Dempster Diary Update 4

The First Day: Calgary to Prince George

On Monday evening I was all packed. Everything had been bought, put together and loaded. I was beginning to think that maybe it would have been cheaper to take the whole family to Mexico or Barbados or something, since what with the tyres, servicing, extra camping gear and what have you, this was turning out to be somewhat more than I had anticipated. Ah well, too late.

I rose at five, chucked the rest of my stuff in the car, and made myself some breakfast and a cup of tea. Kissed my sleeping wife (got a snore and a knee for my trouble), tickled my sleeping son, and hugged my wide-awake daughter, then left before the dawn. The red sun peeked over the horizon just as I was passing my favourite breakfast spot on the intersection of 22X and the TransCanada, where I have had many a good breakfast at many an odd hour. It gave me a pang not to go inside, but I was alone and therefore did not want to break with the tradition that said we go together.  The highway was full of cars now wending their way to work, but my side heading to Banff was pretty much empty.

Once I got into the park, I was somewhat surprised at how many RVs and Winnebagos and trailers there were on the road. I guess I was wrong about thinking that in this last week when school was opening, that everyone would be home already. Of course, it had been such a crappy summer - snow, rain, and nasty, right up to two weeks ago - that maybe everyone decided to go take the sunshine while it lasted. And this last week did give me hope for my own trip, since it would have been a major bummer if it rained the whole time I was up North. Ugh! By 8.00 I was past Banff and on the way to lake Louise, and by 9.00 I was past there too and gunning for Jasper. I ask you to forgive a certain naivetee here: I looked at the map at best casually and figured that since Jasper was in the same National Parks area as the first two, it wouldn't take much longer to get there either: I got a rude shock when I saw "Jasper - 356km" on a sign

.

As always, I stopped where I wanted and took my usual attempts at trying to figure how the damn

light levels worked when there is so much dynamic contrast. Nothing too spectacular. But I did like the route. We have gotten so used to stopping (at best) Lake Louise, that we forget how big the park is: to my pleasure, there were many things I saw that were the equal or better than anything I had seen before on the more familiar routes. This picture of Blind Veil Falls is one of them. I made a deal with myself not to stop

too often, because I would much prefer to come here with the family and see it all through their eyes. With Shakha around, that is inevitable. Although I have to admit, it was a real wrench not to stop at the Columbia Icefields, even though in the summer it is probably nowhere near its wintertime glory. High on my future list, believe me.

Got to Jasper by noon and headed off to the left (that's west, isn't it? Just kidding) and braced myself for a longer drive through BC to Prince George.

Can't really say the landscape did much for me. Too

many unvaried trees, I suppose. No change for mile upon mile upon mile, just hill and dale and tree and no view to speak of. Occasionally there was a mountain or two but as I left the Rockies behind and drove deeper into BC, the open country and mountain vistas also were left behind. Still, I did catch this one picture of a farm at a time when seams of light were coming down through great rents i the sky, and I think it conveys a little of why BC people love their province so much.

Which is not to say that it was all pretty. The weather in particular was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I thought Calgary was bad with that wry "wait five minutes" witticism shared by all residents, but I don't think I've ever, in all my travels, seen quite as much indecision on the part of the weather as I did on the road to PG. It was sunny, cloudy and rainy in patches no more than five minutes apart. I was actually at a traffic light bathed in sunlight, and on the other side of the road, it was simply pouring out of a black sky. Just the weirdest thing I've seen in quite some time, and the plus of it was that it cleaned my windshield quite nicely.

I had brought a whole raft of maps, but for this part of the trip, the GPS worked pretty well (when it wasn't being snooty and telling me I was 100m off the road) and even directed me to my fleabag motel very nicely. After ten hours in the saddle, I was pretty knackered, so I checked my pictures, had something to eat, and published my posts. I covered ~815km today, I realized, and I haven't done that level of driving since last September when I did the Regina trip: tomorrow I have to make Watson Lake, and that's another 1225 km. That's two full tanks of gas, I'm thinking.

And a sore bum on top of that.

At the very least, let's hope some decent photos come out of this one.