Canada by Car | Canada and Me

On April 7, 2008, I fulfilled a lifelong dream. I took six months off from a job I loved and drove across Canada and back.

It began in Tsawwassen where I boarded a ferry to Vancouver Island. After nine days on the West Coast, I returned home, cleaned up and repacked. Then on May 5 I set out again, this time over the Rockies, through Prairies and Canadian Shield to the Maritimes.

But it didn’t end there. After a couple nights drinking on George Street in St. John’s, I headed west again until Peace River, Alberta. There I turned north towards the Northwest Territories and returned home from there after a few days rest in Yellowknife. My final stop was Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, where I took my last photo of the trip.

In total, I spent 81 days on the road covering nearly 33,000 kilometres. I drove down many random roads, spent 40 nights in a tent, seven nights in the back seat of my car and slept in 30 different beds and four couches.

I shot with my Nikon D200, and came home with 4635 photos. After a exhaustive editing process, I’ve selected 81 scenic photos for a Canada by Car gallery to represent each day on the road, and 40 portraits for a Canada and Me gallery — which takes a closer look at my journey through photos, journal entries, blog posts, correspondence with friends and family, and thoughts in hindsight.

These galleries represent my story of my travels. It is Canada, as I saw it.

12 July — It’s almost midnight here and the sky looks like the sun only set half an hour ago. On the horizon there are patches of orange showing through the clouds and the rest of the sky is a weak pale blue.

I have finally arrived. I am in Yellowknife, in the Great North. And beside me is a half-full bottle of Yukon Red Amber Ale. The apartment I am staying at is quiet now, it’s typical inhabitants asleep, and I now have a few minutes to recollect the last couple days.

It began in Cold Lake, Alberta, five o’clock in the morning yesterday when I crawled out from under my sleeping bag. I could just see the pink line of daylight across the water. It was time to go.

I had decided the day before I would try my best to make the drive from Alberta’s eastern border all the way to Northwest Territories. Even though I had been putting in long days behind the wheel already, this would be the longest yet.

So in half in hour, I broke down my tent, packed my air mattress away and threw my sleeping bag into the back seat of the car, and got ready to go. It was just in time too. The rain was just beginning.

By the time I passed La Corey, I saw my first flash of blue in the sky behind and to the left of me. The lightning was far off, but the rain turned heavy around me.

It would be several hours before I’d escape the dark cloud overhead, meanwhile my plan for the day was to hit towns every three to four hundred kilometres for gas, and keep all other stops to a minimum. Lunch would be granola bars and chocolate chip cookies, washed down by warm water flavoured with juice crystals.

The first gas stop was Slave Lake and over the course of the day I’d stop at Peace River, High Level and Fort Providence for gas before finally arriving in Yellowknife just after 10 p.m. The weather would go from thunder and heavy rain to brilliant sunshine and back and forth several times before finally settling to patchy skies past the 60th Parallel.

The road was long and lonely, and the landscape changed from prairies with bright yellow canola fields to rocky taiga with stunted, midget trees.

But it was worth it to stop for the first time at the 60th Parallel for a photo amid the buzzing horse flies, then roar to the ferry that crosses the Mackenzie River, and finally arrive at the big city in the North.

My initial reaction was happiness. Not so much arriving in the North, but arriving at a place where friends resided. I was back in society again, and had a bed to sleep on to boot.

Then I finally acknowledged how tired I was. The road and almost 70 days sleeping in a tent and car in campsites, or beds and couches here and there, had finally taken its toll. The idea of more kilometres to cover just became too much to bear.

That was last night, and tonight I’ve decided that the other territory, the Yukon, will have to wait for another trip. It is a tough decision because I have always wanted to visited the Yukon since first learning about it.

I have always been captivated by the idea of a land where the sun never sets then night holds sway for months on end while the sky dances with lights. Where people live on a land as white as the sky, in houses of ice and travel by sleds pulled by savage dogs. And where the last great and mad gold rush took place.

It is a land of dreams, and for now I’d have to surrender it back to mine. That has been the hardest to do after having a summer to fulfill so many other dreams and plans. But to see home again, sleep under a familiar roof and know I don’t have to clear out before noon is a fine thing to strive for too.

So, for now, I’m leaving the Yukon for another time.

I am sitting on a piece of bare rock somewhere in the wilderness inside Algonquin Provincial Park, admiring the view. Directly below me, some hundred feet down, I can see the glittering dark of a lake or river.

Then there are the trees, hundreds, thousands, millions of them. They rise in swells and bumps, following the landscape all the way to a green line that is the horizon. There the blue sky rises in stark contrast and reaching all the way back over my forehead are dozens of puffy cotton ball clouds.

This is the wilderness again, and in the quiet moment away from the cars and highway, people and mosquitos, I can breathe and think. It’s to recharge for the road and thousands of kilometres ahead.

I am sitting in the Atlantic Marine terminal just outside the ghost town Argentia. The ferry is late and chances are I won’t be boarding until early Canada Day morning. After spending two days in St. John’s wandering along the bars and pubs on George and Water streets tasting the local beers with names like Black Horse, Blue Star and Quidi Vidi, I left the Newfoundland and Labrador capital stuffed full of homemade partidgeberry pancakes on a overcast morning. I left behind the beers, George Street and old roads with marvelous row houses painted in yellows, reds, greens and blues.

My destination was Cape Spear — the most eastern point in North America. Realistically, it is just a set of lighthouses on a cliff which has been dug into and fortified years ago for operations for the Atlantic Theatre. Dark curving corridors of concrete are the only ruins that remain of the base. It was a short walk around, listening to the open ocean hurl its waves against the rocks.

From there I symbolically turned the car west, towards home thousands of kilometres and days travel away. But my real route took me along the Avalon coast, past tiny villages of white box houses and through stunted grasslands with midget trees, chasing moose along the highway. The weather changed as much as the landscape. There was fog so thick the few cars I saw emerged just metres in front of my eyes from the grey wall. Rain splashed horizontally across my side windows while I held the steering wheel against the buffeting wind.

Then the sun came out and I saw the wedge of glittering white on the rippling blue ocean next to me. It brought out the different shades of green along the hills and cliffs too, and I relished the last glimpses I’d get of this far flung land. It is a lonely rock this place called Newfoundland, but the people are friendly and the beer good.

It wasn’t long before the clouds returned and the rain started again. But I was safely under the roof of the Atlantic Marine building, waiting to go home.

Western Brook Pond, Gros Morne National Park. 27 June 2008.

It’s 10:30 a.m. and I’m drinking a buck seventy coffee on board the ferry MV Apollo. Outside the window, the inky waters of the Atlantic are rising in gentle swells, rocking the vessel from side to side.

After crossing the Strait of Belle Isle and landing at Blanc-Sablon, I will be at one of the furthest points from home in my cross Canada drive. Besides the thousands of kilometres of highway, I’ve now put two ferry rides — totaling nearly eight hours of travel time — between myself and my family.

As the ferry chugged along, I was experiencing another one of those “What the fuck am I doing?” moments.

Throughout the two months I’ve been traveling I’ve stopped several times to consider that phrase. Its caused different reactions, from fits of maniac giggling to uncontrollable goofy grinning and pensive thoughts of home.

This was one of those bouts of homesickness. But it was also fitting since this was one of the final stops I was making on this eastward drive. Red Bay, on the Labrador coast, was just a random spot on my mapbook that I decided back in April to visit.

There was no particular reason, it was just a place the highway ended and gravel road began into even smaller hamlets in this remote part of the country.

After arriving, I was encouraged by the sights of small fishing villages and remote coast. But I didn’t travel further down the gravel road. The tired coughing coming from under the hood of the car deterred me.

Also, there was St. John’s still, more than 800 kilometres away where I was sure a bartender or two were waiting for me with bottles of Screech open and dry shot glasses.

The waitress placed the big porcelain bowl in front of me, and I was sure this wasn’t what I had ordered.

Like it was big, as in a Vancouver Chinese noodle house large big. And not what I had ordered for sure.

“Here are your mussels,” she said.

Yep, not what I ordered. But out loud my voice sounded confused and maybe a tad meek. “But I didn’t order mussels.”

She didn’t even hesitate. It was as if she’d been expecting the reaction, and her answer was instantaneous but kind. “Oh, they come with the lobster.”

Oh shit… That was a big bowl of mussels to go with the lobster…

Sitting in the Water Prince Corner Shop in Charlottetown, I had decided that, yes, it was time to splurge and go for some local fare. It was lobster time, and Water Prince came well recommended.

But I didn’t expect the big bowl of mussels to come with the deal. In fact, eating mussels didn’t even cross my mind, after all I’ve crushed plenty of the shellfish hiking along southwestern B.C. coasts, and always found them to be a bit… funky.

I mean, all I remember of them are clumps of tiny purple blue shells glued up among the rocks, seaweeds and barnacles. Not appetizing fare at all, and worse they smelled funny too, kind of like the sea but funkier, when they cracked and shattered under the boot.

So it was with some reservations I tipped open the lid of the giant noodle bowl, grabbed the tiny fork and speared a chunk of mussel meat, dipped it into the liquid butter and started chewing.

Oh man… that was a big bowl. A big bowl of good mussels.

The next question then was would I have enough room for the lobster which arrived tantalizingly moments after I set down the tiny fork next to the empty big bowl and sighed contently

You betcha.

A thick Atlantic fog just rolled in from the ocean when I arrived at Peggy’s Cove in search of the iconic Nova Scotian — and Canadian — lighthouse. I found it along with a perfect little fishing village that in my imagination always represented the east coast. Here history lived on as everyday, and I wasn’t just separated from home by thousands of kilometres anymore.

The cute blonde girl stood on the other side of the counter, babbling on quickly in French. At that moment I secretly wished I had paid more attention during Grade 9 French class. I couldn’t understand a single word, but I desperately wished I could.

I had arrived in Chicoutimi earlier in the evening, and after checking into one of the local hotels — the first such act after nearly 35 days on the road driving — I decided I needed a beer. So that’s how I ended up sitting by the bar at the Cafe Cambio, watching her babble.

I decided to try another tack, and pointed my finger at the beer tap, looking hopeful.

More babbling.

Another tactic. “Parlez-vous Anglais?” I asked.

She looked scared and the babble got quicker, but now she turned to another barista. Words were exchanged, and the blonde, exasperated, rested her forehead on her friend’s shoulder. Despite the act, I could see the hint of a smile on her face.

I was smiling too. Coming into Quebec, I knew I’d faced a language barrier because I didn’t know French. I hoped the people I’d meet would be accommodating, and where there would be problems, I was more than willing to try to work it out if they were too. Especially it involved beer.

The blonde turned back to me, and started babbling again. Slower this time, but still in French. She pointed too, first at a display case with slices of cake on one side of her. Then to trays of muffins and what looked like banana bread, then to the menu posted on the wall behind her.

“Have to eat to drink… Law.” She said awkwardly in English.

“I understand, could I get a menu?”

She pointed at the display case again. “Cake.” Then at the other trays, she worked her jaw, but couldn’t find the words.

“Is the kitchen closed?” I asked, thinking there was no way I was going to eat a slice of chocolate cake with beer. Wasn’t gonna happen.

There was another exchange of French between the two girls behind the bar. Then I heard a word I understood.

“Nachos! I’ll have that,” I said.

Their heads separated and the blonde was silent, scribbling on a notepad.

That done she raised her arms and exclaimed something in French.

But I understood.

The order was taken, the beer was going to be served.

Triumph.