town with pleasant streets and well maintained, if slightly modern looking houses. The downtown is busy, full of shops that can cater to the reasonably wealthy tourists passing through. The sidewalks even at 8:00 on a cool night, were in parts, surprisingly crowded. I don't know if there is that much to do in the evening after a long days drive or perhaps a physically challenging hike up the mountains except to walk around or perhaps I missed something . I am perhaps being too harsh on a town that I have only spent a handful of hours in. I certainly can't say that I know Jasper. But I don't think I will work on going back again anytime soon.

I was up early the next morning. I made the bed, cleaned the room and made sure the bathroom looked reasonable (I had had a shower the night before) and was tipped toeing out the door by 7:00. It was a lot of work living in stranger's house. If I had a choice, I am not too sure if I would do it again.

 I found the short cut to the highway and I was glad to be on the road again. The sky looked promising, the air was clear, there were no horse flies visible and I was heading into the Rockies. Life was certainly fine! In fact it was quite beautiful. I was feeling quite pleased with myself, I had no real physical pains and I was entering into the part of the trip where I was reasonable confident that I would get good rides fairly easily. I must confess that I did feel some relief and some pleasure that I had made it up to Yellowknife and back again. I was more relaxed now than I had been the two days previously.

I have many blessing in my life but standing on the road with my thumb out, all the while looking at the extraordinarily scenery has to be one of them.

I won't say that I was sorry that a large Toyota pickup truck with two huskies in the pack pulling a small house trailer stop and offered me a ride. But I was quite content to be at that spot for a bit longer. I was however surprised as a truck pulling a house trailer had never stopped for me before. It was partly a matter of timing, partly a matter of being in a good spot and mostly a matter of Steve (my new driver) just being a really good guy.

Steve who was 36, was off to a family camping trip with his two sisters in Fort St. John. He had bought the trailer specifically for this trip. He was normally more of a back packer/wilderness camping type of guy so this was going to be a new experience for him.

Steve was an environmental technician. He worked for a large international private consultation firm that assessed such things as the environmental impact of oil or natural gas exploration, mining or forestry operations. Steve was a very bright, well put together, thoughtful man. He had a plan in life and was well on his way to being financially secure. He also was an aware and caring person who I think at times struggled with the fact that while companies were obliged to get the environmental reports done, they only did the bare minimum required by law.

He owned his own home and rented out rooms to fellow workers so that the house was self-sustaining. He had a few toys including a quad that he used for work (for exercising the dogs) but he was a careful money manager. He was presently struggling with whether or not he should stay where he was or if he should start his own consulting company. There were pros and cons for both directions and we had the time to talk about them for a bit.It was interesting to me that he admitted that while he knew how to do all of the investigations, his weakness was in writing up the reports. He said that he was not a good writer. For a brief moment I thought about giving up my present life and going into a new business with him. But I quickly squished that plan as I knew far less about environmental writing than he did.

We also had the chance to talk about energy; what to do about the apparent endless demand for it and how in the future we will meet the needs. Just as I was about to wax poetic on the potential of wind and solar power, Steve very quickly stopped me and talked about natural gas. He told me that British Columbia has one of the world's greatest store of natural gas and that it is not being used. He pointed out that it was relatively non-polluting. While there were other strategies that could be effective, Steve argued somewhat compellingly that we needed to use what safe resources there are. He certainly gave me some food for thought. Natural gas has to be better and safer to ship than crude oil, it has to be friendlier on the environment than damming up rivers to produce hydro power, and it burns significantly cleaner than coal.  It makes one wonder why it is not being used more in BC.

As with all good rides, my time with Steve was over far too soon. We had between the two of us, hours more conversation. He let me out at Valemount (I think). It looked to be a great spot with a set of traffic lights just in front of me.  However trucks and big house trailers used the spot around me for parking to so they could nip into the A&W without the hassle of parking at the lot. My space was a bit more congested and chaotic than I liked so I walked over the hill to another spot that was far less busy.

My dreams of being on Vancouver Island, which when I had first been picked up by Steve had seemed realistic, slowly started to fade as every car passed me. It wasn't really that late and it was certainly possible to catch the last ferry but I should know better than to be impatient.

I got a rather short ride to a little intersection near Clearwater. I have very little memory of that driver. I am sure he was a nice guy. I think it was a small green station wagon and I think I vaguely remember a conversation about fly fishing.

There was a time when I could keep track of all of my drivers in my head and bring up a clear picture of them. My brain's particular filing cabinet restricted for drivers is getting a bit full and information retrieval is getting a bit more challenging. Oh well..... as long as I know where I am going, I am not going to worry to much about not remembering the past.

On the Road Again 2012 #19

There are three main passes from Alberta through the Rockies to the West Coast: rows Nest to the south, Rogers Pass and The Yellowhead. I had gone through the first two and was looking forward to doing the third by car. ( I had been through it by train). But first I needed to get to Jasper.

I  walked a couple of hundred yards down the entrance ramp to catch the traffic heading west to Jasper. There were a lot of cars on the four lane highway, but between the light rain and what felt like near hurricane force winds it did not feel like a great spot to stand. I pulled my waterproof neon orange jacket out of my pack and struggled to put it on. It was more difficult than it sounds as the wind kept on catching the ends making it difficult to do up the zipper. It was far too windy to hold up a sign.

I was delighted when a small SUV type of vehicle with a an and woman stopped. As readers from previous years will remember, I don't get a lot of vehicles containing a male and female stopping to pick me up.This particular ride had seen me and had decided for a couple of reasons to turn around and pick me up. Andrew and Sandy were off for a day of hiking in what I assumed were the foothills. They too were first time hitchhike picker-uppers. I told them how surprised I was that a couple had stopped. I then went on to say (which was a mistake) that almost the only couples who pick me up are Evangelical Christians who try to convert. They both gave a little giggle and confessed that were both Fundamental Christians. For the next hour or so Andrew and I had a heated discussion. Andrew, who was very bright tried to prove that there must be a God using terminology that he didn't  understand. For example he consistently misused the terms "socialism", "communism" or "critical thought". He had that patronizing tone that some Christians have. He knew he was right. All he needed to do was to convince me that it was right. From his perspective, it was my denseness that was preventing me from grasping his self-evident truth. I would have been happier if he was just a believer as opposed someone who used pseudo intellectualism to try to convince me and I wondered, himself.

After a quick break at a gas station, we changed the topic to something less heated. I asked them why they picked me up. Her comments was interesting. " I wanted to pick you up because I felt sorry for you in the rain, Andrew picked you up because he wanted someone to talk to". I guess that Sandy was not intellectual enough for Andrew.

They let me out the other side of Hinton and I, one more time that day stuck out my thumb. I was glad for the ride. It had gotten me out of the lousy weather into some sunshine. The discussion was fine but I think I would have preferred to chat with Sandy about her life. She struck me as the more interesting one of the two.

I was not very long at the corner when a taxi stopped and offered a ride. It was the first time that that has every  happened. My driver owned the taxi company and didn't mind picking up someone when he was driving back empty.  My driver, whose name I don't remember was both a very helpful guy in terms of giving me information about the area and perhaps most negative boss I have met. He did not have a single good word to say about anyone who worked for him,or for that matter anyone else he had to deal with. His language was foul, his distrust of most people was disheartening and I would have accused him as being a racist except he was equally as judgmental about young people. I don't think he was a very happy man.

I was some what disappointed to hear from him that the hostel was seven kilometers from town. That meant that I would need to buy some food before I took a taxi ride to the hostel. I would not have minded making supper but it sort of felt as if I had earned a real meal. I could not remember when I had eaten last. I think it must have been in Yellowknife 48 hours earlier. However when I went to the tourist center and used their free phone, I found out that the hostel was full. I was a bit disappointed in part because I suspected that there would be no cheap hotels available.  This was Jasper and it was high tourist season.

There was a list attached to the wall beside the phone of people who had rooms to rent in their own houses. I looked at  the list, found the cheapest room ($50.00), called the person, got directions and started to head in what I hoped was the right direction. I had to ask a few people before I found the right street. One person even went into her house and looked up the address on a town map to guide me on my way.

It was a bit of a hike and when I got there the lady was perhaps less than thrilled with me sleeping in her very pretty home. The walls had cute sayings on them, the bed had more pillows on it than I knew what to do with and the lady of the house gave me very clear instructions on how to use the shared bathroom.That scared me the most..... I was worried that she would inspect the bathroom after every time I used it. But they were nice people and I was happy to pay the money to her. If I could have stayed in the hostel, by the time I had paid the taxi fare back and forth, it would have probably of not been cheaper and not as convenient..

I went back to downtown Jasper to eat. It was difficult to find an affordable restaurant that served food that I could eat and I ended up walking around a fair bit. I finally found a place  that served a veggie burger. It was OK, not the best but it was food and I needed to eat. I walked back to my room, talked to my landlords about the area and a short cut to the highway and went to bed.  It had been a good day or two. I had travelled just over a 1500 kilometer in two days, some of those miles through pretty barren landscape.I was well satisfied. I was on the last leg of my outward bound trip.

On The Road Again 2012 # 18

I woke up as soon as I felt the first splatters of rain upon my bevy sack. As I quickly gathered my stuff and jammed it into my pack so that it would not wet I realized that I was not camping where I thought I was. The previous night I had thought that I had found a quiet wooded spot out of sight of people. In fact while it was on a dead end street and there were a few small trees around me, there was a fair amount of traffic passing me mainly because I was camping across the street from a trailer park. I was a bit uncomfortable as I went about my business of getting ready. My neighbours were a bit too close. However as it was still early in the morning I don't think anyone really noticed me.

I put on my rain jacket and started the 20-30 minute hike up to the highway. There were lots of vehicles on the road heading in the same direction as me but all of them were going far too fast to even notice me. It was hard to find a spot that felt comfortable to stand as the shoulders were somewhat narrow, the road curved gently so the sight lines were less than ideal and I was not sure if the drivers between their sips of coffee and talking on their cell phones were really paying attention. For most of them this was just another working day and already they wanted it to be over.

It was a cold and blustery day. The sky was a slate grey and it was promising to rain all day. I kept on hoping that I would get a ride  before it started to rain. I did not want to look like some sort of drowned rat to these northern Albertan drivers. Fortunately a vehicle stopped just as it started to rain fairly hard. I am always grateful for a ride, but this time I was far more grateful than usual. Art, who I think could be accurately described as being early middle aged, had been visiting his girl friend in Peace River. It was not until some time later in our drive to Edmonton that we realized that she lived and therefore he had spent the night in the trailer park across the road from where from where I had slept the previous night.

Art along with his older brother owned a company that cleaned the inside of the  boilers used in the processing of pulp. It appeared to be a very lucrative business that allowed him to have lots of time off and to have lots of money. Art when he found out that I was heading to Jasper and then the west coast, changed his route so that he could let me off at the best exit. I think he was a kind and generous man...... except for his attitude around women. Art was the second of my drivers who had some strange ideas about how to treat women.

Art had just come back from a trip with his girlfriend of over five years in his large travel home. They had travelled though parts of BC visiting her friends. They had according to him, had had a great time.( I shall not repeat the stories of great sex while he was driving). While it was a long term relationship, they only saw each other when he was working in the Peace River area. It sounded as months could go by before they saw each other again, but according to Art his girlfriend had understood the "rules" before they got together.  Both parties had been satisfied with the arrangement. It all seemed like a nice situation. The only minor fly in this image of pseudo wedded bliss was that her son did not like him a lot but Art was not worried about that. There was however, another minor stumbling block...... (It is significant to know that we drove together for almost two hours before  I found out about this little problem)

Art was married and had been so for a number of years. It was not that great of a marriage according to Art as all she wanted to do was to watch TV in this beautiful house that he had bought for her. She knew that he had a girlfriend and according to him, she didn't care. However the matter had come to a head both because he wanted to buy a house in Arizona and he would have preferred to live there some of the time with his girlfriend (as opposed to his wife) and his girlfriend had given him an ultimatum. She was tired of sharing him with his wife and wanted him full time. However if he left his wife, she would get half of his assets and he would lose her company during those time he couldn't get north; if he didn't ;eave his wife then he would miss the great sex and a traveling partner.  He wanted my opinion as to what  he should!  

My only comments were (a) I didn't know, and didn't want to know any women who would allowed themselves to be treated this way and (2) that he needed to make a decision and stick to it. I also suggested to him that it was unfair to both women that he had the best of both worlds when his partners did not. Much to my surprise, Art was not unreceptive to this suggestion. He was genuinely confused as to what to do. He did not want to lose any money but his girlfriend was more fun and perhaps a better life partner.

Art was not immoral in the usual sense of the word. He was a caring man who went out of his way to get me to where I wanted to go. I don't think that he would  steal or intentionally hurt people. But he did have blinders  on when he came to thinking about women. If he was happy then they had to be too. One has to wonder how a man can live until his middle age and not have that attitude adjusted by someone.

Art left me off just north of Edmonton at the turn off to Jasper. I had gotten out of the north much faster than I thought I would. I was feeling, in spite of the weather, pretty good. Rockies here I come!

On the Road Again 2012 #17

Some days I don't mind sleeping outside on the side of the road. In fact there are times I look forward to it. This particular day I was tired  and would have been quite content to set up my little bevy sack and go to sleep It was almost 9:30, cars were passing me by about the rate of 3-4 a hour and I had about given up hope for a ride that day. I had known that it was going to be a challenge to get out of the NWT and had assumed that it would take more than one day. However I couldn't set up my tent in the daylight - it just felt wrong. So  I  wandered back and forth along the T intersection looking for both a breeze to keep the flies away and for a bit of shade. There was precious little of either.

I was surprised when a small white Prius stopped. Surprised that any car had stopped so late at night but also surprised because it was the first time a white vehicle had stopped. To the best of my recollection I, for the past10-12  years, have never been offered a ride in a white car.  Kaad was originally from Somalia. He had left his home country and as a refugee had done a lot of travelling first to other countries in Africa and then at age 14 to Brazil, USA and finally Canada. His mother and younger brother had ended up in Norway, because they would accept them. He clearly had had a very hard life and it was truly amazing how together he was. He showed no signs of bitterness, nor did he appear to feel that what he done was particularly remarkable. He had ended up in Yellowknife driving for a living. But he had started to hang around with what he called " a bad crowd" and had needed to literally get out of town. In the process of leaving a few weeks earlier, his only valuable possession ( a brand new Prius) had been damaged in an accident. He had left it in Yellowknife to be repaired and had flown up early in the morning from Edmonton to get it.

The Prius is a complicated car and the garage had not done a very good job. The technology that transfers power between the gas engine and the electric motor was acting very strangely and there were times that I was afraid that I was going to be stuck on the road. It would be an understatement to say that Kaad was a fast driver.  But he knew the road well and there were almost no oncoming cars. So I felt reasonably safe.  It is sometimes difficult to know what to do when I am with a driver who is exceeding the speed limit by 40-50 kilometers an hour. If I ask them to slow down there is a very real risk of losing the ride, so I try to relax, not interfere with their driving and put my trust into what ever power that put me in the car in the first place. 

Kaad had a legitimate reason for driving so fast. He had a new job in Peace River and had to attend a training session the next morning at 10:30. He wanted to get some sleep before his course.

Kaad started for me a series of very strange conversations about women. I am quite use to having my male drivers talk about the women in their lives.  However his question was most strange. He started off the discussion by asking why did women prefer "bad boys"? It took me some time to understand the question in part because Kaad's English was sometimes not clear, but also because the question made no sense to me. What he was referring to was the fact that every time he or one of his male friends really liked a girl and therefore treated her well with flowers and supper etc, she would act cold and date other men. But if the guys were standoffish and did not act like they liked the girl, she would work harder at being nicer. Even after he explained it to me a number of times it made little sense. All that I could do was to try and reassure him that in my experience mature women were not like that. I suggested that hanging around ladies that liked to party was perhaps not the best of him finding a permanent relationship.  He either didn't understand my answer or it just did not ring true for him. At any rate it did not satisfy him. I have wondered ever since if I misunderstood the question or if I could have given a better answer.

As we got closer to Peace  River we started to talk about where he would let me off. I think he may have been concerned that I expected to go home with him. (it was his first time picking up a hitchhiker).  I reassured him that I was quite content sleeping outside. He was very good about driving me to the south side of Peace River and tgiving clear directions as to how to get back on the highway.

I found a little forested area just on the outskirts of town and at 3:00 in the morning (as I was quite a bit further south it was finally dark)  I rolled myself into my sleeping bag and was asleep in minutes.  

On the Road Again 2012 #16

I didn't really did not want to leave Yellowknife. I felt as if I had travelled a long way to see it but partially because of the weather and because it had been a long weekend  I  had not gotten to see or at least to know the city as well as I had wanted to. However I also had a sense of wanting to get to the west coast sometime soon. It had been over 5 months since I had seen my son and family. In the interest of both time and money I decided to take a Greyhound bus south. Considering how much I had spent on hotels to get up north, and how long it had taken me, it seemed a more effective use of my resources to get down south quickly. However, I could not find the number for Greyhound. There was a  local  company that took passengers to Hay River at the south end of Great Slave Lake but that would  not help me a lot. I went down to the lobby to  get some help from the clerk.After he made a number of calls and was put on hold for a bit, he told me that there were no Greyhound buses running in the NWT. He was surprised as was I, but it appeared that it was just not profitable to run a bus service in the north. The service had been infrequent and slow, visiting every community n the way. It was more effective for local residents and for tourist to fly. Like most things if the service is poorly subscribed the service becomes limited in the service which in turn causes even fewer people to use it. I suppose I could have flown out too but that would have felt far too much like cheating.

The next morning I got up early, paid my bill and asked for them to call taxi for me to get a drive to the edge of town. When the cab came I was not surprised to see that the driver was from a Middle Eastern country. The previous day as I was wondering around the town just before noon I had noticed a large number of cabs all parked outside the small mosque. Two hours later the cabs were not there. It made me wonder about a country where no one local wants to work as a cabby so we import others as immigrants or refugees.

My driver let me out across from the airport near a park that looked like a really good spot. It was a pleasant morning and there looked to be lots of traffic. Of course after being there for about ten minutes I quickly realized that most of the traffic was just local and that I would not get a ride from those people. There was also a lot of taxi traffic to and from the airport. I guess that is why there were so many taxi drivers in town.

It was quite a glorious spot to be standing. The view over the park and lake were quite stunning. Certainly after an couple of hours there I started to wonder if I would be spending the night there. (it was just a day park but there looked to be lots of places to sleep undisturbed).

The only difficulty with my spot was that day camps used it for a drop off spot and there were a couple of half hour periods where the parking lot was really busy and somewhat chaotic thereby making hitching a virtual impossibility.

I eventually got picked up by Alex - who is a realty TV star from the program "Ice Road Truckers" He was just going an hour down the road but I thought it was worth the chance. I had an interesting conversation with Alex, his travelling companion and another hitchhiker that we picked up. Alex was quite a character with 11 children, a varied work life and of course his experience of being filmed while driving his truck. One of the most interesting things that I learned was that he was, within the circle of people who watch reality shows, a celebrity and not only had written an autobiography, but also went on trips signing autographs etc. Only in America.....  Actually I think he was a really nice guy who would be fun to hang out with. Perhaps I will look him up next time I am up there.

He let the other hitchhiker and I out near two small, just off the road communities. I was feeling silly and generous and so I let the other hitchhiker get the first ride. It took him an hour or so to get one and another hours or two for me to get one. It was a long wait in the sun and it was somewhat frustrating seeing all of the cars that were going back and forth between the two communities. Every time I saw a car coming towards me I would get excited only to be disappointed as I watched it turn off the highway onto the dirt road.

Right down from where I was standing was the exit/entrance to a snow road. These are paths/clear bits of the forest, that as soon as the ground freezes and the snow falls, are plowed into roads so that small communities in the interior can be accessed during the winter. Because the roads frequently follow hydro lines, the residents do not need to wait until the lake ice freezes over.

Eventually a big SUV did stop and got in. He was going to Fort Simpson so at least I had a ride to the same spot that Todd had picked me up a few days earlier. My driver's first words to me were " do you have $40.00. I told him no but that perhaps I had $30.00.

I was Danny's first ever hitchhiker and he was a bit unsure of the procedures but within a few minutes we were having a good time exchanging stories.  Danny was from a First Nation community further north called (I think) Norman Wells. He looked really young but had had three children, two of whom were over 30 and seven grandchildren. He was particularly proud of his youngest daughter who had just returned from Africa doing some sort of volunteering and who was planning on going back to university. I am not too sure how the other two were doing. He appeared to be more reluctant to talk about them. He had worked in a number of jobs, but I think presently he had a small company that did excavations.


Danny loved to drive. The vehicle he was driving was brother-in-law's and he was not sure how much gas he needed to get home. Which is why he had asked me for money for gas. When we stopped at a gas station just before the Mackenzie River, I gave him $20.00 just to make sure he could get home. He had lots of stories about how well his various business activities were doing but I am not sure if either his sense of things going well were the same as mine or if he was slightly exaggerating. Or perhaps he had just left his wallet at home.

I asked him some questions about the bison. He knew virtually nothing about them...they were not part of his culture's history or knowledge base.

We spent a lot of our time together talking about the political process in the NWT, the opportunities available for some and how difficult the transition was for others. It was a common theme that I notice throughout the northern leg of my journey - lots of possibilities, but perhaps a rather high cost to achieve those possibilities if it meant being dislocated from ones past, one's roots, one's culture.

At the ferry "dock"  I saw a bull bison..... it was just hanging out trying to avoid the flies. When he saw us, he ambled in between the cars and the heavy machinery being used to build the bridge. It was an amazing sight...this iconic animal of the mid and north-west scratching its butt  against a bull dozer.

It seemed harmless enough. In fact he walked by like he did not even notice we were there. I had no desire to pet it though. One swing of his head and I would have been tossed into the river.

It was an amazing sight and still for some reason just a little bit sad.

On the Road Again 2012 #15

Yellowknife was not at all what I expected it to be. Not that I can define exactly what I thought it should be, but I think I thought it would be more rustic or pioneer like. It is of course, a city. A capital city that also functions as a port city on Great Slave Lake. I also, I think expected it to be a wide open city with something happening 23 hour a day. After all the sun is up 23 hours a day so why wouldn't the inhabitants? Of course the folks who live there need to have real lives and therefore need to sleep. Still I was a bit disappointed when I looked out my window the first night at around 2::00-3:00 AM and there was no one out on the streets.

The hotel I stayed at was $125 a night. It was not worth 2Xs the amount of the one that I had stayed in in High Level. The lobby  and stairway up to my third floor room looked a bit shabby. The room itself however was just fine - in fact it was quite spacious. It certainly had everything a hotel room needed. As I was checking in, an older couple and what I assumed to be their middle age son came into the lobby. Their ethnic heritage was quite clearly Inuit. It was my first experience meeting folks from the furthermost northern Nations. I, before leaving home, had for some reason never even thought about the fact that there could be more than one First Nation. It was kind of exciting. Throughout Yellowknife there are signs (literally) of the multitude of official languages in the NWT. It  is not unusual to see signs in four languages.

There were many indications of people's pride in their culture. This "drawing" on the side of a rock cliff was beautifully done and in spite of the fact that it had been installed for a number of years - there had been no gratuitous graffiti added.

I was hungry. I had not eaten anything since the great meal the night before. I was in a city. In spite of the fact that it was near 11:00, there had to be something open. If there was, I could not find it. All I did find was a corner store selling egg salad sandwiches and a bag of chips. I really wanted a better meal to celebrate my arrival in Yellowknife. I also wanted to tell someone about my epic journey and my excitement over seeing the bison and my crossing of the Mackenzie River. But I could talk to no one and therefore I ate my sandwich while watching some bad movie. I really would have preferred a ticker tape parade!

The next day was rainy and the city was pretty dead. Very few of the stores were open and there was not much to see. It was after all, a holiday Monday. Yellowknife is not a tourist destination that works hard at attracting summer tourists. Pity - it has a lot to offer.   Occasionally one would see some people on the streets who looked like tourists off of their boats down by the harbour. In the downtown core there were a few groups of young people wandering around and once when the bingo hall emptied a number of older people gathered on the street but generally I developed no sense of where people went or what they did. The day was rather crummy with intermittent rain.  I watched TV more than I normally would including seeing the movie Dried Green Tomatoes. I had forgotten how good it was.

I went down to the section of Yellowknife called "Old Town". A few of the tourist gift stores were open and I wondered through them. Their stuff was nicely done and I thought the prices were quite reasonable.

Old Town, because it is built on solid rock has no town plumbing. All water is trucked to and from each house.




Some of the houses were truly remarkable in terms of design and colour. There was a sense of whimsy in some of the structures that I found quite remarkable. I wish I had been able to talk to some locals just to ask if the somewhat whimsical designs were because of the long winters or in spite of them.

This house was covered with sheets of metal bolted to the sides. Very interesting

Because of the rock, houses had no basements and the houses had to be built around the uneven rock

The other thing about Yellowknife that I found absolutely remarkable were the house boats. As you can see from the pictures they were heavily built and had cord wood already stacked for the winter. I have a hard time believing that people actually live on/in frozen Great Slave Lake during the dark days of winter.

I had a veggie burger in a fake English pub. It tasted fine and the cold beer was welcome.  There was a sense however, of the surreal or of a disconnect to reality as all of the people in the pub were of European desent. The composition of this pub's clientele was quite different than the Chinese restaurant where I had had breakfast. There the majority of the patrons had been either Inuit or members of a more southern First Nation wth a few working class older white men thrown in as well. There seemed to be an easy flow of conversation at breakfast between the various groups of people whereas the pub could have been found in any town in North America. I found eating breakfast far more interesting than lunch. There was also a Boston Pizza and I ate there once. It was the same as any other Boston Pizza. Reliable, basic and predictable.

I hope I will find a way back to Yellowknife. There is so much that I would like to explore but a car would be so useful to get to the outlying parts. I would love to go to NWT legislative building (which looks to be a remarkable building) and watch how their parliamentary consensus process works. I would also love to be able to spend enough time there so I could meet some local people and find out where they eat, hang out, have fun.   There is a sense of Yellowknife still being a small town disconnected from the rest of the country, but it is as well, the center of bustling and growing new economy.  It will be interesting to see how it grows. I suspect that in spite of its innovative governing procedures, it will have many challenges as it needs to determine how the various ethnic groups  will work together. It  was difficult to tell from just a few days but given the number of First Nation individuals (especially the youth) I saw on the street, my reading of history, and of the poverty that results from "a bust and boom cycle" - the proper allocation (or re-allocation) of the natural resources will be major issues for the future.

On the Road Again 2012 #14

The spot where Dale let me off, appeared to be a near perfect spot. Cars making the turnoff on to highway number 1 would need to slow down and would therefore would be going slow enough to get a good look at me. There was an ample shoulder and great sight lines. I really could not ask for anything better. Except of course for some cars to go by. In the first hour only four cars went by. None of them stopped. Clearly my assumption that Northerners were friendly and would therefore automatically picked me up was somewhat flawed. Equally as flawed was my assumption that everyone on the road was going to Yellowknife. While they were not marked on my map, there were a number of small First Nation communities along the way. I of course did not know this until I actually went through them.

The other major problem with the site that I was at, were the horse and deer flies (people in the north did not appear to distinguish between the two types of flies). I don't think I am exaggerating, but there were 100's of the silly buggers zooming around my head. I spent most of my almost two hours at that corner standing in the middle of the road. Because there were so few cars going in either direction I felt pretty safe standing there. I was hoping that as the breeze seemed to be strongest in the middle that perhaps the flies would be blown away. Unfortunately the breeze was no strong enough and the flies just hung around appreciating the windbreak my body provided. Again I did not get bitten, they were just annoying

 The vehicles, for some reason seemed to come in groups or 3-4. Which was really exciting for a few minutes but it was less exciting when I realized I may have seen the my allotted number of cars for the hour. As I watched the cars and small trucks roar pass me ( they were not slowing down nearly as much as I thought they would), I noticed that a small grey truck with a cab on the back had slowed down and was now turning around. As the vehicle passed me again, it did another U turn and stopped beside me. His first words were " I just could not drive by you and leave you standing there." I don't very often, or at least I don't think I get very many rides from people who feel a bit sorry for me. It nice when they do.

Todd was on the last leg of a cross country journey. He had started off in Vancouver and gone across the country visiting every capital all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. He was on his way home but heading towards Yellowknife (capital of NWT) and then onto Dawson. He had had a great trip and certainly had developed a extraordinary understanding of Canada. Canada would be a different country if all young people traveled across Canada the way the Todd had done. He had some great stories especially about people in Quebec. We share a lot of things in common including the desire to meet people and to learn from them. He also was prepared to take chances and enjoy the risks.

Todd by profession was a technician working in the film and television industry in  Vancouver. It is a great job as long as one is prepared to work long hours under what can be demanding conditions under, I suspect the bosses may know what they want but may not know if it is possible or not. The job takes perseverance, and I suspect a whole truck load of patience. On a good day it sounded like a lot  of fun with lots of challenges. On a bad day - at least the pay is great. We talked a fair amount about the industry. One of the things that I did not know was that each job was a separate contract. If the head gaffer knew you and liked your work then they would call you when a job was available. If you were not available for that job....they might not call you the next time. Todd knew that and he still went on his trip.It was that important to him.

There are times when I feel the need to censor myself when doing this blog of my trip. I am aware that sometimes the people might not always appreciate my particular perspective of our trip together. In Todd's case however there is nothing I could say that would be negative.He was a great driver, a good story teller, an even better listener and he shared my fascination for Canada. He was also a keen observer. For example it was he who noticed the strange telephone poles on the other side of the Mackenzie. The poles were not  made of wood or cement but rather some sort of fiber. They only had one wire strung on them. We later agreed that perhaps they were for high speed internet access.   

Picture does not reflect the magnificence of the Mackenzie River

The high point of the entire trip was crossing the Mackenzie River. We got on a small ferry  that appeared to struggle against the strong current. This river flows all of the way to the Arctic Ocean! I thin Todd shared my excitement about crossing this importance river that for so many generations has been a highway from community to community. I was told by someone that in the spring when the water is too high and the current too strong that there is no ferry for a month or so. That means that there is no way in or out of Yellowknife except by air. This makes fresh vegetables impossible to get. All of this will change in November when the bridge that is being built across the river will ensure year around access. While I am sure that this is a good thing for the folks who live Yellowknife, for me some of the romance will leave the north

P

Picture taken from a moving car

                                 


The second thing that blew me away and caused us both to get incredibly excited were the bison along the side of the road. I could not believe it. It was such a high!!   I don't believe I have ever been so excited at least for the past couple of years.
The animals look a bit mangy in part because they need to roll in mud to protect themselves from the flies.






We got to Yellowknife sometime around 10:00.  I didn't know where I was going to stay, but we found a hotel, got my stuff out of the back of the truck and away he went to find a camp ground somewhere outside of the city. It was a great ride and I am thankful that Todd shared part of his cross Canada trip with me.