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A Rush in the Canadian Wilds

After three weeks of amazing adventures in The USA my husband Steve and I had only a week left to explore our home country, with the sheer size of Canada, this was not simple feat. We drove like bats out of an inferno on Monday and ended up crossing the border to British Colombia. Just after 3pm (Mountain Time) the crossing was easy (although the border guard had a little trouble believing that we bought no t-shirts or other junk when we were in the States (we’re cheap)… I did declare the bananas in the trunk…

The real excitement begins when I decided to give Steve the tour of my old home-town stomping grounds in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge BC. I’m sure it was just as thrilling for him to see as it is for you all to read about it. He even got to see the outside of the country bar I used to hang out at, my old apartment building, my old running routes…oh yea, I almost forgot to mention that I took him to see the airport where I jumped out of a plane. Then we did it again.

Skydiving rocks! There is no other way to describe it, no less awesome the second time. Freedom really is the only description…the free fall is completely of fantasy, one minute you are squatting in the door of the plane, the next second you’re flying (after a few flips). You really don’t even have enough time to panic…not that there’s anything to be afraid of…You can’t get a better view of the Rocky mountains than from free air 12500 feet in the sky. (Sure is a lot quicker to fly up to 12500 feet than it is to hike up, a lot faster to get down too. We camped that night in Golden Ears Provincial Park.

When I was younger, a bunch of friends I had took off to a little town called Nelson, in south central B.C. Every time I have been out west I have intended to visit the “town that eats my friends” but have never made it, as the journey is long and in the middle of nowhere. Well we had each other to break up the drive, and I will never have to say “I wonder what it’s really like in Nelson” ever again.

Nelson definitely ate my friends as, of course, none of them were listed in the phone book, nonetheless the town was beautiful and it appeared that not one of the people on the street was older than us. Dreadlocks prevailed as the hairdo of choice and not a campsite was empty within an hour drive of the town. I understand the allure now, and most definitely had I shown up in Nelson 10 years ago, I probably wouldn’t have left either. We checked into a massively overpriced motel that night, where I tried the old phonebook approach of finding my friends. With no luck and not enough time left on our trip to wander around town searching we moved on the next morning.

Banff and Jasper National parks were the next planned destination of our adventure (although it turned out to be almost as adventurous to find a place in the middle of nowhere to get our car an oil change). Luckily the Canadian tire guy, in the small town of Canmore Alberta called around for me (I gave him my best cute, pouty, girly look after he told me they were booked solid) he found a tire place that took our car in right away. This was a tire place. The mechanic informed us that our tires were so worn they were about to blow. The mechanic even showed Steve where the wire was showing though. We speculate they got a good melting job in the dessert while we were crossing the Southwestern States the previous weeks. Thus, the car now sported very handsome new front tires and the “funny little shimmy thingy” he had been doing for a while ceased when we hit the road again.

That night we stopped in Kooteny National Park, at a nearly deserted campground resting at about 9000ft elevation. The first strange thing that we noticed was that it did not get dark until almost 11:00 pm. The second thing we noticed about this area was that it was insanely, ridiculously freezing, cold. We were both frozen in the morning and huddled around a huge fire trying to thaw enough to take down camp. My emergency earmuffs and huge ski gloves came in handy once again. This became the second day for the socks (I think I put them on Tuesday) that I did not remove until Friday night. Yummy, I know.

We dove on with the heat blasting until we thawed and arrived in Banff National Park and proceeded to take in the awesome scenery of the Rocky Mountains. We only did driving tours as we were pretty beat after a freezing night of little sleep.

Following the spectacular sights of the Icefeilds parkway we headed for Jasper National park, stopping periodically to gaze in awe at the turquoise lakes and the majestic Rockies. We pondered over what hikes to attempt and settled on being lazy and taking a tram halfway up a mountain and only hiking a measly 1.1 km up to the summit. Our plan was to follow this “touristy” hike with another shorter hike while heading out of the park towards Edmonton, Alberta.

Arriving at our planned campsite that night, at the base of the small tram assisted hike, we found out that all 800 or so sites were taken. We had also tried to contact a friend of mine who we planned on visiting in Edmonton; however she was out of town. Thus the only logical decision was to completely change our minds on the following day’s hikes and activities, as well as completely alter our route home to Ontario. We would take the southern highway through Canada (No1) as opposed to the Northern (Yellowhead) .

We bundled up extra warm that night and waited in the northern mountain light until well after 11 again for it to get dark. We were still up with the sun and after another chilly (though not quite as bad) morning run and routine, we headed up a beautiful 3 hour hike to view the glaciers of Mt Edith Cavall. We were early enough to beat the crowds we found at the bottom after we descended but not early enough to miss having every inch of exposed skin completely swarmed with flesh eating mosquitoes. The view from the summit of both the peaks we hauled our tired butts to that day was magnificent, but the bugs taking chunks out of my scalp really deterred from the effects; lunch had to wait until we were back down.

Returning once again to the Icefeilds parkway for a second glimpse (that we didn’t think we’d get) of the beautiful Mountain scenery between Jasper and Banff we were Calgary bound.

The morning brought us to sights that neither of us was even aware existed in Canada. We felt ignorant in our insignificant knowledge of our own country. Lonely Planet led us to the Alberta Badlands. Here we experienced scenery that we can only describe as a mini Grand Canyon/California dessert atmosphere. The landscape was over 50 million years old and once part of a tropical rainforest on the shores of an inland sea. It was this area where over 300 complete dinosaur skeletons were uncovered. The towns outside of the Dinosaur provincial park and Dinosaur Trail were both tackily and adorably adorned with all kinds of kooky dinosaur statues and paraphernalia, even the grocery store in Drumheller Alberta had a dinosaur statue protruding from the outside wall.

We spent the night in a provincial park called Cypress Hills, which borders Alberta and Saskatchewan. It does not fit in with the prairie landscape and consists of a plateau covered with trees, hills, at least one lake and a river. It is a beautiful and unexpected little paradise in an otherwise dreary land.

My arm is healing as I write this. I am no longer wearing the splint that was put on by the kind people in a small hospital north of Lake Superior…ok I’m getting ahead of myself, but hey, I have to find some way of keeping this story interesting.

Our homeward journey became peppered with moments of sadness as we fought not to acknowledge the thought of returning to the “normal life”. We did however; try to take in what we could of the sights as we made our way across the rest of the prairies. The next night was spent in a beautiful, but crowded park about 2 hours outside of Winnipeg Manitoba. It was a pretty little oasis called Spruce Woods Provincial Park. Much like Cypress Hills the previous night it certainly did not fit in with one’s usual perception of Manitoba. Sitting by the fire, relaxing, zoning to the flames, I cannot think of a better way to spend an evening.

Just after crossing the Ontario border, we spent a night in Kenora.

Our planned destination was hit as we arrived at Pukaskwa National Park around 6 pm the next day. The drive across the North Shore of Lake Superior is arguably one of the most scenic that can ever be made, mountains (yes there are mountains in Ontario), Thick Evergreen forests and hundreds of serene lakes. We planned on a 16 km hike to a suspension bridge 23 meters above a rushing white water river for the next morning.

The campground was spectacular; Northern Ontario at its finest. The only down fall to the campground (that we soon found out was a province wide thing) was the seemingly ridiculous rule that fires were only permitted between 7 -10 pm. I guess they think that most campers in the 21st century actually have a stove, but we had been using a Wal-Mart pot stuck in the morning fire for dishwater (takes too long to wait for hot enough water for coffee) Morning fire is also nice to dry out the dampness. Enough whining we knew we were still blessed to be alive and enjoying the awesome wilderness.

It was raining in the morning when we awoke, but the clouds were a pale gray and we really wanted to do this hike (and I really wanted an excuse to skip my run) so we just went through the am routine a bit slower than usual, got a little wet and by the time I brushed out the rats nest that called itself my hair, the rain had stopped (waist length hair and damp camping sometimes don’t mix well).

It was a beautiful hike, it was listed as strenuous. But in comparison to our usual mountain/canyon crazy climbs, it was (to quote my dear Newfie husband) “Duck Soup” the rocky scrambles and slight elevation gain were just enough to get the blood pumping, but not enough to make you stop, clutch your chest like you’re having heart failure and gasp for air (as we are accustomed to) thus, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, talking, telling stupid stories from childhood and taking in the scenery. The bridge itself was totally cool, definitely worth the 8k in to see it. It was surrounded by a mesh screen so even if the person jumping on the other end trying to make you lose your balance was successful, you would still be caught, instead of plummeting to a grizzly death in the rocky rapids below (kind of takes some of the fun out of it) but bouncing bridge, white water rapids, stunning view…still makes for good times.

After a delicious lunch of canned beans we started the walk back, we had not yet done a kilometer when I somehow managed to trip over my own feet and land with my right arm crushed underneath all 120lbs of my body. We can climb mountains, canyons, jump out of airplanes etc. but walk in a straight line, on level ground…not a chance. The snap that I first heard when I hit was not my original fear; it ended up just being my sunglasses flying off and hitting a rock. My arm looked a little warped and I couldn’t move it at first. But the shock was enough to get me up and start moving it a little (hurt like crazy) and begin the walk back.

By the time we got back to the car we were pretty sure it was not totally broken but worried it might be a hairline fracture, nonetheless it was moving, so we got moving too. I dozed off in the car and when I woke I had forgotten about it. I reached behind me for something only to end up screaming in pain, followed by blubbering/bawling/sobbing, like a 2 year old…charming…we stopped for gas and a hospital in a little town called White River. The closest x-ray machine was a couple of hours drive either back tracked or further forward along the highway. And logically, neither would be available until the next morning. However, the people in the clinic were very sweet. They wriggled my arm this way and that (felt wonderful you can imagine) and determined that it “probably wasn’t broken”, applied a tensor bandage and gave me some free samples of painkiller. You don’t get that kind of treatment in Toronto. Good as new, we were on our way to the next campground of choice (a little behind schedule).

My arm hurt badly, so logically, beer was the answer to that problem. Thus, my sore arm is now also burned by the metal fire pit. My fire pokey stick was just too darn short, or I was just too darn drunk, one or the other, nonetheless, if we didn’t have beer, we wouldn’t have had ice for the burn.

I began to really wine for home at this point as we were now so close, but Steve really wanted to camp one more night. After a few arguments and a coin toss (which I actually won) we ended up stopping at a campground in Parry Sound. The site was blah, but even worse than that, after passing the site the first time around the campground I made a 3 point turn on what I thought was a clear spot of gravel road, only to end up smacking poor our car’s rear end into a big friggin’ rock.

Tears again, crappy campsite, me in a really bad mood…Steve didn’t want to camp anymore either. We got our money back and drove the rest of the way home.

Getting home felt strange, the house was weird, the cats weren’t home it was so big and empty, no fire this night, or for a long time to come. We did, however, arrive pretty much in one piece, a little depressed that the trip was over but completely blessed with the most incredible journey of our lives.

Now all there is to do, is think about where to go next…

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