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.