The road heading north from Squamish looked to have fairly narrow
shoulders but with a large grassy verge running alongside. It appeared as if
there would be lots of room for a driver to stop. However, what was not a
obvious was that there was a four inch drop between the pavement and the grass.
Any driver who could see this drop off would be reluctant to pull over. With
wet pavement and slippery grass - it could have been dangerous. So I walked for a couple of hundred meters
until the shoulder levelled out a bit.
It was still raining, I was still wet and cold. The cars
were still going by just as fast, but at least I seemed to be getting splashed
less frequently. I felt pretty miserable and I am sure I looked that way. It is
hard to maintain a positive attitude when one's teeth are chattering. Not only
was I wet right through, but I had lost much of the time advantage in taking
the early bus. In fact it looked as if I was not going to get into Whistler
much sooner than I would have if I had taken the Greyhound bus into Vancouver
and made the connection to Whistler. If I had done that, I would have spent a
long time on the bus but at least I would have been dry.
In spite of my bedraggled looks and the sad vibes that I was
emanating, a car did stop for me. My driver, a women a few years younger than
me, was just going up to Whistler for a lunch date. She had come all of the way
from the Sunshine Coast to see an old friend. It is a short drive from Whistler
to Squamish, but in that time we talked about her limited hitchhiking
experiences, managed to agree that the
world needed to change its dietary habits, and that climate change was a
serious problem. She was a nice lady and told me that she would have liked to
have driven me further up the road but she was already late for her luncheon
date. I was let off at the beginning of Whistler, a spot that we both knew was
not a great place to start off from. While it was too bad that we couldn't have
travelled further - I was glad to have met her. I wasn't much warmer or drier
on the outside - but I was optimistic about the future - I knew I couldn't get
any wetter or colder. If my first two drivers had been such great people -
surely all the rest would be as well. I was right about the latter but wrong
about the former.
It wasn't a great spot to stick out my thumb. So I walked for a bit and never really found
a better spot. I stood for a long time by the side of the road, The shoulders looked
sandy and soft. In hindsight I should have realized that anyone local would
have not wanted to pull over in case they got stuck. The shoulders were not
really that soft - but from the highway they probably looked that way. A person
with a French-Canadian accent walking by told me that no one ever got a ride
there and I need to walk back towards the lights. I had been there an hour
earlier and it had not looked like a great spot to me, but I trusted in the
local wisdom and walked back. Within a few minutes I get a ride from a
gentleman who offered to drive me to the other end of town. I didn't refuse.
It was a short ride and other than talking about the weather
etc. there was not much time to get to know each other. While he didn't say so
- I think he went a few kilometres out of his way- just to help me out. Three
rides to travel 100 kilometres. I could tell it was going to be a long day.
My next two rides were just short rides. The first was to
Pemberton. My driver was a young lady who was very interested in the local fauna
and in the environment. She had already picked up another hitchhiker, a older gentleman
from a local First Nations community. It was interesting to sit in the back
seat and year him talk about how the weather patterns were changing, what we
are doing to the earth and about the animals in the area. I was particularly interested
in his description of "red coyotes" who he said were a cross between
dogs, coyotes and wolves. From what he said, it appeared as if these animal were
quite dangerous as they hunted in larger backs, were bigger than coyotes and
had little fear of humans. That sounded like a bad combination. As so often
happens - I wish I could have talked some more to these two folks.
My next drive, which happened fairly quickly, was to the
Darcy Lake Road turnoff. My driver was an older , somewhat rough looking
character driving a beat up car. He was, by his own words, a former addict.
But, in spite of his appearance and manner, he was a considerate person who
chose not to smoke in the car while I was with him. One should never judge a
book by its cover. Even the roughest looking person can have, and in my
experience does have, a heart just ready to give. He let me out at the corner -
near the white church where I have stood so often before.
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