| The drive to Ottawa went smoothly and we entered the city in the early afternoon. Our plan was to meet up with a friend of mine and stay with her at her apartment near downtown. After hours of driving around, we finally found Kilborn Place and proceeded to paige her from the front door. Unfortunately, she was moving out at the end of the month and had already cancelled her phone service. We waited and waited and waited and finally I snuck into the building through a door someone had left open into the loading dock. I found her apartment and knocked and knocked to no avail. I decided to leave a note, stating a time we would wait around the front of the building. Because the Ottawa hostel was full, we ended up spending the night in the car again, parked behind a large church, just near my friend's apartment. The next day we found a note for us at the building's front entrance which told us to meet her later that evening. So we spent the day checking out Ottawa. I can't say enough good things about this town, it was beautiful and clean, and to our surprise, only a two-minute drive from Hull, Quebec. We started off at the Parliament buildings, as Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and were suddenly bombarded by freezing snow that soaked us through and covered everything. After a quick tour through the Parliament, we decided that it would be a good idea to spell out a gigantic message to Jean Chretien, our Prime Minister at the time, in the snow on the lawn Parliament Hill. After careful consideration, we decided that a "HI JEAN!" would probably be the safest bet and we set to work. After 15 minutes, we had completed the message, and stepped back to admire our work. I have no idea if he or anyone else ever saw it, though. From Parliament, we walked around Sparks Street, Canada's first paved street, and looked at some of the monuments around Parliament. We spent some time in the Canadian Contemporary Museum of Photography and then moved on to see some other museums. The National Gallery and War Museum were both closed, because it was Monday, but we did get to see the National Mint. We weren't allowed to film inside because apparently they didn't want us to learn how to mint gold coins in our houses or anything like that. Later in the afternoon, we drove by Jean Chretien's house at 24 Sussex Drive and after speaking loudly, but innocently, about how his fence and steel barriers could stop a tank we were rudely chased away by his security guards. It was great to see, Jean's car and flowers and windows and doors and other things. Honestly, we were hoping that maybe he would invite us in for a beer or something, you know being the liberal, progressive, political leader that he is, but NO, not even a peep from Jean himself. The next day we checked out the Musee de la Civilisation in Hull, Quebec with Cindy, my friend from Ottawa, and then drove onwards through Trois Rivieres, finally arriving in Montreal late that same night. |
| c'est fou ca |
| Montreal is definitely one of my favourite cities in the country. The next morning, we walked to old Montreal near the water along the St. Lawrence River and drank red wine and ate les escargots at a small cafe, french-style. After checking out the Montreal Science Center, McGill University and Mont Royal, we ended up calling Dustin's cousins and spending the next two nights with them. We decided to party one night and made our way to a bar called the Loft on Ste-Catherine's street. The bar was great, especially because the drink special was two bottles of beer and two shots of tequila for seven dollars. In the bar we met some french canadians, one who looked like Dave Grohl and incessantly air-drummed to every song. It was a great night. The next day, we ended up sleeping in until 4pm or so and then went to see the Cirque Du Soleil perfrom Varekai. The show was amazing, and from there we headed to a hundred-dollar a plate dinner at Gibby's Restaurant in old Montreal. One of those swanky joints, with valets and little servings of green sorbet between dishes to cleanse the palate. A beautiful city, filled with churches and small french cafes, people sipping on espresso and reading the morning newspaper. You can smoke and drink virtually anywhere, laze around in parks or courtyards, ride your bike through cobblestone streets and the city offers one the amazing opportunity to taste cuisine from all over the world. Dustin's cousins made us crepes with authentic Montreal maple syrup, but we missed out on the smoked meat sandwiches, which Montreal is famous for. Too much to mention everything on Montreal...it's hard to believe that it's part of Canada. Specifically because, growing up on the West Coast, it was hard for me to imagine that a place full of such history, culture and art could exist along the same lines as Vancouver's stark modernism and contemporary architecture. It's a world apart and really helped to see how important it is to Canada's history and culture that Quebec remain a part of the country. There's so much going on here, and those of us living on the West Coast really have no idea. I can empathize with the separatists because Quebec is so profoundly different from anywhere else in Canada, but I think our goal, as Canadians, should be to embrace our french cultural heritage and the language and hold on to it. Without it, Canada would just become even more usurped by American pseudo-culture than we already are and we would eventually lose a large part of what makes Canada Canada. The drive to Quebec City was short and we arrived in old Quebec, within the walls, in the early afternoon. This area of the city is a maze of one way streets and it took us almost three hours to find the hostel, and then another hour to drive to a parking garage which was really only one block away. We decided it would be best to leave the car there and walk around, or take taxis, rather than try and navigate the ancient streets. We went out that night to Chez Dagobert, on the Grande-Allee, one of the main streets running through old Quebec. It was honestly one of the bect clubs I've ever been to. The club, itself, is inside an old castle-like mansion with huge spotlights outside. Downstairs in a lounge bar with a great ambience, glass blocks, leather studded seating at the tables, we watched "The Nerds" belt out Top 40 hits. Playing them with such intensity and so perfectly, that I could've been at a live show of any of the number of bands they covered. Upstairs was a dance floor and the DJ, mixing digital technology on computers with two turntables, played a large selection of dance music, from techno to hip hop, most memorably, Lady Marmalade from Moulin Rouge, blasting over the speakers while the video played on a huge screen near the back wall. I also distinctly remember these lights they had that raised and lowered depending on the music. One set, Dustin and I called the "hot lights" were so damn hot that we had to step off the dance floor to recover. The city was awe-inspiring, beautiful old churches and courtyards, cannons, ancient buildings and castle walls surround the main part of downtown in the old area. I went for an espresso early one morning and drank it slowly on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, near the Chateau Frontenac, a great hotel constructed in the late 19th century by Canada's Pacific Railway company. It was a great experience, being up so early in the morning, and seeing this wonderful city come to life, before all the tourists arrive. Dustin and I walked down to the Lower Town, down Les Escaliers Casse-Cou (The Breakneck Staircase) and walked along the streets here, below the Chateau Frontenac hotel. We took the Funicular Railway back up on to the decks of the huge hotel and spent the rest of our days just wandering the streets, from the Plains of Abraham to the beautiful cathedral, Notre Dame de Quebec, the first cathedral built north of Mexico and the first parish in North America. Quebec City is hands down, my favorite Canadian city. If ever given the opportunity, I'd make it my home in a second. |
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| I've lived in Canada all my life. I grew up in Surrey, British Columbia, one of the fastest growing communities in Canada, forty minutes drive from downtown Vancouver. From home I could reach the Pacific ocean or a high mountain lake in a temperate rainforest within an hour. I earned my degree from the University of British Columbia and have spent the last five years of my life living in South Vancouver, from Point Grey and Kitsilano to South Granville and Oak street. I've always been proud to call Canada my home and in the spring and summer of 2002, I ventured on a journey, by car, that took me from Vancouver, British Columbia, over 14 000 kilometres, to Cape Spear, Newfoundland and back again. I stopped in almost every major city during the three and a half month trip. |
| I left three days after finishing the final exam of my last year in university. In fact, I wasn't even sure I had completed all the requirements until several weeks later, when I checked my results online, from an internet cafe in Ottawa, the nation's capital. I had always thought it a shame, that more people don't do this same trip. I was often confronted with the same question when describing my experiences to friends, "Why the hell would you do that?" Unfortunately, it's a view shared by many who live in Canada, and is disappointing to hear, to say the least. If you've never done it, then you have no idea how big the country actually is and how many amazing things there are to do and see. It's a beautiful landscape, that I don't believe anyone can really call home until they see it all...from sea to shining sea |
| Douglas Coupland, a Canadian author, who grew up in North Vancouver, recently published a coffee-table book, Souvenir of Canada. It's a definitive example of all things Canadian and should be mandatory reading material for all Canadians. It describes the many cultural oddities that make Canadians stand out in the world, many that we don't even realize until they are presented to us in a neat printed format. We are different than any other country in more ways than even we can fathom, and as Mr. Coupland, put it so poignantly, "It's never felt more Canadian to be Canadian than it does now." |
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| -Douglas Coupland |
| The entire trip, was recorded on 16mm, and I spent an entire year editing 18 hours of Canada down to a more digestible length of just under 5. In time, I'll include screen captures here, and eventually maybe even the entire movie, lovingly titled "Dustin and Kiran Do Canada," an homage to those great MTV idiots, Beavis and Butthead and their epic journey in "Beavis and Butthead Do America." |
| the journey begins... |
| I made the entire trip in a white 1994 Toyota Corolla, that served us well. Us, meaning, my friend Dustin and I. I've been friends with Dustin, ever since grade 11, when we used to goof off in Mr. Tenant's Physics 11 class at the back. This goofing off didn't hinder us, though, as we still managed to get some of the highest marks in the class. From there we graduated to daily visits to Ricky's Coffee house in Surrey, and over black coffee and cigarettes, discussed the unfolding of the universe, creating our own theories on evolution, the "big bang" and how to cure world hunger and disease. I phoned Dustin about a month before we left and it was easy to convince him, having an excess of cash on no job, to come on the trip with me. We'd also planned to stop in Pointe-de-l'Eglise, Nova Scotia, at l'Universite Ste-Anne during the spring for French Immersion. Because he was infinitely tired, he was assigned the job of "navigator," but he eventually slipped into the position of grumpy, sleeping person in shotgun. His "navigating" services were put to the test on many occasions in the wilds of Canada. That's all I'll say about that. |
| flight of the navigator |
| A crisp spring morning, April 28th, 2002, we set out at 5am, hoping to get to Calgary in nine or ten hours. We snacked on cold pizza, had a few cups of coffee at JD's Coffee House and sped off, innocent to the size and width of the country and to what the trip would entail. Our mascot, a papier mache chicken, affectionately named Zubba-Dubba-Ding-Ding, joined us in the back seat. The next few hours into the interior were amazing, fraught with perilous driving through the mountains. Huge semi's tailgated us along the TransCanada Highway, where large portions lacked the requiscent dividing lines of any highway. We were often sandwiched between avalanche areas on one side, steep cliff drop off's on the other side and insane truck drivers, forcing us to go faster on the two-lane stretch through Roger's Pass. It was nerve-racking. We had breakfast at a Humpty's restaurant and made it to Revelstoke early to film some classic playground scenes with Zubba. Large portions of the road were covered in ice and snow, but the beauty of those mountains, freshly blanketed by glassy white snow, was something I will never forget. |
| snow snow everywhere |
| We arrived in Calgary, Alberta in the early evening and spent the next three hours trying to find the hostel. Nightfall followed soon after, and we made our way to a bar to watch our beloved Canucks lose another game in the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs. Calgary, is not one of my favorite cities. I've never liked the cowboy schtik that is so dominant here...and the cold, let me tell you...the cold. We only stayed one night because we were planning on stopping here again on our way back, when the weather would've been more forgiving. The next morning we visited the Badlands, dinosaur country, in Drumheller, north of Calgary and saw the Hoodoos and wind-swept plains where dinosaurs once roamed in Canada, millions of years ago. Quite something to see, as it's a stark contrast from the green forested mountains of British Columbia. As far as the eye could see, were sand and rock hills, sparsely peppered with shrubbery, and the black stains of prehistoric swamps, now dried up and exposed to the wind. We spent the next few hours, heading southward through farmlands, to connect back with the Trans Canada Highway, and then on across the border to Saskatchewan, through Swift Current, to Moose Jaw, the self-proclaimed "Gas Capital of the World," and then on to Regina. Rather than stay in Regina for the night, we drove right through, planning to get to Winnipeg, Manitoba early the next morning and avoid another night at a hostel. Across the border to Manitoba, after stopping in Brandon for gas, we drove right into a snowstorm, that effectively reduced our visibility to just a few metres. I remember watching the snow fall in an infinite number of directions...it was trance-like and made the drive even harder, I gripped the wheel with white-knuckled fury and we pulled into Winnipeg around 3am. We drove to a Superstore parking lot to get our bearings...needless to say, Dustin's navigating abilities would be truly put to the test here and he failed miserably. I remember listening to Ozzy Osbourne and the Rolling Stones and driving in circles in the snow. It was constantly being swept back and forth across the deserted nighttime streets like detergent powder blowing in the wind. Hours later we found the hostel...closed, of course. So picture this, 5am, in -20C weather, we sat parked outside the hostel brainstorming on what to do. The idea that sticks out in my mind was to drive to a 24-hour Tim Horton's restaurant, order a coffee and sleep. We decided against it, though, and spent the night in the car outside the hostel. I woke up every hour or so and started the engine to keep us warm. It was a helluva experience, but perfectly Manitoban. |
| Area: 9.97 million sq km Population: 31.28 million Capital city: Ottawa, ON Language: English, French Government: Parliamentary Democracy National Anthem: O Canada |
| the basement bar |
| From Manitoba, we crossed the next provincial border into Ontario and drove through the Canadian Shield towards Thunder Bay on the shores of Lake Superior. We drove through Kenora and Dryden, which we called "The Pollution Capital of the World," because of the Weyerhauser Mill pumping out white smoke into the atmosphere that dominated the horizon. In fact, one week after we arrived home, the town of Dryden was evacuated because of a chlorine dioxide leak at that very plant. The trip through the mountains here was beautiful. There wasn't much snow around, but the road wound over and between frozen lakes and rocky passes that were decorated with icicles as thick as a baseball bat. Finally, we arrived in Thunder Bay and stayed at a motel not too far from the great lake. We drank some Ontarian beer, Crystal, brewed by Labatt's at a sports bar and retired to bed early. I'd like to mention how much like every other small town along that highway Thunder Bay was. Bingo halls, sports bars and laundromats, it was like all the towns had a certain theme they were built upon, it could've been Anywhere, Canada, if it wasn't for Lake Superior a few blocks away. The next day we rose early, packed up, and then headed for Saulte Sainte Marie, another medium sized, nothing-very-special, town along Lake Superior. We like to call it the "One Tooth Capital of the World," because of our numerous sightings of people with only one tooth. The hostel was in a converted 19th century hotel, The Algonquin, which apparently had a shady history in the town according to some people we spoke to, either way it was well known. The town of Saulte Ste-Marie was cold and fairly defunct of anything worth looking at. There's a bridge, downtown, charmingly called the International Bridge, that connects Saulte Ste-Marie, Canada to Saulte Ste-Marie, Michigan, USA. We could see it well from our fourth floor room. That night, we ventured downstairs to the Algonquin Basement Bar. A decrepit collection of old men and cougars, with a jukebox, pool tables, and bingo-hall style tables littered everywhere. Dustin and I drank a few pitchers of Molson X and befriended some of the locals. One particularly interesting old man, named Darcy, started doing the moonwalk and picking up women half his age. He had one of those great mesh trucker hats on and was well into his tenth beer when we arrived. We also met a lady, maybe in her early-30s, who had no idea where Vancouver, let alone British Columbia was. She drank with her two daughters and often commented about how BC has the worst water in Canada and that we were too close to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and that our taxes are really high. God, she was clueless. She thought that Microbiology had something to do with carpets, literally, carpets! Her stupidity baffled both Dustin and I, and we spent the next 45 minutes or so discussing the characters from this bar on film, once safely back in our room. The same night, the battery from the Corolla died (it was spurting battery acid) and the next morning, we called CAA, who gave us a jump start and directed us to a local mechanic. Three hours and two hundred something dollars later, we had a new battery and continued on our way to Ottawa. |
| monsieur chretien, adieu |
| battle train, we love you |
| On we drove, past the Gaspe Peninsula and into New Brunswick. First stop was Edmunston, for some Dairy Queen, and then on to Fredricton, where we stopped for a few hours for lunch at Tim Hortons. We also managed to find "The Worlds Longest Covered Bridge" in Hartford, when we stopped for gas. New Brunswick was beautiful, dry grassy plains and red earth, all along the Trans Canada. We then drove on to Moncton and somehow found Magnetic Hill, one of those mystery or ghost roads, found in various places around the world. It was perfect timing, as the Hill had closed for the day and we managed to bypass the three dollar charge and sneak in. It's obviously one of the town's biggest tourist attractions and a small tourist town, called Magnetic Village, had sprung up around it. The trick is that it's all an optical illusion. You believe you're driving downhill and then rolling up hill in neutral, when you're actually doing the complete opposite. It's quite convincing. We decided to set up camp in Moncton and spent some time looking for a motel, as Moncton is devoid of anything even resembling a hostel. First place we went to, the Lighthouse Inn, was an utter failure. The lady that worked there was one of the rudest people I've ever met. It was past 9pm and they obviously had many rooms to rent, but the lady there refused to let Dustin and I share a room, she said we could only stay, if we got a bigger room, which was over $100 a night. Screw that noise! We were again turned away, by a second motel, where the lady behind the counter even refused to let us use there garbage can. I really don't understand why, it's not like we were ruffians and yelling at her. Oh well...we ended up spending another night in the car, in an office parking lot, somewhere in downtown Moncton. Along the street, we noticed a gigantic locomotive, obviously part of some museum, which we named Battle Train. The Monctonites would sneak into enemy towns at night and build railroad tracks through the downtown centre. Then they would send the Battle Train in, armed with weapons of mass destruction bent on destroying anything in its path. It was a great success, but the Battle Train was soon retired, though, because enemy towns soon discovered that all they had to do was block the roads and prevent the Battle Train from entering. I don't know if this is true, don't believe a word I've said. Early the next morning, we were back on the highway heading to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The conversation with the navigator went something like this: "Dustin, where are we heading today?" "Umm...some small town east of here?" "No, actually, we're heading to Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island, far north of here!" "Ohh, okay, I guess I should've known that..." "Yeah...being the NAVIGATOR and all..." A testament to his navigating abilities. Anyways, we drove on towards the massive Confederation Bridge which connects Prince Edward Island to the mainland and is the longest bridge over ice covered waters in the world. It takes about ten or fifteen minutes to make the crossing. The bridge was specially designed with hills and curves, to prevent drivers from becoming sick and crashing their vehicles, in fact, the bridge is so long it even has sets of traffic lights, spread out along its length. Prince Edward Island is famous for its potatoes. The whole island is made up of red dirt, containing iron oxides, which help prevent the growth of many funguses which attack potato crops. So the drive in was through bright green and then red fields of dirt and potato crops. The hostel was closed for the season, and wouldn't be open for another few weeks, so we ended up staying in a motel. We were given free drink tickets at the bar downstairs, and spent that night drinking away in Charlottetown. The next morning we visited Confederation House, in downtown Charlottetown, where the "idea" of Canada first came to fruition. The rest of the day we drove round the island, spending the next six hours along the coast visiting small lighthouses and red sand cliffs and inlets. We also drove by the Anne of Green Gables house, but didn't stop, as we're not fans of the book, but I guess it was cool to see either way. On to Halifax, Nova Scotia, after paying the $37.75 toll required on the Confederation Bridge when leaving the island. We arrived in Halifax just past noon, a town near and dear to my heart, as I had spent almost a week exploring the city by myself the year earlier. I love maritime culture, and always remember fondly listening to foot-stompin fiddles and banging frothy pints of beers together at the Lower Deck while dreaming of sailing ships from Boston to St. John's. I was surprised at how quickly the layout of the city came back to me. It was the shortest time from arrival within the city limits to the front door of our hostel yet, right on Barrington Street. The rest of the day was spent wandering the waterfront and the Citadel. I took Dustin to You Father's Moustache for lunch and then Maxwell Plum's later for 89 cent burgers and the famous Nova Scotian brew, Alexander Keiths. That night we drank at JJ Rossy's, another great nightspot, and wandered home drunk and disorderly. Since we had an extra seat in the car, we advertised selling a ride to l'Universite Ste-Anne, three hours drive southwest of Halifax in Pointe-de-l'Eglise. Almost within the hour, we had a taker, a young traveler from Victoria, British Columbia, named Aaron, he later came to be known as SoloTramp, but that's another story. The next day, we had another offer from Dan Depoe, a traveling Calgarian-Vancouverite, who we came to know well over the next five weeks in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, we had to turn Dan away for the ride, but spent the night partying with him in Halifax. Heading first to the Liquor Dome, where Dan and I met these two girls, Rainbow and Monkey. Obviously, pseudonyms, but fun all the same, they took us to the Marquis club for a night of drunken debauchery, that to this day, I still can't recall. |
| universite sainte-anne |
| We were to spend the next five weeks deep in the heart of French-Acadian Nova Scotia, here at this university. l'Universite Ste-Anne, is located in the small Acadian fishing town of Pointe-de-l'Eglise, on Saint Mary's Bay, just thirty minutes drive south of Digby. It's located beside one of the tallest and oldest, all wooden churches still standing in North America. This was French immersion to the extreme. The rules strictly forbid English of any kind, you can't read, write, speak or even hear English. Everything is completely French! You're given two avertissements (warnings) and are kicked out of the program upon receiving your third. To tell of all my experiences at Ste-Anne, in both 2001 and 2002, could take pages. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I learned more than just a new language, but met so many friends, participated in and saw so much and lived the history of French Acadia in the ten weeks I've spent living in residence there. I could go back again and again and again. In the future, I'll probably elaborate a little bit more, but since Ste-Anne was a just a pause on this great Canadian adventure, let's continue. June 22, 2002, nursing painful hangovers, Dustin and I, and Dan Depoe, climbed back into the Corolla and drove off, headed back to Halifax, where we met up with some friends from Ste-Anne and partied at the Lower Deck. The next day, we watched Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, and picked up a new adventurer...Sherri Twarog. We left Dan in Halifax, planning to meet up with him later in Montreal. Sherri had been an animatrice at the university and wanted to see Newfoundland, during her two week vacation. I was more than happy to share the costs and driving responsibilities with a third person and we did have an empty seat. So.... |
| the cursed rock |
| On and on we drove crossing a man-made land bridge linking Cape Breton to mainland Nova Scotia, the Conzo Causeway. Through the wilds of dense, hilly forests, then along Atlantic coastline, winding up and down small mountains on our way to North Sydney, to catch the Marine Atlantic ferry for a 9 hour crossing to Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland. The three of us ate pizza somewhere outside the ferry terminal and then boarded at 11:40pm for a midnight sailing. We were hoping to sleep on the ferry and arrive refreshed the next morning. Instead, Dustin and Sherri spent the night annoying me, and all the other passengers on the ferry, so we didn't get much sleep. It was all in good fun though. The ferry was huge, designed to navigate these sometimes-icy waters of the Atlantic, we couldn't see much through the darkness, I'm sure it would have been an awing journey during daylight. We pulled into Port-Aux Basques early the next morning and had a quick breakfast before heading to Rose Blanche Lighthouse about 30 minutes drive east of Port-Aux-Basques. The drive was amazing, we swerved over small rocky hills along the rugged coastline towards the sombre, lighthouse off in the distance. When we arrived, much of the sea was still covered in an early morning mist and the waves of the Atlantic crashing on the rocks at the base of the solid granite lighthouse was a sight to behold. Back on to the Trans-Canada and then through Gros Morne National Park to Cornerbrook. We stopped in Cornerbrook for gas and then drove straight on through to St. John's, Newfoundland. We took a small 30 minute detour to visit the town of Dildo...of course and then almost ran out of gas on the way to St. John's. I pulled off the highway in Roach's Line, Newfoundland to refill but soon realized that it was just empty farmland. This made me very angry and we had to drive with the needle on empty for almost forty-five minutes before reaching a gas station. Newfoundland was beautiful. The island is covered in national parks, rich forests and wildlife. We saw some moose...both dead and alive and many deer along the way. I always thought the landscape would be fairly flat, but to my surprise Newfoundland was home to rocky hills, granite cliffs and beautiful seemingly undisturbed lakes and wilderness as far as the eye could see. We stayed a night at a dirty old motel on the outskirts of the city and spent the next day exploring. We went to Jellybean Row (a street of brightly colored houses on the waterfront), Cabot Tower and then Cape Spear (the furthest eastern point of land in the America's. Cape Spear was beautiful. There were white cliffs of jagged rock that dropped off into the ocean, with such a wide view of the Atlantic it was easy to see the curvature of the earth on the horizon. There was a lighthouse and museum there. Dustin tried to deliver a pizza to the lighthouse and caused a stir amongst all the employees. They were whispering to each other, "Doesn't he know nobody lives there?" Then they would point at us and say, "Those are the guys who tried to deliver a pizza to the lighthouse!" As if we were idiots and criminals, we were just joking. There was a huge sign on the beach that read something like "DO NOT GO PAST THIS SIGN! OFF LIMITS!" Of course, I decided to go past the sign and get some good shots of the ocean from the rocks below. A few minutes later a park ranger came running down and told me that he could give me a $15 000 fine...."Didn't you see the sign?" Later in the day we saw him chasing a lady down the cliffs....his whole day must be filled with chasing after people who disobey the signs and then threatening them with fines. I wonder if he's ever actually fined someone. I would just run away....what's he going to do? Punk! Heh... From there we drove to WalMart to buy the new Eminem CD. Of course, WalMart didn't stock the "vulgar and filthy thing," so I had to go to MusicWorld. We listened to the tunes and headed back to downtown and then tried to get in touch with my friends, Jean-Paul and Dean Parsons from Ste-Anne. Jean-Paul and Dean met us at a bar, we had a few drinks and then went with Jean to his house. His parents were incredibly hospitable. We talked with them about our trip and they let Dustin and I stay over. That night, we went out with Jean-Paul to George Street (infamous George Street, over 200 bars back to back) and got screeched in at Trapper John's Bar. Screech, a Jamaican rum brewed to exacting standards...Newfoundland's national liquor. Yes, it's made in Jamaica though? We recited the secret words, took a shot of the black rum, were tapped on the shoulders by a sword and then kissed a stuffed puffin (usually it's a dead codfish, but they didn't have one.) We are now honorary Newfies (though to someone from Newfoundland, this is a derogatory term...so let's just say we're honorary Newfoundlanders.) Now is ya a screecher den? Deed I is, me old cock, long may your big jib draw! Jean-Paul's mom slaved over a hot stove all day and night to prepare, for Sherry, Dustin and I, Newfoundland's famous Jig's Dinner. A hearty, hearty meal, of boiled cabbage, spinach, potatoes, yams, peas and salted meat. We didn't have to eat again for days. Some other delicacies we sampled included: deep-fried cod's tongue and tautons, which are flat sweet breads fried in pig's fat and drenched in black molasses. They were tasty! Later the next day, we drove to the end of the TransCanada highway....(actually the beginning, but for us it was the end) There's a symbolic end in downtown St. John's, but we actually drove on the highway until it just ended. That was the real finish...over 7000km to that point, we were at kilometre zero! I had originally planned to take the Marine Atlantic ferry from Argentia (just south of St. John's) back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia. But because of the icebergs and dangerous waters the ferry wasn't sailing that route for another few weeks. So we were forced to drive back across the island to Port-Aux-Basques (a 10-hour drive) and then take the ferry from there. We left Sherri near Gros Morne, she was meeting a friend and then returning to Nova Scotia in a few days for the summer session at Ste-Anne. The sailing went off without a hitch. Though we did have an interesting experience with some juice. It was so damn hot inside the ferry, and I was still reeling from my night out in on George Street that Dustin and I decided to get some juice at the snack bar. Now if I said the ferry was damn hot, the snack bar was ten times that, sweltering! We bought juice, Vitality Juice from these machines...I chose apple and Dustin chose fruit punch. We went outside to enjoy our juices in the cool, on the deck looking out over the black Atlantic. The stuff was terrible, it tasted like there was some sort of cleaning chemical mixed in, and we finally decided that they had cleaned the machines but forgot to rinse them out afterwards. It was nasty! I booked it inside to find our sleeping berths! We paid an extra $20 each for these stupid bunks sticking out of the wall in a big hallway. Dustin (the navigator!) became lost and ended up finding me at our bunks about 20 minutes later. The next morning, bright and fresh and on to Toronto! |
| big lights, big city |
| I decided that we would make our way all the way to Quebec City in one drive, skipping out on another stay in New Brunswick, and meaning we would have traveled from Newfoundland, through Nova Scotia, through New Brunswick and into Quebec in one day. Quite a feat I must say! We sped on, greens valleys and plains, blurring off into the horizon, then deserts and sandy mountains, and back through green forests giving way to sprawling suburbs as we pulled into Quebec City. A few nights there, then Montreal again for a couple of more days. We ended up being there for St-Jean-Baptiste Day, and drank at the parade. We met up with a couple of teachers and other students from Ste-Anne, quite surprisingly by accident in a crowd of 250,000, and partied the night away. After a few more days of wandering the streets and experiencing an incredible thunder shower and stifling humidity of Montreal in the summer we made our way south towards Toronto. Pulling into Toronto, a gigantic metropolis, with Foo Fighters' Everlong blasting on the radio. You really feel small speeding towards the massive downtown center. Flashy billboards advertising Gucci and Prada were everywhere; gigantic electronic screens and televisions, music and neon lights...the CN Tower dominating the skyline. The temperature was hovering around 40C and it was it was very humid. I got in touch with an old friend, Julie and she took Dustin and I out to a nightclub, Tonic, where we partied the night away. The club was crowded like nothing I had ever seen before. There was an older, tall, skinny Asian man who was shocking the entire dance floor with his moves. He would strike a pose, one hand high in the hair, the other on his hip and slowly, in time with the music, curl and straighten his finger towards the ceiling. It was incredible, incredibly stupid, so much so that he garnered a small cult following with the people around him mimicking his strangely refreshing style of dance. The next day we wandered Eaton Centre on Yonge street and stopped by the Starbucks across the street from the Chum City building where Much Music makes its home. Onto the subway and away from downtown we found Casa Loma. A gigantic, sprawling early 20th century castle-like mansion complete with turrets, secret passages and suits of armor. There was an underground passage that crossed under the street outside all the way to the stables several blocks away. The house was built by a rich industrialist named Sir Henry Pellant over a period of three years beginning in 1911 for around $3.5 million dollars...several tens of millions by todays standards. That same night Dustin and I stopped by the Bier Market...a very cool beer pub with beers from all over the world. Of course, we sipped Alexander Keiths out of huge pint glasses and listened to live Jazz Music, we had been lucky to have arrived in Toronto during the Jazz Festival. |
| the (not so) great falls |
| Now to Niagara Falls. I had a friend in Ste-Catherine's, just a fifteen minute drive from the city of Niagara, in southern Ontario. Dustin and I went to the falls first. The area around Niagara Falls is a quintessential tourist trap, tacky souvenir shops and hotels wall to wall and all kinds of strange and weird looking theme museums. Alien abduction museums, fright houses and Guinness World Records, just to name a few. To tell you the truth, I though Niagara Falls would have been a lot larger. It was big, definitely, but I was a little disappointed. We rode the Maid of the Mist boat and circled in the waters at the base of the falls. The horse-shoe shaped Canadian side of the waterfall was much nicer especially because a rainbow had formed in the mist and sunlight. From there we got in touch with Andre, my friend in Ste-Catherine's and made our way to his house. I had developed a sinus infection and it was getting progressively worse. I had an enormous, throbbing headache, with those sharp jolts of sinus pressure, that come and go on a whim. I tried to ignore the pain; Andre's mom had made us a fabulous seven-layer bean dip and we drank beers and smoked outside on their deck with them all night long. It was nice of them to let us in, I had only known Andre for about a week in Halifax the year earlier, but his Mom, without question let us stay in the guest room downstairs. The next day, we said goodbye and got ready to head back to Saulte-Ste-Marie. My infection was even worse now and I couldn't stand the bright sunlight outside. It was excruciating. Regardless of my state, Dustin forced me to drive back up the Queen Mary Expressway towards Barry. Ontario has these huge highways, 10 or 15 lanes in each direction. They even have pay-highways, where you drive on and a camera takes a picture of your license plate, when you exit you are photographed again and a bill is sent to your house, charged depending on how long you drove on the section of highway for. You have the option of the nicely paved, clean, pay, non crowded highway or the free and crowded traffic nightmare highway. Towards Barry the traffic was incredible, we were moving an inch a minute or less and I was in such pain that I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. It was terrible. I pulled off the highway in Barry and went to a clinic. Almost instantaneously, the cool temperature and clean white walls of the clinic soothed my pain. I was still shaking and was prescribed a nebulizer with some sort of nasal spray, some antibiotics and some codeine for the pain....mmmm codeine. I had forgotten my CareCard and had to pay the $140 prescription and doctor's fee out of my own pocket. Back to Saulte-Ste-Marie for another night at the Algonquin. I tossed and turned and didn't get much sleep, the pain and pressure were horrible. The next morning we headed to Thunder Bay and after a night there we continued into Manitoba and to Winnipeg. |
| mosquito mogi moustique |
| This stupid, stupid bug! In the outskirts of Winnipeg Dustin and I pulled over to relieve ourselves on the side of the highway. It was a clear day and the drive had been beautiful....with rolling clouds through the mountains and now crisp, blue sky as far as the eye could see. By the way, my head was feeling much better thanks to Sir Alexander Fleming. Anyways, we walked over to a pine tree, unzipped and started to go. I noticed a mosquito and batted it away, then another, then another and another. Dustin ran to the car screaming. We were being swarmed, they were everywhere, in our hair and eyes and mouths, buzzing in our ears. We shut the doors and rolled up the windows but had managed to trap maybe twenty or so with us in the car. Ugh, I can feel them crawling on me even as I sit here now, years later, far away, in Korea, and write this. We ripped back onto the highway and opened the back windows, so that our unwanted gets would get sucked out. I counted 15 bites. The hostel was open this time. It was Canada Day, July 1st and very hot. Dustin and I went for dinner at Earls and then went to "The Forks" where two rivers meet for the Canada Day celebrations. We drank overly priced warm beers from plastic cups, mingled with the locals and listened to crappy, live country music. Luckily the breeze off the water was keeping the mosquitoes at bay, but as soon as we left the area we were once again swarmed. Even walking the streets in downtown at night, the mosquitoes were everywhere. It was stupid, I hated it! I managed to be bitten at least forty times and wore itchy red bumps all over my legs and face. Mosquitoes love me, Dustin was only bitten a few times. Ridiculous! The next day we drove to Regina, Saskatchewan. On the highway, we saw a car with Quebec license plates and I found my Quebec flag and waved it out the window. They were noticeably impressed...and stoned, and gestured to us to pull over for a few tokes. We decided not to and instead sped on towards the city. A friend of ours, Lori, was living in Regina and she offered to let us stay with her and her boyfriend and cat Bongo at their house. Lori met us and we went to Moxies for Bellinis and lunch and then back to her house with her. She had to work that night and Dustin, Lori's boyfriend and myself went to drink at her place of employment...a wing bar in downtown. I crashed on the couch and Dustin and Lori went out for a tryst at the park...heh. The next day, she made us sushi and we played with the crazy cat. We decided to go out for a walk around town and were again assaulted by massive swarms of mosquitoes everywhere we went. Lori took us out to this funky, cafe for coffee and then to the Legislative buildings and a park beside them. There was a lake with dead fish floating in it...pretty exciting! Later that same day we left Saskatchewan and drove across the border to Alberta. |
| them cowfolk showed us the way home |
| Back to Calgary, just in time for the Stampede. We were forced to stay in an overpriced hotel on the edge of town, as the hostel was booked solid. Something I should have expected as the Stampede is quite an event. We missed the parade that marks the opening because we slept in, but made it downtown later in the day. After becoming trapped in a parking garage stairwell for about fifteen minutes, we made it out on to the street. There were crowds of people in their requiscent cowboy get-up everywhere. Some band from Peru, that played at my highschool, was doing a show on the street. Dustin and I made our way to the fairgrounds early in the day and went to see the Horsecart races and show in the stadium. It was the most boring show I've ever seen, complete with the smell of manure. From there we wandered around a bit more. I'm not a fan of cowboy culture at all, in fact I loathe it. When I see anyone in a cowboy hat, it wells up this anger, deep inside. The heat didn't help the situation much either. Anyways it sucked! We were meeting Michael, from Surrey, at the Saltlik, a restaurant run by the same man who ran the other restaurant I worked at in Vancouver. I saw an old manager, who now manages the Saltlik, of course with a cowboy hat and stopped to chat. Michael and friends showed up in the late afternoon and we drank and drank and drank on the patio. We were approached by a homeless man, with no teeth. I think he put it best when he said "I lost my job, lost my wife, lost my house, lost my car and lost my teeth!" It was beautiful, straight out of a country song. After hitting us up for some change, he left, and we called a cab. We were going back to the fairgrounds to see Neil McCoy perform, Michael referred to him as a "country legend!" We were herded into a huge stadium and forced to listen to the most horrible music I've ever heard....yes, country! We drank the night away...I was asked numerous times to stop recording, and put my camcorder away. God, if only they had known that II wasn't trying to record the music, I was only trying to record our antics...the music was just there! Needless to say, Michael enjoyed it profusely. We had planned on staying another night and heading home the next day, but I couldn't take it anymore. I was going crazy and really hating all the cowboy crap surrounding me. We left the city limits at about 2am and drove through the Rockies at dizzying speed all through the night. Arriving in Surrey, early the next morning, was a huge relief. Back home again, finally! I saw the gigantic Canadian flag, then Guildford Mall and the Sheraton Hotel, slowly come into focus. These were all good things! I dropped Dustin off at Crescent Beach then made my way home for some much needed rest. The journey was over. |
| ode to the navigator |
| If you've read this entire thing, you may have noticed that I constantly degraded Dustin's navigating abilities. Now, let me say, even though he had an aversion to reading maps in moving vehicles, generally had no sense of direction, was always tired or hungry and drove for no more than six hours during the entire trip, it was a pleasure to have him there. There's no other friend in the world who could've taken his palace on that trip. We got some great footage, had some great laughs and came up with some great "inside" jokes along the way...like Wayner's real-estate empire in the Prairies, the Dirt Beaver, the Battle Train, Solar Flare, tornados of garbage, the Ottawa Flood, One Tooths, The Escape from Jean's Army, Zubba-Dubba-Ding-Ding, wootily woot woot, I want to go higher...not lower, attempted assassinations by suicide in Halifax's Historic Properties and of course the humping of National Monuments. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Thanks Dustin! |
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| travels |
| CANADA |