On finding the familiar in the foreign

Isle D'Orleans, Quebec

The waves roll gently onto the shifting black sand and rugged boulders. Giant freight ships cruise sedately past, slipping between islands and lines of coast. The silhouette of the far shoreline is punctuated by towering steeples and lights flicker off the water. The view could be BC's coast, but for the lack of the ocean's briny pungency in the air. This is the Saint Lawrence River, trade route and historic life-blood of the eastern provinces.

Isle D'Orleans is a pastoral island in the middle of this vast river, a few kilometres north of Quebec City. It's history as a farming colony is apparent in the beautiful and meticulously maintained manors and farmhouses. Dotted with vineyards, fromageries, cideries, and maple sugar plantations, it's a popular rural retreat for Quebecers.

How strange that I like it mainly because of it's familiarity. It's coastline so much like Hornby Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island, but for the lack of an ocean. It's rolling pastures and quaint villages so much like Montville in Australia's Sunshine Coast hinterlands. Have I really reached the point in my trip where I'm searching out the familiar rather than reveling in the new? I think it may just be a combination of the two. I can very much sense the end of this summer approaching and I'm actually quite eager to return to a more stationary and productive life. I'm keen to put all I've learned over the past months into practice. But not before I've had another month on the road.

Montreal - July 21

I love this city. People are serious about enjoying life, especially when the sun is out. The buildings are just beautiful, the food fantastic and the rent cheap. I've not been writing much these past few days, partly because I have a friend along to share my inner monologue that otherwise ends up as text and partly because I've been alternately busy and tired. Lots of time spent lazing in parks and in our lovely B&B.

I've also been making the arrangements that need to be made in order to finish up my trip. I've arranged to sell my van to a lovely young Quebecois couple with 2 little girls who are keen campers. It was great to see them get as excited about owning my van as I was when I bought it. I'm glad to see that Clauss will be going to a good home, but I am rather sad to be selling him. I only have a week and a half left with my home on wheels.

I've also been invited to join another week-long horse riding trip, this time in Bordeaux in the south of France. Little bit different to the Rockies, but so lovely I just couldn't turn it down. So on August 8, I'll leave Montreal for London then make my way to Bordeaux to meet up with the group. Then it's back to Vancouver for a couple days to say my good byes and then home to Brisbane. I'm feeling very mixed about finishing this trip. I've had some lows and a lot of very wonderful highs over the past 3 months and I'm sure the last month will have both as well. But 4 months is a long time to be on the road and part of me is looking forward to being stationary again. I'll see how long it lasts.

Drivers of Montreal

I arrived in Montreal on Monday, after spending 2 very pleasant nights in Ottawa. Touring the Parliament buildings left me feeling surprisingly patriotic. Actually being on the floors of the House of Representatives and the Senate gave me more of a thrill than I'd expected. Places of power and decision making and such I suppose.

Jolyon has joined me in Montreal now and it's great to have someone to tour, explore and dine with. We've booked an absolutely perfect B&B right near McGill University. It's in a neighbourhood filled with absolutely perfect little row houses, with colourful gardens and external, wrought-iron staircases. The B&B itself is one of these row houses.

Parking on the streets outside is extremely competitive and this morning's amusement was watching half a dozen drivers play cat and mouse with 2 parking officers. Parking isn't allowed on Wednesdays from 9:30 - 10:30 to allow for the street to be sweept. Drivers were actually sitting in their cars, waiting for the parking officers to appear, when they all drove off simultaneously. They then circled back, only to have the officers pop out from a side street where they'd been hiding in wait. Much amusement to watch from our window.

Montreal is terribly French and has a very European feel. A very good warm-up for me and my rusty French before I head to the real France next month.

Obligatory rambling on US/Canadian relations - July 11

I do love this country. I love it's landscapes, it's own style of liberalism, it's people, it's history and heritage. I'm loving getting under it's skin and I will live here again one day.

Yesterday I was in Sault Ste. Marie and stayed at a lovely campsite just outside of town run by a very friendly Austrian family. The place was wonderfully cared and was littered with Parisian playground equipment ("Paris" was stamped on the metal pieces). I had lunch at a restaurant on the Sault river. At one end of a reach of the river was a large bridge. On the other bank was the US. It made me think about something that has come up quite a few times on this trip, and that is how Canada manages to live next to and be to economically interlinked with such an imposing neighbour and not allow it to dilute our own unique culture. I think it just comes down to practice. Having relied on the US as a ready market for Canadian products (something like 80% of all Canadian exports are consumed by the US) for so long I think makes Canada willing to tolerate the quirks and bad habits of our neighbours. It's a bit like having an uncle who's generally a good guy, always brings presents for the kids, but a couple times a year, gets drunk on Jack Daniels and goes around trying to molest your cousins and shooting neighbourhood cats with a .22. We sigh, shake our heads, and hope he doesn't turn the gun on us.

I think it's safe to say that sitting in that restaurant on the banks of that river, looking at Michigan across the way, is the closest I will come to being on US soil. At least until that drunken uncle goes to rehab.

In which my spirits are lifted

After almost a week of some pretty serious driving to make my way east (a couple 800+km days), some absolutely horrid mosquitos that nearly drove me insane, some serious isolation that led to way too much time inside my own head, and 5 days of rain, rain, rain, things have brightened. I'm in Sault Ste Marie (pronounced soo saint marie), a funny little town that has the US-Canadian border running right through it. Half the town is in Ontario, the other half in Michigan. No guesses as to which half I'm in. I'm at a lovely campsite with free wifi, excellent showers, and adorable French playground equipment. And plans are crystalising for me to spend the last 2 weeks of my trip in the UK and in France. I've been invited to join a week-long horse ride through the Burgundy coast. Bliss!

Next it's off to find some lunch on Lake Superior (hopefully) and then an easy drive to Sudbury. Then the weekend in Ottawa (there's a blues fest on) before finally arriving in Montreal. This past week has by far been the most difficult for me, for a variety of reasons, but I've learned from it as well. I think I'll have eggs for breakfast tomorrow.

On Real Wilderness or Pity the Poor Pioneer - July 8

I've made it into Manitoba, and after a brief visit to the very windy Winnipeg, I headed north on a detour to Helca National Park, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, one of Canada's larger lakes. I took an indirect route to what is already a seriously out of the way place to stop by a series of red garter snake dens. The guidebooks said that it was an interesting place to see great piles of gartner snakes swarming, mating and generally having a good time over the summer. It was in a provincial nature reserve so I'd expected the usual Parks Canada-style do, with an information hut, guides etc. When I did get there, after 80kms, much of which was on unsealed roads, the place was deserted and frankly, spooky. I walked as far as the first snake den and was feeling increasingly uneasy. There wasn't anything obviously wrong with the place, aside from the isolation, but I just needed to get out of there. My heart had started to beat faster and I was getting clammy hands. I found out later from the Helca Park ranger that a little girl's body had been found there in the spring thaw this year, abused, murdered and dumped over the winter. I'm glad I didn't stay long.

So now I'm camped on the banks of Lake Winnipeg. Steel grey, windblown and with giant, glacial boulders lining it's shores, it's making me think about what this area would have felt like to the first settlers who made it home. Today I left the big highways, if you can call them that, and drove through mile after mile of lonely road, dotted at increasingly less frequent intervals with tiny settlements (and can't quite bring myself to call them towns) with even tinier churches. Much of Manitoba and in particular the more far flung regions were settled by hard-done-by eastern Europeans, Mennonites, Acadians, Jews and other groups who society had not been the fairest to. They decided to start new lives out here, in nothingness. But it was nothingness they could own and farm and fairly make a living from, no matter how hard.

As I drove alone today through what to me was enormous and at times somewhat frightening nothingness, plain upon plain of it, I thought of what it must have looked like to those early groups who came the same route. I followed a road and saw occasional cows, dilapidated barns and outbuildings, fences, crops. They would have been confronted by nothing but markers on a map, rivers to cross and marshes to slog through. And when winter closed in, I can't imagine the loneliness and, I'm sure at times, fear of what lay hungry in the snow.

I wanted to see some of Manitoba's lake-studded great north. I'm afraid though, that the southern end of Lake Winnipeg is as far as I will make it on this trip. The wilderness further north is simply too much for me, but it wasn't for those that went before me, without roads to guide them.

The Prairies, in all their glory - July 7

I'd tried to dismiss what everyone had told me about the monotony of the drive across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. "Just burn straight through" they'd said. "Nothing worth stopping for". But I'd said no, I want to experience the open space, the rolling wheat fields and all that. And it has been a lovely drive so far. But only that: a drive.

The motto on Saskatchewan's license plates is "Living Sky" and I'd wondered what it meant. Not "Big Sky" mind, which is what I'd always thought of when I thought of the prairies but "Living Sky". And then I figured out what it meant. I left Saskatoon today in a steady drizzle that had persisted all through the night, kept me so awake in fact that I'd been up at 6:30 and on the road by 9am, a far cry from my usual leisurely starts. In the course of a day and just over 700kms I saw the drizzle gradually lift, turn to mist and eventually, a veritable terrain of clouds. And because of the distance that can be seen over the vast, uninterrupted flatness of the prairies, I was able to see something from the road I'd previously only seen from airplanes: the illusion of the movement of the clouds as I made my way along the highway. Just like the effect of passing at right angles, rows and rows of crops in a field, I saw the varied layers of clouds appear to move as I passed them, made possible only by the distance at which I saw them. I saw how the changing light and changing weather made the view ever-changing and I understood how that sky that hung over the prairies like a ceiling really was alive.

On the road to Montreal - Jasper to Saskatoon

So I left Jasper a day earlier than I'd planned. Basically I was feeling restless and craving the monotony of the prairie-flat highway after the overwhelming hight and splendor of the Rockies. For a variety of reasons, I needed to get moving. So i headed east this morning on the Yellowhead Highway (otherwise known as Hwy 16). Once I cleared Jasper, the scenery changed very dramatically and very quickly. I had thought it would be more of a gradual transition from mountains to prairie but no. The sky suddenly opened up in the space of a few miles, the mountains being replaced by flat-bottomed mountains of fluffy white clouds on a giant blue sky. For a while I drove through rolling hills freckled with so many wildflowers it looked like snow. By the time I'd made it into the florescent yellow canola fields, I was chasing a dark purple storm way out on the horizon. I followed it for most of the afternoon but never quite caught it, although by the time I made it to Edmonton, the roads were wet and the smell of the storm was fantastic.

I'd hoped to camp in Elk Island National Park, just outside of Edmonton and Canada's oldest wildlife preserve (think elk, bear, deer and even moose), but it was full and I hadn't booked ahead. So I pushed on another 150 kms to the rather tiny town of Vermilion, which fortunately has a nice provincial park campsite where I am now. My first powered campsite in 3 weeks! I'm so terribly excited to be able to tap away at my laptop for an evening again.

The beauty of the prairies is more subtle than the Rockies and I'm finding the driving very soothing. But can someone please tell me why on earth there are seagulls this far inland?

Banff Back Country on Horseback - The compiled writings

Back in civilisation now after an amazing week in Banff's back country. This post is the journal entries I wrote while out there, mostly by the camfires at camp in the evenings. Photos to come when I can, but be warned, neither my writings nor any photographs can hope to capture a fraction of the experience. You'll just have to get out here and do it yourself. Enjoy!


June 26

To say I am awestruck by the scenery I've now spent two days riding through would not be doing this place or this experience justice. Right now I'm wishing that my previous travel writings were less prone to hyperbole so that I could give this place the emphasis is deserves.

The group I've joined for this week-long trek on horseback through Banff National Park is small, only 6 of us plus our soft-spoken guide, Kerry, a self-proclaimed mountain-man. There's Anna and Shirley, a mother and her 16-year-old daughter, both dairy farmers from Black Creek in the Comox Valley. There's Rob, a lawyer from Edmonton, and his 13 year old horse-crazy daughter Megan who is brave and enthusiastic and reminds me so much of myself at her age. And there's Mike, a 29 year old visual effects artist/programmer from London who is seeing Canada for the first time. All are keen and capable riders, all are good-natured and friendly and we've bonded already "through joy and adversity" as Shirley and I noted. The joy of the sheer splendor of this place and the adversity of sore legs, backs, and bums from our mode of transport.

The horses too have been well above what I'd expected. Well-muscled, responsive and wonderfully willing. I have been so pleased to see how much of my feared-forgotten horse husbandry, riding skill and general knowledge is still intact. And while my muscles may not quite have the same tone and strength they once did, the do still remember what to do.

In two days, we've ridden just over 60 miles, through alpine meadows still fringed with snow, steep grassy hillsides, peat bogs oozing with the clearest, sweetest water, and rocky valleys following and crossing rivers swollen with spring melt.

The mountains are almost too big and classically formed to seem real. Last night we camped beside Stoney Creek in the shadow of the Vermillion Range. As the light changed from early dawn to midday sun to golden dusk, these mountains continued to look completely surreal. I joked with Mike that they looked like something he could have created for one of his company's films. He offered to drop in a few mountain goats and wolves to complete the effect.


Tomorrow we climb to just under 7000 feet and it can only get colder, although I don't understand how it can possibly get more beautiful despite Kerry's promises that the best is still to come.


June 28

I am loving the sense of freedom, adventure and play that has come over me on this trip. Yesterday we stopped for lunch in a valley under the gaze of the mammoth rock that is Block Mountain, with the Sawback Ridge filling the rest of the skyline. The valley contained the source of the Cascade River, which we had been riding next to most of that day, crossing it numerous times. The sky was the deepest, clearest blue and the river so pure, running deep and cold and I sank to my knees next to it. I knelt in the shadow of that mountain, in that sunlit valley with the river in front of me and I laughed while tears ran down my face. I'd never been so moved by a place, by a sight as I was then. It completely startled me to have such a strong reaction. I just can't remember ever having been this content.

When we got back to camp that night, I went to the icy river, stripped to the waist and wadded in, jeans rolled to my knees. I scooped the frigid water over my head and shoulders and laughed like a maniac to be doing it. What a place is this to bring out such complete happiness in me?


June 29

Today we rode through Flint Park, along a ridge that passed Rainbow Lake and through 40 Mile Pass, a high alpine pass that bisects the Vermillion and Sawback ranges. I swam in the lake where snow still fringed it's edges and a glacier, hidden under crumbled slate, dipped its toes in the water. It was so cold my breath came in quick gasps. And it absolutely delighted me.

On this trip I've become a better rider. I've become a better conservationist for having lived in a travelled through such rare and special country. I've become a better naturalist, more comfortable with the dust and discomfort of the wilderness. I've become more patient, understanding and I have been, quite simply, happier than I can remember.

Banff - June 24: Canadian cheese, you have redeemed yourself

I was all set to write a diatribe bemoaning the state of Canadian cheese. Horrible orange dye aside, even the most simple white cheddar is just horrible. First of all, the texture is just wrong. I bought what should have been a lovely organic white cheddar in the market the other day and it was _sticky and crumbly at the same time_. Wrong, just wrong. Then there's the taste. Slightly bitter with an aftertaste that makes you reach for something to wash it away with. And this has consistently been my experience for the past month and a half. What happened to your cheese Canada? I remember it much better that this. But then maybe my taste has, ahem, improved beyond your merge reaches.

But then, oh then, in one fell swoop you have redeemed yourself entirely. After a lovely late afternoon soak in Banff's hotsprings, chatting with two visiting Torontonians about of all things, French literature and organ musicianship, I decided to continue my indulgence with a drink on a beautiful sunlit patio in downtown Banff. Graham, my wonderful waiter, gently encouraged me to try the house specialty, fondue. He even arranged a half serve for my lonely self (the usual serve is for two or more) and I am so very glad he did. The melted gruyere was absolute bliss with a nice local pinot grigio. Oh, oh, and the dish of roasted garlic cloves that went with it. Oh dear god. While the cheese was Swiss and the wine Californian, somehow, Canada, you have redeemed yourself ever so slightly as far as cheese is concerned.

So loaded with tasty, tasty cheese (dear god, Tim, if you ever make it to Banff, this place has a 4 course fondue dinner!), I am back at my campsite for my last night relative civilisation. I do hope I can get to a net cafe early tomorrow morning to post this before I head off for a week of back-country horse rising. And now I must go pack my bags, bearing in mind that everything I bring has to be carted by a mule. I promise, poor beast of burden, that I will pack light with your well-being foremost in my mind.

On mountain roads

After having a couple days in Vernon with my uncle and aunt (who I'd hadn't seen since I was about 12!), I headed further into the mountains and have made it as far as Banff. It's a funny little mountain town. Much like Rotorua in New Zealand, Banff was founded as a tourist destination, primarily to encourage wealthy Victorians to travel the new railroad. As such, it has no really industry of it's own. It is a destination solely for it's placement among incredible mountains, eerily turquoise lakes and wild forests. So I don't feel too conspicuous as a tourist here seeing as most are. That said, I've been asked for directions four times now so I must look a bit like a local.

The highway alone to get here was just amazing. What a complete feat of engineering, cliche as that sounds. The highways wind around, through and beside incredible cliff faces, running next to rivers and lakes a lot of the time. Truly just incredible. The photo in this post is a bridge that was part of the old highway, now replaced with four lanes of smooth, sweeping road.
I've done a couple good hikes, one amazing one along the ridge of Tunnel Mountain, as well as had two good nights relaxing at my campsite. But this afternoon it's raining, so I'm camped out in a Starbucks (no, no horrid coffee for me; just a nice safe Tazo tea), scamming WiFi and electricity.

Banff is the base for my long-anticipated horseback camping trip. From the little I've been able to see from my less than ambitious hikes, I'm keen to utilise the more robust legs of a good horse to get a bit further into the wilderness around here.

Horsey adventures

I was back on a horse again today, a wonderfully smooth-gaited Tennesse Walking named Thunder, at a property owned by friends of my aunt and uncle. Their daughter, Greeta, took me out for a few hours and we chatted about growing up in rural BC as horsey girls, she in the Okanagan Valley and me on Vancouver Island. Seems the culture was much the same with both of us owning green (read: untrained and therefore cheap) horses which we spent a lot of time and effort training up for the show circuit ourselves. We'd both resented the spoiled girls of wealthy parents who competed against us on their $15,000 professionally trained, 'push-button' horses.

Only a couple years older than me, Greeta has been able to stick with regular riding longer than I could and has built a career of sorts around it. She now teaches kids with disabilities at the local theraputic riding centre and guides trail rides on her dad's property in the summer, mending fences and looking after the horses as well. I can't help but be quite a bit envious.

I drove back to Vernon beside field after field of yellow, purple and white wildflowers that framed a glassy lake (Swan Lake) and the odd delapitated shed or barn. Tonight I'll ease my only slightly sore muscles and butt in my aunt and uncle's hot tub. I think I'll take up Greeta's suggestion of buying a sheepshkin to cushion my saddle with. Otherwise, spending 7 days riding the backcountry in Banff next week will leave me seriously sore.

Manning Park: Pine Beetles and Marmot sentinals

Written June 17th in Manning Park.

I'm at Manning park, choosing to spend a few days here as it was convenient to the route I wanted to take to Vernon and because of it's reputation as a bit of a wilderness paradise. When glaciers covered what is now BC many thousands of years ago, the area that is now Manning park was left exposed. As a result, the biodiversity here is pretty amazing. It's also seriously off the beaten path. Just getting here involved a very long climb up sweeping mountains. I've decided to stay close to my base at Lightning Lake, mostly to conserve gas so that I can comfortable make it to the next town.

Being here I've been able to see a very concrete example of global warming damaging an exquisite space. The forests here are mostly Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar and are one of the few large-scale virgin forests in BC. That is, they have never, ever been logged. Most of the forests in BC have been logged at least once in the past 300 years. What is referred to as "old-growth forests" have generally not been logged for at least 100 years. The forests here are therefore pretty special, and they are being ravaged by Pine Beetle. They literally peel the bark off the trees from the inside. This pest used to be kept in check by long, cold winters which would kill of most of the population. Those winters have stopped happening and the beetles are systematically stripping the bark from every second pine tree on most of the slopes here. The lake I'm camping next to is surrounded on all sides by towering pines, dropping right to the lakes edge. I can only imagine how much more dramatic they must have been a few years ago when they would have been a wall of green, not checkered with dead brown trunks. I'd been told about how bad the pine beetle problem was and how much of an impact it was having on the forestry industry, but to see whole mountainsides destroyed and to walk amongst so many dead trees has made it really sink in.

I walked the 9km trail that circumnavigates the lake today and came into a pretty green meadow. I was greeted by a dozen curious brown heads, spotted with shiny black eyes, standing meerkat-like staring at me. These are (I believe) some sort of marmot, but smaller than marmots I've seen before. They seemed to think I wasn't much of a threat and went back to their grazing pretty quickly. Then a couple of hikers with a golden lab came into the clearing and right away I heard a high pitched chirping, followed by all the marmots instantly disappearing into their burrows. The chirping continued and I saw that it was coming from a lone sentry marmot, standing up on a hillside at the edge of the clearing. He'd been there all along, keeping watch over the small herd.

I'm loving mountain lakes. Manning Park is about 1400 metres from sea level and feels very much an alpine forest. The lake I'm camped next to is as clear as any tropical bay, brilliant blue under the sun at a distance, and deep turquoise close to the shore. I put my ear to a tree and listened to the tattoo of a woodpecker high above me reverberate down the trunk.

Squirrels

Written June 17th, Manning Park.

In the evening here, loons make their forlorn calls across the lake. In the mornings, squirrels do battle in trees, grunting agressively and chasing each other around and around and around trunks. These are not your tame city park squirrels. These are muslcular, wild squirrels. These are all dark meat.

Manning Park

Written June 16th. - More to come on the amazingness of Manning Park as I have time to type up lots of written notes.

Arriving at my first proper wilderness campsite, I actually felt rather out of my depth. My camping so far has been in serviced campsites on the outskirts of small towns. Tofino, Hornby Island, Squamish, all of them with electricity at every site to plug my van into, hot showers to wash in and gas stations, food store and cafes within a 10 minuite drive. But here, oh here in Manning Provincial Park, here I climbed a serious mountain range in my van just to get here, gears working overtime to make it up the long, straight slopes. Here there is no electricity, just an aqua lake down the steep slope from my campsite. Gravelled and furnished only with a government-issue picnic table and a firepit, its ringed on all sides by firs not by other campers.

Spirit of adventure or no, arriving I was a bit aprehensive, worried that the milk I had carefully bought at the last town, Hope, would go rancide, develop some sort of bacteria that would kill me painfully. Kill me because my meagre half tank of gas wouldn't last me to the next town.

Much effort spent priming, pumping and generally knob fiddling resulted in a tiny glimmer form the pilot light of my propane fridge. I think I may have actually cheered aloud. The sqirrels and marmots may be barking at my campervan door, but i can still feed myself and stave off food poisoning at least until my propane tank runs empty.