1756 kilometres of Northern Ontario

I have done a lot of driving in a week. This time last week, I was driving south from Flin Flon, Manitoba. And now I am writing to you from the north shore of Lake Huron (where I managed to find a public library in the small town of Thessalon to park in front of and “borrow” the wireless connection to post this).

According to my map, my odometre and my calculations, 1289 kms from Kenora to Thessalon - plus another 467 to the cottage near Peterborough. I originally planned to race through this wilderness. But I decided, after my first 8-hour stretch from Kenora to Thunder Bay, that it was probably worth more to my own sanity and physical well-being – not to mention the spirit of this journey – if I slow down and appreciate it along the way.

I'm glad that I took that initial 8-hour stretch in one go, though. If you thought you'd be bored driving across the prairies... try Kenora-Thunder Bay.

One thing I noticed along that 8-hour way was roadkill, in three forms ranging from big to huge, and from expected to... well, not. Up until now, I've seen porcupines, squirrels, birds, racoons, skunks and gophers, to name a few. But along this stretch, about 2 hours into the drive,I passed a deer, a not-so-unusual animal to find dead along any stretch of highway across Canada. So, sad, yes, but not strange.

A couple of hours later, I was wrenched out of my driving pasttime of practicing and admiring my own singing abilities – which I think are developing, although when I turn the music down and actually hear my own voice without the benefit of the harmony, I realise the truth and quickly turn the music back up – when a shocking smudge of black caught the corner of my eye to the left. Luckily this stretch of highway isn't very busy so there was plenty of chance for me to slow down and take a glance as I drifted by a dead black bear. I kid you not. In all my years having grown up in Alberta and travelling through it and BC, I've seen a few bears along the side of the road. But each one of them has been alive. This poor guy was laying sprawled out on the shoulder of the road, tummy down, arms splayed like a kid sleeping, head first toward the road, tongue hanging out. Very dead. It shocked me, and bothered me, and for the next several hours I kept wondering “How does anyone hit a bear along the side of the road??”

I started writing a story in an attempt to answer that question later that night.

The last roadkill was even bigger and more elusive, but not at all unexpected. A moose. I saw his butt with his legs fallen forward into the ditch a few hours later. All along the northern Ontario highway there are signs that claim “Moose on the Loose” and “Night Danger” (I plan to do an entire blog dedicated to road signs one day soon; there are some crazy ones out there), all with an odd mix of artistic and official renderings of Canada's giant to warn drivers of the possibilities of hitting one. They should include the deer and bear on the warnings.
That was only the stretch from Kenora to Thunder Bay.

I camped out at Kakabeka Falls, just outside of Thunder Bay (which is, btw, an ugly little city on the northern shore of Lake Superior; I didn't stay long). The day I pulled in it was about all I could do to make a dinner for myself and read a bit before I fell asleep. The next morning, however, I revelled in my freedom from the steering wheel and worked the kinks out of my sore driver's butt by riding around the area on Betty for about 40 kms up and down hills. And, to top off my Northern Ontarian wildlife adventure, as I was cycling somewhere around kilometre 25, just about to head into an 8% incline, the distinct form of a black bear ran across the highway just breaths ahead of me. Three more turns of the pedal and we might have looked each other in the eyes. As quickly as he was there, he had disappeared again, into the neverending greenery along the side of the road.

Good to know that (s)he, at least, had managed to cross the highway and stay alive.

Just outside of Thunder Bay I found yet another monument to Terry Fox. Its at the spot on the Trans Canada where he was forced to stop his run from St. John's. I don't know what it is about that boy's journey but I get choked up about it everytime I see a statue or monument in Canada retelling his story. Its just so damned moving. Yeesh, what a geek. I'm sure I'll see it again in Newfoundland where he began.

My next stop was not too far away, but with a gorgeous view of the northern shore of Lake Superior.Ｉparked the Jamboree into a spot that faced out onto the gigantic lake head first and with nothing but a few metres between us and the beach. The night brought on the most awesome thunder and lightning storm I've seen yet this summer all across Canada, and I sat in the driver's seat, because it had the best view, with a glass of wine in my hand and watched. The power went out a few times but was quickly restored; I just made sure I didn't use much electricity that night.

In the morning the storm had cleared, and I lingered on the beach to drink my coffee and read for a while before setting off again. Into more and more road; kilometre after kilometre of 90kms/hr and everyone passing me and the Jamboree because we go so slow; and don't even mention the trees.

Hello, does anyone live around here?? Apparently not. Not many, anyway. I can tell ya, after all this time out there in the boonies – both prairie and northern Ontarian – I'm ready for a bit of civilization.

Alas, not yet. Too many more kilometres to go yet.

There were three more very interesting things that I stopped for amidst all that continuously stunning wilderness (and really, take all this with tongue-in-cheek, I have had so many breathless moments reaching for and aiming my camera out of the Jamboree's bug-stained windshield in order to capture the naturally beautiful scenery that I am, once again - sigh – witnessing while rambling down the road).

The first was the birth place of Winnie the Pooh. I love that bear. Anyway, apparently he was a cute little black bear cub – a real, live one – that a Canadian soldier stationed in the back-of-beyond in northern Ontario, a place called White River, bought from a trapper who came from even further afield back in the early 1900s. This leutnenant was sent to France in World War I and before he left, he ensured that his beloved pet bear, “Winnie” - a shortened version of the moniker for his hometown Winnipeg – was in the good hands of the London (Ontario, not UK) zoo. That's where AA Milne visited with his son, Christopher Robin, who also fell in love with this apparently exceptionally cute little guy, and, well, I think you know the rest.

I do still wonder about the origins of the likes of Tigger and Eyore. And the “Pooh” part of the name.

Anyway.

Disney has their claws in, and there's a cute little themepark for kids to play in when you drive through this dot on the map in this otherwise middle-of-nowhere stretch of Ontario.

I then spent a night in a place called Wawa with a giant statue of a Canadian goose overlooking the campsite. Wawa means “wild goose” in Ojibway, so I guess the goose makes sense.

It's as if the humour gods planned a bit of fun along this very, very long stretch of road just to break it up a little bit. I mean, one can only take so many hours on end of trees, no matter how naturally beautiful it all is.

The last interesting thing I'll tell you about is the Ojibway Agawa rock drawings I found in the Lake Superior Provincial Park yesterday. They are drawings made of red ochre estimated between 200-400 years old on a 90 degree angle ledge of rock leading directly from a cliff into Lake Superior. They face out to the water, of course, so the adventure lies in getting to a place where you can see them.

Some people kayak or canoe by. I would rather have done that. But, seeing as I was without either, nor in the know with a local kayaking club to take me out on the water, I settled for parking the Jamboree in the parking lot and walking out to it.

There are a lot of signs along the way telling to you be careful when the weather is shitty. Waves might kill you. Luckily for me, it was a calm, sunny summer day, and so walking wasn't an issue. I walked out on the rock, barefoot as they recommended (and which felt really great), I'd like to think intrepidly on my own, but, alas, surrounded by tourists from all across Canada and the northern States (we are only a stone's throw, albeit across a very large body of water, from Michigan from here).

At least I got one of those like-minded intrepid travellers (uh-huh) to take a picture of me on the rock. Like I'm being brave or something.

I'm telling you, I had no idea driving across Ontario would take so bloody long. I've been here five days, I've been driving every day (although, admittedly, I haven't been pushing it exactly) and I'm barely halfway there yet.

And there's yet so much more fun to be had in this province.

Here's a link to the pictures from Ontario so far:

Northern Ontario

Links to Saskatchewan & Manitoba pictures

Saskatchewan

Manitoba

Landmarks in Manitoba

I spent the afternoon yesterday along Lake Winnipeg. After finding an ongezellig (sorry, no English word exists for that one) but cheap campsite, I got Betty down from her resting place in the extra bed above my driving head and we went for a cycle along the lake.

Lake Winnipeg is enormous. It's like an inland ocean. Its the 5th largest lake in Canada (I read that somewhere, its right up there with the Great Lakes). When I stood on the shore, I couldn't see across to the other side.

I grabbed a take-out “Pickerel” sandwich and a Corona and sat along the beach to eat my dinner. Pickerel is the locally caught white fish from the lake, and it was a pretty tasty dinner. The picture here is me waving at you before indulging.

Today I passed through several landmarks in southern Manitoba. After a short drive along the lake heading south, I found myself whizzing past Fort Garry, the very well kept up stone buildings built in the 1800s by the fur traders. Not wanting to pay the entrance fee, I quickly pulled into the parking lot and took a photo.

I then carried on into Winnipeg, and the next landmark I found myself at was at a stoplight at Portage and Main. This is, reputedly, the coldest street corner in all of Canada. Neil Young even wrote a song about it. Luckily for me, when I passed through it today, it was summery and warm.

On my way out of Winnipeg, I passed the Royal Canadian Mint. Actually, as I was driving out of town I knew it was along the highway somewhere, so I was keeping my eyes open for the sign to point me in the right direction. I wasn't sure that I needed to go in and take a guided tour explaining how they mint each and every Canadian coin weighing down our pockets and change purses. But I did want to at least see the place responsible for loonies and twoonies.

So as I was searching for the sign, another caught my attention. It was advertising fresh sweet corn and BC peaches, and my tastebuds took over as I drove the Jamboree up to the roadside stall. It turned out to be a good move on all counts – I got the corn and peaches and some Manitoba raspberries, and a great view of the Mint building across the street, which I had just passed - and nearly missed entirely - because I was so distracted by the corn and peaches.

The next landmark was just a few minutes further down the road. It was a sign that marked the longitudinal centre of Canada, which is an important marker for me in my little coast to coast journey. I've made it over the halfway mark! And two months less a day away from my birthday.

My plan was to pull over, jump out and take a picture of myself in front of that sign. Unfortunately one of Canada's two seasons dictated (we like to joke in Canada that there are two seasons in the year: Winter and Construction); the road works in progress forced me to another part of the road and blocked off any access to the sign. But I saw it and crossed it!

And instead of the picture at the longitudinal centre of Canada sign, I got one of me entering my last significant landmark of the day instead: the border to Ontario.

The prairies definitely end around this border, as the Jamboree and I were suddenly plunged into hills and curves around lakes that were really quite pretty. Ontario is h u g e, though, so I am camped just outside of Kenora with the intention of resting up for a few long days of counting down hundreds of kilometres.

And this campground made my night by informing me that I could sign up for a private time at the hot tub overlooking the lake. I'm booked at 9.

PS: Happy Birthday Grandma! I will call you soon. xo

Days and days of watching the trees pass by

I don't think many of us realise how many trees there are in Canada.

I have now driven from Vancouver Island, which is covered in trees. Through BC, which was so hot that many trees perished in forest fires shortly after Tara and I left Lilooet – I promise, we didn't start them! Depending on your perspective, the fires are tragic or a weirdly natural way of the land renewing itself. But even though there are those that burnt down, there are way more still standing for me to safely claim that a lot of BC is covered in trees. Alberta is covered in trees. The southern prairies in eastern Alberta and Saskatchewan are, admittedly, quite bald, but work your way north in both provinces and there is forest that extends for much longer than the average mind can imagine, let alone the eye see. They carry on all the way north to the edge of the tree line, where the boreal forest gives way to tundra (which I haven't yet seen, except for on TV). Extend further eastwards across Manitoba, into Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador, across the vastness of the northern landscapes of Canada's provinces; keep in mind that almost all of it, apart from a few highways (many of which are to this day still gravel) and miniscule communities and residents, it is pretty undeveloped. Natural. Totally treed.

And then you get why I say I've been hiding out in the sticks with the trees for the past few days.

Driving the past few days along the long and winding road from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to Flin Flon, Manitoba, – I'm sure the Beatles didn't write the song after this highway, but it fits - and then pointing the Jamboree's nose back southwards, leaving the wilderness to return to a prairie version of civilization again, I was struck by the question of how many trees I have seen since Vancouver Island. It must extend into the billions by now. In the first stretch of this drive, I drove for hours and literally watched the trees pass by. Different sizes, shapes and shades of green for as far away as it was possible to see. The only modern interruptions, besides the highway itself, were the power lines leading to small pockets of civilization out there. Kilometre after hundreds of kilometres of trees.

And this is, by no means, the most unpopulated stretch of road in Canada.

I now understand why the BBC Planet Earth calls this middle to northern part of Canada the “lungs of the earth”; the part that spreads north of 95ish% of Canada's population, which tends to reside as far south and close to the US border as possible because of the winters - and not because we necessarily want to be closer to the US - and south of the northern tundra. The air up here literally breathes pure oxygen for you.

It is one of the most naturally stunning landscapes to witness, even on the comparatively puny scale that I have so far, and a very humbling experience. This is the Canada of Discovery Channel and National Geographic. Its the Canada that makes me yell out, even while driving alone and otherwise working on my singing voice, “holy shit, look at THAT, that's STUNNING!” and frantically reach for my camera while trying not to veer off the bumpy, curvy road in order to capture it before its behind me, even though its bound to show up again ahead of me and I generally drive slow enough to let everyone else pass me in the Jamboree anyway. This is the Canada that I always knew was out there but had no idea how to comprehend – really – until making my little way through this smidgen of it.

Humbling because, while I've driven for weeks through thousands of kilometres already and am not quite yet halfway through the country coast to coast, I'm realising that I've not even touched on some of the truly grand parts of Canada. And, for now at least, because I'm in a bit of a race with Jack Frost, I won't be able to. Not yet.

And to round off this northernish experience, its not only all about trees. I also heard the distinct and haunting call of loons carried across the lake as I drifted off to sleep where I camped, right across the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border.

Look at a map of Canada (I hope to have one up and running on the blog soon, but in the meantime, humour me and google it). Find my route so far from Victoria to the highway leading south from Flin Flon. (ah-ha! I'm testing how well you've read my blog posts – the teacher in me doesn't fade out that quickly). See how much of Canada I have seen from the road, and how much I haven't. And consider that I've been on the road for 7 weeks already. Mindboggling, eh.

Its all about the weather

I am getting used to the sound of rain pummelling the roof of the Jamboree. I use “pummelling” purposefully, rather than the otherwise expected, and cozier, "pattering", because it much more accurately describes how it sounds from inside when it is raining. The drops throw themselves full force at the Jamboree, as if it's my fault that they have to land on such a hard, unnatural surface rather than the preferred grass below.

It started raining sometime during our four-day stay in the Qu'Appelle Valley. While I managed to find dry spots during the days to stretch Betty's wheels and my legs around the lake, I didn't mind too much, as I had the company of my brother and his friend to cook and drink wine in the rain with. Jacob's company was, as usual, a welcome combination of thoughtful and fun, and I am always grateful when I spend time with him that he's my brother. Thanks, Jacob, for helping me to appreciate Saskatchewan.

We drove to Saskatoon in the rain. At least when driving in the rain I don't feel too bad about missing out on a good sunny day where I could otherwise be cycling or hiking or hanging out by a lake. This drive took us through some small Saskatchewan towns and the ever rolling hills of wheat and canola and mosquitoes.

The little towns in Saskatchewan are always amusing. One town sat along a small but busy highway, made us all slow down from 100 kms/hr to 60 kms/hr to pass 4 deserted looking buildings, and then carry on again. This must be where the term “blink and you'll miss it” originates. Most towns have local gas stations standing bravely in the face of international giants like Shell. They all have quaint little cafes and bakeries, and we stopped in a few to refuel on caffeine and notice the variety of people who populate them. Its not all natives and farmers, as one might think.

We stopped in one of these little towns about an hour before arriving in Saskatoon because we saw a building on the side of the highway claiming to be “Amy's Bakery” offering “fresh coffee all day”. I'm not sure if we wanted the caffeine or simply an opportunity to stop and stretch our legs from the long day watching fields go by in the rain, but we pulled in for both. I usually have to look a little harder than the driver of a car to find a place to park the Jamboree, but in this little town, a right turn off the highway offered a prime spot along the side of the wide road across from Amy's bakery. There was a little red building in front of where we parked announcing in big, bold, white calligraphy “From Soup to Nuts”. Jacob and I looked at it, looked at each other, and then fell into one of those fits of ridiculous laughter that lasted for several minutes, made my side ache, and wet my face with tears. You know that kind of laughing: it grips you, you can't stop, and it releases of all the kinks that have been building up inside and resetting them to go again. It still makes me laugh as I write it here. When we collected ourselves, we went into the bakery to buy our tea from Amy who, it turned out, was a woman from Vietnam who spoke only enough English, it seemed, to sell her coffee and baked goods, and I found myself wondering how she got to this little podunk town in the middle of Saskatchewan. I didn't ask her, though.

We stayed in Saskatoon at the Gordon Howe campsite. I don't need to explain who Gordie Howe is to any card-carrying Canadian, but for those of you who aren't, he's a hockey legend who played it big in the good old days of the NHL and came from one of those podunk little Saskatchewan towns not far from Saskatoon. The manager of the campsite was also named Gordon but appeared to be no more of a hockey player than any other Canadian guy, and who worked behind the counter with a dog the size of his fist sitting on his shoulder as if he was hoping it were a parrot instead.

It rained all weekend for us in Saskatoon, too. Despite it being a good opportunity to wear my colourful Dutch wellies, which I actually quite like and apparently everyone else does, too, as I get reams of compliments on them wherever I go in them, it also offered us a good excuse to sit inside our aunt's house and car and visit with her and our cousin. Although a walk along the Saskatchewan river, which originates on the Columbia glacier I walked on two weeks ago in Alberta, would have been nice, it wasn't necessary as we'd been there before. Thanks Auntie Lucille for a long-overdue visit; it was wonderful to see you and Daniel again. xo

Yesterday was the day the sun came out; it was the day on which I would have had to return to school if I hadn't taken this year off; it was the day that Jacob flew back to Calgary and, for the first time, I was on my own in the Jamboree and will be for a while now. I left Saskatoon after lunch and drove north to the Prince Albert National Park. Not an exceptionally long drive, a couple of hours, but, again, a surprising one for Saskatchewan.

There's a gigantic forest up here, people! In Saskatchewan! Saskatchewan is home of wheat fields and boreal forests, teeming with tall conifer trees, lakes, black bears and elk, apparently. How utterly unlike the Saskatchewan we all know and make fun of.

I'm camped in the park, named after late Queen Victoria's late husband, along lake Waskesiu. There is a cute little town of the same name, and hiking and biking trails sprouting out in all directions. The picture here is the view from my campsite (I promised you, Marja, that I would put up a picture of my view when you all were starting the school year over there in Amsterdam, so here it is. Hah.). My dad is responsible for getting me here, as this is, apparently, where he and mom came to camp for their honeymoon, and while it probably squelched any love of camping in my mom (maybe it rained everyday then, too?), my dad remembers it as the gem in Saskatchewan's natural landscape that it is. Thanks dad. Good tip.

The sun only lasted the one day (that I was driving) and then it reverted back to pummelling rain again sometime last night. While I'd had big plans to cycle along the “scenic route” today and then spend the late afternoon lolling around the lake, perhaps taking a swim, the weather had other ideas for me. Sometimes the weather knows best, as I've now had a chance to catch up: on sleep (I won't reveal how late I slept in, it'll only embarrass all of us), on some reading, on organising my pictures, and some writing. I managed to get a stroll in through the woods along the lake during a dry pocket between rainfalls, though.

Its a bit strange thinking that at this time of year I would normally be heading back to school; thinking about the curriculum I would be about to teach; going over class lists and organising my room. I'm normally well-rested and summer-holiday-satiated and ready to get back to work. I'm not sure if it's sunk in even yet that I'm not returning to school this year, but I know that for some reason, I don't feel desperate to be there yet. I do know that my body works in school cycles and rhythms, though, so it will be interesting to monitor how that goes as the school year really gets going.

I am planning to drive the reputedly beautiful northern highway 106 to Flin Flon, Manitoba tomorrow, and as I now head out in the Jamboree on my own I feel like the adventure is taking on a new beginning. I've been with loved ones since I arrived in July and started the drive from Vancouver Island; I've been in relatively familiar territory – all three provinces of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan I've grown up in and know well. Except for Toronto and Montreal, the rest of Canada eastwards from here I have, as yet, never explored. Let the sun shine and the adventure begin.

Link to the pictures for Jasper-Calgary

If you notice little smudges in some of the scenery shots, its because I keep my camera nearby when I drive and aim it when I see something that might make a nice picture. The smudges, then, are the squashed remains of bugs on the windshield. I'm a true killer now... poor things aren't safe with the Jamboree wailing down the road. (Mosquitoes beware: I smooshed 14 this morning in the time it took for my shower to warm up at the campground. No exaggeration, I counted.)

Best of Alberta

Slowing down to notice the prairies

Saskatchewan is the prairies. Its the province about which many form their opinions from the drive across it on the Trans Canada Highway. Its flat. Its boring. Its rural. Its the subject of a lot of Canadian jokes: “In Saskatchewan, the police don't need to work too hard or move too fast... they can see the bad guy running away for days.” It seems the only two things going for Saskatchewan in most Canadians' minds is its breadbasket status and the Roughriders.

Indeed, if you only stay on the main highway and drive quickly through it, Saskatchewan's reputation seems justified. But I have discovered that if you get off that main highway, slow down and notice some of the subtler corners, Saskatchewan is a lot more than the cliché allows for. It doesn't smack you in the face with the kind of magnificence that the western mountains do, but it does have its own quiet beauty.

Prairie people can be heard saying that, and up until this trip I really could only take their word for it. In the fields, if you care to look, you'll see rusty old farm machinery, apparently abandoned until you see another one just like it further up the road being driven and used by the weathered farmer behind the wheel. There are wilting stone and wooden houses, remnants of the pioneers, slowly making their way back to the soil but in the meantime dotting the landscape. The sky is enormous and extends out farther than you thought you were able to see; blue dotted with better-than-the Simpsons puffy white clouds, or in stormier skies all shades of blue-grey-purple-and-white, layered and thick with rain.

My brother, Jacob, joined me for this part of the journey, and as we left Calgary heading east, the landscape quickly fell into its prairie form. I am very familiar with the stretch of highway between Calgary and Medicine Hat as I had lived there, close to the Saskatchewan border, many years ago. The countryside dries out, forms “badlands” of soil and clay where you don't have to dig very deep to find dinosaur bones and ocean fossils.

The prairies used to be an enormous inland ocean in the time before the dinosaurs. When the ocean receded, the lush land was the perfect home to the sauruses, and Drumheller, in eastern Alberta, is home to the Royal Tyrell Museum, a fascinating look at the dinos. Jacob and I debated stopping in there, as it had been many years since we'd last visited, but decided instead to carry on to Saskatchewan.

We stayed on the Trans Canada all the way to Regina. The drive took up two long, hot days behind the wheel where the prairie stretched on and on in all directions. In Regina I was able to visit a little piece of personal history as we found our way to the little house my Dutch grandparents owned after immigrating from Holland in the 1950s. My opa and my father built a brick facade on the front of the house which is still there today and a lovely example of Dutch brickwork. I know I am a bit biased, but I think it is the prettiest house on the street.

After Regina, Jacob and I planned to get off the main highway and see something new and different in Saskatchewan. Just outside the city, we took a wrong turn down a very small back road, that made its way through fields unlike those bordering the busier route. The wrong turn, we found on a map, ended up meeting up with the road we wanted a bit further north anyway, so we stayed on it to enjoy the scenery. It turned out to be one of the most pleasant drives I've taken yet. The fields were a glorious combination of green, yellow and purple (yes, Susan, you called the colours!) They weren't totally flat, but actually quite rolling. There was the almost-always present prairie wind, which usually turns the Jamboree into a sail and challenges my abilities to follow a straight line on the road, but which also does something incredible with the wheat and grass fields. The tall grass literally carpets the land, and the wind is a hand that plays with it like when you brush over a shag carpet to change its texture and colour. But this hand ripples over the grass in waves, so that if you watch long enough, you begin to feel like mother nature is putting on a little dance just for you.

We found our way to the Qu'Appelle valley where we've camped four nights in a spot that is strikingly different from the flat and boring Saskatchewan of popular myth. The land ridges and leads down to a valley where two lakes, Echo and Pasqua, live, surrounded by the trees that are also so sorely missed on the bald prairie most people dismiss from the Trans Canada. Fort Qu'Appelle is one of the small prairie towns with a wide, straight main street lined with cute little buildings and populated by an interesting and friendly set of characters. And as we carry on tomorrow to Saskatoon, backtracking a little bit, I'll look forward to noticing the little beauties to discover along the way.

Calgary

How do I write about the place where I grew up? The place I know so well? The place that has changed so much since I was a child, and exponentially so over the past 12 years that I've been away from it?

Ok, its not like I left twelve years ago and this summer was the first time that I'd been back. Most years I visited once or twice for a week to three at a time. So its not like I'm faced with all the change Calgary has gone through at once. I've eased into it. But it is certainly more pronounced for me than it is for my friends and family who still live there, who wake each morning to a Calgary sunrise, who ski in our mountains an hour away in the winter and float along the Bow or Elbow rivers on hot summer afternoons.

I used to marvel somewhat disdainedly each time I flew into Calgary Int'l Airport to see the rapidly growing urban sprawl below, or when I would drive down Mcleod Trail, for example, and realize that the city now almost extends to its southern neighbouring town, Okotoks. Not to mention its encroaching upon Cochrane, Airdrie, Strathmore, and other satellites. Calgary just seemed to spontaneously spurt up new communities during my absences. Without a doubt, the city has boomed, has grown up from the little prairie cowboy town, its otherwise hick “Cowtown” reputation and corresponding nickname, into an Important Oil Industry Big City with a tangible energy.

While the urban sprawl makes me scoff, I get it. The oil industry calls for more professionals, more professionals means more families moving to town, and more families means more communities to house them all. I mean, when the prairies stretch out for hundreds of kilometres in all directions, why not just keep building outward? Unlike Holland and Japan, two of my adopted countries, space is not a particular concern here.

To put it into the words of cold hard facts, when I was a wee girl, the city's population was around half a million. Its now well over a million. Its doubled its size in my lifetime.

What's the same and what's changed? Aside from the the obvious urban sprawl, its difficult to put a definite finger on. A friend I had lunch with this week asked me about this, and, unable to answer clearly, we agreed to the suggestion that, after all these years, Calgary is an odd blend of strange and familiar for me.

Here's what I noticed in Calgary: people are still friendly. Like, when you walk down the street and pass somebody, chances are s/he will say hello. Cyclists usually nod or lift a hand in acknowledgement of our common passion. Despite new communities sprouting like weeds, some parts of the city have never changed. Seriously, the same sign for the same daycare has been standing close to my parents' (almost previous) house as far back as I can remember.

Some favourite Calgary places? Cycling along the Bow river. Strolling down 8th Avenue, a.k.a Stephen Avenue Mall (I don't know who Stephen was, though). The view of the Rocky Mountains from the ridge by my parents' (almost previous) house.

None of that has changed.

This week in Calgary was obviously all about coming home. If you haven't already noticed in my blog posts, my parents sold the house that I grew up in. The keys change hands next week, so this week was the crucial one for seriously clearing out 30 years worth of stuff.

“Stuff”, you should know, is what I consider to be the bane of our existences. I think I move every few years, partly for the change of scenery, but also partly for the purge of stuff. I keep important, sentimental things like old photographs and less important but equally sentimental things like my old Japanese bank book. But it always feels good to throw crap away.

This week, my brother and I got to do just that. We loaded up a van numerous times, drove to the city dump, the goodwill, my parents' new house, all to dump stuff. My parents have downsized, so luckily some important purging decisions were made. There's still a lot of stuff hanging around, but it seems a bit more manageable.

While it was tiring work, I was glad to be able to help my parents get the house ready for the new occupants. May they love and argue and grow and experience as much as we did over our years there. I was also glad for the chance for one last look through it before driving away. No tears for it. Empty, it doesn't hold the memories that I thought it would; I can better find those at my parents' new place downtown, amongst all their familiar “stuff”. The house is a shell, and my dad took this picture with my brother at the entrance right before I drove away from it for the last time.

Adios 28 Woodfield Way. No hard feelings. Only, now I have to memorise a new address.

While saying goodbye to the scene of my childhood, I found myself revisiting some old friends and previous relationships that had up until now remained long in the past. Each reconnection was important, and confirmed for me an identity as someone who somehow belonged in Calgary, amongst people who were also connected to this city. Whereas in previous years I held an unexplainable aversion to any mention of the city of my birth, my “hometown”, I now wore my cowboy boots with pride, and began to look at the city through eyes that weren't programmed as a jaded ex-Calgarian to judge the exterior effects of its growth.

And I noticed that I started to like the city again in a way that I hadn't in recent years.

I had parked the Jamboree in front of Tara's house for the week, and revelled in sleeping in a bed, in a house, with an ensuite bathroom. Tara's hospitality extended beyond hosting me and the contents of the Jamboree to include doing whatever she could to help my family with the move. She lent me her car while she was at work, stored some extra stuff in her garage and, despite impending exhaustion, even came over one evening after work to lend her time to cleaning bathrooms. My friendship with Tara is an absolute key component of my life; whether I am in Calgary or not, you are a superstar, Tara.

It rained all week. Between that and all the wine that Tara and I consumed, I carried a headache around with me for much of the time. It became sunny again this weekend, just as I was planning to leave. When I woke this morning to the sun, despite plans to leave town early, I couldn't resist the call of the bikepath. I cycled a glorious half hour (only) along the Bow River pathway, noticing not only the peacefulness of the river and its birds, islands and shorelines, but also the tree roots bursting through the paved path making my ride unpleasantly bumpy, and the many pedestrians and runners that I had to manoever along the way. Dodging these obstacles both slows me down and makes for a disjointed ride. No matter my newly regained endearment towards Calgary, I am still Dutch in my expectations of what I perceive as a bike path being for cyclists only. I am sure the runners and walkers will disagree with me; it is a “pathway” designated for pedestrians and cyclists alike. Not that I care much; Betty and I are faster.

I left with a lingering feeling of wanting more from Calgary. It won't happen now, not yet. But at least I drove out at 10:35 am on 16th Avenue N, a.k.a the Trans-Canada highway, heading east, with my new Alberta-registered license plate to identify me: as me, and also as an Albertan.

Drifting on Water and Walking on Ice

Jasper is very different from Banff. Sort of, anyway. Still the huge rocky mountains dominate the view (there IS a reason behind the name of the range that borders BC and Alberta), still the clear, irridescent lakes, still the murky glacial run-off rivers. But somehow, different.

I think I put it up to the fact that I know each corner and crevace and curve of Banff, but Jasper is somewhere I've spent significantly less time at over my life. Banff is an hour's drive from Calgary, where I grew up. Jasper is more of a day trip for Edmontonians. In fact, when we pulled up into Lake Louise, I instantly settled in and said to Tara “ok, from here to Calgary, we're home.” But that's getting ahead of myself.

We entered Jasper Provincial Park within minutes of crossing the Alberta provinical border, and forked out a good chunk of the daily budget to pay for our park pass for the next four days. Then we tried our luck finding a campsite, which took us all the way across Jasper park to the Miette Hot Springs, which turned out to be our last opportunity for a real bath AND shower for the next four days.

As I mentioned earlier, we arrived at the beginning of the THE (big) August Long Weekend and so the options for finding a campsite were dubious. We ended up in overflow camping, which was cheap and, we were told, was supposed to be awful. When we got there at the end of the day, we saw that it was a bit open and free-for-all compared to the expected cozy campsites otherwise found in mountain parks, but it certainly wasn't awful. I've stayed in “awful” and this wasn't it. No hook ups, but all we did was sleep, afterall.

One day in Jasper we found our way to Maligne Lake. One of the gorgeous Rocky Mountain lakes that you have all seen on postcards or travel brochures for the area. It was a lovely drive along which we saw some caribou and a lot of stupid tourists getting out of their cars and running up to it to take a picture. Tara said “I almost hope he (the caribou) decides to charge”. And its true! Its worse when people see bears along the road, but if you'll let me rant a bit, these irritating people come into the mountain parks expecting it to be a safe place. They conveniently forget that the prime purpose of the parks isn't tourism (although it seems so at times because it brings in so many of those oh-so-important dollars), but to protect the wildlife. They are supposed to be wild. If you walk up to an animal who happens to be on the side of the road, camera poised, expecting it to be relatively harmless because you know no better than what you see on TV, and then are surprised when the mother bear protecting her cubs is a bit agitated by your way-too-close presence, I figure, its almost equivalent to walking up into the centre of a big US-city gang and asking the members to pose. You'd expect them to shoot you with their guns, right? Ga. It always ends up being the animal's fault, somehow, and end up being punished for it. I can go on, but I won't. Just please, if any of you visit the park and happen to be lucky enough to see a magnificent wild animal along the side of the road, allow it to retain its wild splendour and stay in your car.

Back to Maligne Lake in all its splendour. Tara and I rented a canoe, grabbed a couple of peach flavoured coolers, and spent a few hours rowing our way slowly around and along the lake. It was one of the kinds of experiences that can only happen in that breathtaking location, and that you come out feeling like a better person, somehow, from it all. Like your soul has been renewed.

We woke up early one morning, found a coffee in Jasper town, and drove down the Icefields Parkway to the Columbia Icefield. We spent three hours walking on the Athabasca Glacier wing of the Icefields with a guide that day, which falls among my top mountain experiences - right up there with waking up several July mornings a few years ago at 6 am at 5000 altitude in the Himalaya. Wow.

I learned a lot about glaciers by walking on the Athabasca glacier. Like walking on it doesn't damage it. It recedes naturally, ebbs and flows like most natural watery-based things do, but driving on it, like the massive glacier trucks do to eek out more tourist dollars, does damage it. That the Columbia Icefield has three main glacial arms shooting off of it which lead into three different oceans, the Artic, the Pacific, and, amazingly enough, all the way to the Atlantic, making it unique in the world. That if you stood the Eiffel Tower up at the bottom of the glacier, its tip wouldn't stick out at the top. But, that it disappears several visible feet every year. That the reason glacial run-off rivers are so murky compared to the otherwise crystaline lakes everywhere else in the mountains is that there is a “glacial salt” that rubs off the rocks as the glacier recedes and erodes and melts, and that is carried away by the running water and gravity to give the water a milky appearance.

And really, how cool is it to stand on ice in August, bundle up in a toque and extra sweaters, and then walk off of it later in the day to have a cooling beer on a terrace overlooking it and feeling the summer sun burning your skin. What a Great Canadian Experience.