In June 2004 I set off across Canada on my bicycle. Or at least I'd planned to cross Canada. It didn't work out, mostly because of the weather, but I did have a great ride.

These pages are an account of that trip, as told through travelogs I sent to friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!

    Where was I?
    Oh yeah, I was being distracted by a magnificent set of mammaries at the SameSun Hostel in Fernie BC. Funny thing about those peaches, they disappeared completely moments after I checked in. Never saw them again! On my  second night at the Same Sun I was awakened at 3 AM by the owner of the hostel, coming home drunk with his wild crazy buddies, and diving in the pool.
    Foolish bunch. Could have drowned!

    Didn't want to hang around and see what was going to happen next (been there, done that) so I loaded up Blu and BoB and away we went, on what my Kiwi pals, David and Corrine, called a sweet ride. It was sweeter than sweet, and I did enjoy the entire 35K stretch of high gears and highway driving, having worked out some of the quirks with BoB.
    That night I caught up to David and Corrine at Sparwood. We shared a fire, told stories and went to bed early. Next day we all charged off. Well, they  charged, I chugged, like an old chuck wagon taking up the end of the convoy.
    A few hours later we all landed safely in Elkford and shared a site in the local campground, a messy little patch complete with ingrained bottle caps and crud everywhere. Good news was, I got to spout poetry at these unsuspecting Kiwis and they seemed to enjoy it. But alas, they were tired of this weird old (to them anyway) hippie guy, so they decided to really charge, informing me they would do the entire 70 K  ride to Elk Lakes in one day.
    I laughed. Go for it guys, I told them, but if  you decide you're doing too much, just pick a spot somewhere halfway, and I'll  be along.
    Actually, I'd planned to make a week of it. I was going to stay in all these lovely little spots along the road. One was called Blue Lake, emerald actually, but party boys and girls had left a mess of candy wrappers, beer cans and marshmallow bags, so I moved on. It was the same at the next spot, and the next.
    All the while I'm climbing what the Trans Canada Trail Guide described as "an easy grade". Let me tell you, I'm no jock but I'm no wuss, and that was no "easy grade."

    Anyway, I'm rolling through this incredible country, with the Rockies rising sharply on either side of me. Climbing high above the Elk River, around bends and over hills where the granite just gets bigger and more beautiful. Like I  said, I'd planned to make a week of it, but by late afternoon already ridden over half of it.
    Round about five pm, I pulled up weary at a little spot called Weary Creek. It is a forestry campsite, right on the river, in an exposed valley. Bear country, I could tell, and not just any bears, Grizzly bears!
    Their favourite food was everywhere, ground squirrels, chattering it up bravely as I walked  around, surveying the place as a potential camp. I could find nothing wrong.  The only things that concerned me were the abundance of flowers everywhere, knowing the black bears love them, and the squirrels, or Griz Snacks, as I like to call them. In my head it was all bear, bear, bear. So  I sat for an hour, ate, thought about it, then got back on Blu and rode some  more.
    Riding along, I felt things landing on my arms and helmet. At first I tried swatting them but it is difficult to swat and climb at the same time. Then I  realized they were nothing to swat at.
    They were butterflies! Everywhere, the  tiniest little butterflies I'd ever seen. Many colours too! I especially liked the blue ones, they were the colour of my favourite skies.
    Not much further along I began to grow fatigued. My knees, especially the left, were in great pain. I stopped and tensored one, put on some long pants, then carried on. Two hours after leaving Weary Creek, I rounded a bend as the sun turned the eastern peaks a yellowish gold, and saw a tiny little shack off the side of the road.
    According to the guide this was a user-maintained forestry shack and I was welcome to stay. So that's exactly what I did. I moved in, cooked a nice beany dinner, complete with live vegetables and cream cheese, then sat out watching the late sun play with the rock faces.

    The cabin was a treat. No more than three meters by three meters, with windows on either side, a set of bunk beds against the back wall, and another single bed beneath the north side window. On the other side of the room was a table beneath the other window and a marvelous little woodstove tucked in the corner. There was also a modest supply of wood.
    All around the insides of the log-built cabin people had carved their names and made comments:
    "Saw a Griz chasin' a Moose Cow and her calf" Joe River, June  10, 1999."
    "Too many bears! - Don and Karyn, May 2001."
    "Took two big bucks, Oct. 1990".
    "Sam and Betty Rocked This  Cabin June 24, 04"
    Hmmm, I thought, upon reading that last bit of graffiti, that was just few days ago!
    Then I realized it was election day! Yeah, the 28th of June, 2004 was federal election day here in Canada, and our liberal government failed to win a majority, so we now have a minority government which, in our antiquated  electoral system, is the closest thing we get to effective representation! Canada got all its good stuff under minority governments, its healthcare  system, its national parks, its national pride. Yahoo!
    It would be a few days before I would find all that out.

    Here's a funny thing. After laughing at David and Corrine about the distance they were planning to ride, if I'd ridden another five K, I'd have landed in their campsite! But it was not for me, I was not about to roll Blu and BoB another meter when a cabin, so steeped in character, was there for the taking.
    I enjoyed watching the sunset, reading the graffiti, listening to the silence, running out back to the little stream for water that was so  cold it hurt to put my hands in. I put my hands in it anyway, and splashed my face, and wiped my neck, and threw it over my hair, before rushing back to the cabin to grab my towel from above the hot little fire I'd built in the stove.
    Late into the night I sat up writing, recounting the day, the biggest Elk I'd ever seen scrambling back into the bush from which he'd emerged moments earlier, the occasional smatter of bear dung, and of some other beast - a  large cat methinks. Then there were the horseshoe prints, lots of them, everywhere. This is deep horse country, and there were times when I wished Blu was a horse, so he could do all the work!
    That night I put some rocks on the fire, which I often do, then slid them into my sleeping bag to warm it up. But on this occasion I put the rocks next to my thighs, knees and shins. It seemed to do the trick. In less than two hours all my pain was gone.
    Slept like a baby that night. Just before I finished writing, by candle and moonlight (an oddly egg shaped orb) a car drove by. It's sound cracked the night. I heard it coming for many minutes, then it zoomed by and was gone.
    It was the last human sound I heard. Didn't hear any other sounds, except the occasional sweep of wind.

    Next morning I didn't want to go. A friend had emailed saying he, and some others, would be cycling the same route on that day. I decided to wait a while and see if they appeared. They didn't.
    By noon I started to think about David and Corrine. Had they pushed on over the pass, or were they staying put? There were clouds building down the valley, south. They didn't look particularly dangerous but I sensed something was going to change. As much as I wanted to stay put, I loaded up, replaced the wood I'd used, cleaned the cabin, left my "Willbilly Was Here" graffiti, and rolled away.
    After a torturous two hours I pulled up to the wardens cabin at Elk Lakes. It was still early in the afternoon and the day was hot. There were a couple cars, a tent, and some evidence of people staying in the building. No one was around.
    Locking up Blu and BoB I took a walk to Lower Elk Lake, finding David and Corrine's tire treads in the stone path, going in and coming out. One kilometer later I came upon the public campsite. David and Corrine had done  a fine job of no-trace camping. I could not find where they'd set up.
    Then I went back to the lodge, where I mulled over the idea of taking on the pass. Sitting there, I heard the crack of thunder in the distance. It was four in the afternoon! Taking on the 230 meter pass, did not seem like a good idea.
    Reluctant to camp where David and Corrine had, because bicycles are forbidden, I decided instead to wait around and see if I could camp alongside the other tenter, or maybe even get a bunk in the hut, because of the weather.
    With great clouds of mosquitos swarming, the air growing thick with rain, and the occasional clap of thunder, I sat clothed in netting, waiting for whoever was around to show up.
    Round about 6 PM three very fat middle-aged men, who appeared to be chief justices out of costume, came trundling along the lake path with giant inner tubes strapped to their backs like pack sacks. They must have smeared themselves in deet because the mosquitos, that were everywhere, seemed to want no part of any one of them.
    At first sight these fellows seemed like cheery intelligent types, elfin in appearance, who might be fun to talk to, but they soon let me know they weren't all that pleased to see me, that I wasn't allowed to camp there, and that THEY were staying in the cabin because THEY were members of the Alpine Club.
    Not liking their sort of passive aggression towards me, which became clear when they told me, with the storm approaching closer, the wind whipping up, and the thunder growing more and more frequent, that I could ride back to the cabin at Tobermorey Lake, where I'd spent the previous night.
    I thought about it, but that was the direction the storm was coming from and I could see
lightning down the valley. So I decided to unlock Blu and BoB and bed down in a no-trace site on the edge of the parking lot, not far up the path from the wardens cabin.
    As I was  lifting the bike and trailer to my side, one of the guys came out of the  Warden's house and asked if I was going to run the pass. I was polite,  although I felt like telling him I'd like to see him run the pass, even on an unloaded bike.
    So I was tired and hungry and getting a little grouchy and mad at myself for not running the pass when I first arrived, while the weather was good. Now I  would have to wait out the storm, without a source of heat, and hope all was well in the morning.
    As I set camp the rain came. Fortunately, I'm a good  enough camper that I was able to cook myself some beans and make a little tea before being driven to the safety of my tent.
    It was a little scary that night, with the thunder cracking, lightning  flashing, my food in a tree, Blu and BoB under another tree covered in a rain poncho. I was concerned everything would get wet and heavy and I would have to climb the pass really heavy.
    The rain roared all night but dawn broke warm and sunny. I was heartened. Not  bothering to waste time, I forwent (my new favourite word) my morning journal write and decided to save it for the summit.

    Let me tell you about mud. Let me tell you about mud, swarms of  mosquitoes, steep hills out of the sun, and powerline roads that go straight up, and more mosquitoes, and more mud, and endless slippery earthen mounds that seem to have only more mounds, and more mud, and more mosquitoes beyond them. And let me tell you about two hours in hell that I never want to repeat, climbing a hill, pulling, pushing, and riding a bike with a 32 K trailer and a 50 K  overall weight, up endless mud hills through great swarms of mosquitos!!!

    A while before noon I arrived at a fence planted atop a clump of dug out earth. It was the border of BC and Alberta, the Great Divide, where water on one side flows west to the Pacific, and water on the other flows east to Hudsons Bay and other places.
    I pissed on either side of that mound. Marked my territory (its a guy thing girls) then pulled Blu and BoB over to a picnic table, conveniently placed at the highest point of land on a little grassy knoll. Parking B&B on one side, I yarded out my food bag and threw it on the table, then rounded the table to find a big heaping Grizzly scat (smelling like pepper and shaped like bells) right there. From its texture and the fact it still smelled, I figured it was planted the night before. It seemed to be the bear's way of daring me to sit there and have my lunch, which is exactly what I did!
    Now I really got excited. For all intent and purpose, I was facing a good downhill run into Kananaskis Lakes. There before me, the path cut down through the trees. Yahoo! Here We Go! NOT!!!

    Fifty meters down the path I hit mud. Not just any mud, swamp, bog, up to my knees in the black gooey mess, wishing Blu and BoB were sleds not wheeled beasts. It went on for an hour. Anywhere I got a little patch of rideable ground it turned into goop in minutes. There was bear crap everywhere and, at one point, I found the road totally submerged,  which forced me to manhandle my gear along a steep walking path around it.
    Then, suddenly, the path came out on a gravel road right at a left turn over a bridge. Just as I pulled up to the little bailey, two women appeared at the opposite end.
    "Hope you brought your bug juice," I called out, "its evil up there."
    Talking to these two women, I got my first news of the election, two days after the fact, and most of it incorrect, although they were able to tell me it was a minority (they had the labour winning twice as many seats, and me thinking "Yahoo" again!)

    Another killer climb, this the worst one-K hill I've ever seen, put me under the power lines at the top of a high hill overlooking Kananaskis Lakes, the Kananaskis Valley, and the Banff Park mountains in the distance.
    It was absolutely incredible folks. Felt like I was on top of the world and, if it weren't for the damned powerline, I'd have been sure of it.

    From there the road was a quick, serious, downhill run.  At noon I arrived on Kananaskis Lakes Road, a hilly piece of engineering that was smooth but difficult (I didn't find out until later there was an adjacent paved bike route that took an easier tact).
    That night I made it out into the Kananaskis Valley, deciding to forgo the Spray Trail because of all the horror stories I was hearing, and camped at a place called Eau Claire, where natives and explorers, including David Thompson, had camped.
    There were signs of moose on the river, signs of bear too. It was nice, but expensive, and filled with Albertans out to roast marshmallows and yell at their kids for having too much fun.

    Next day, which was yesterday, or Canada Day for the rest of you, I rode down the easy, although sometimes busy, Highway 40, past the site where the '88 Winter Olympics downhill, and the APEC meeting of a couple years ago, were held. It was a lovely ride, mostly easy grade downhills with a couple challenging climbs, weaving along the Kananaskis River through a thin valley of high green mountains crowned with granite, and in some places snow.
    Then suddenly, I wasn't in the mountains any longer. I was out in the foothills, an open windy country, where the road I was on met the Trans Canada Highway.
    Not quite ready to leave the mountains, and knowing from intelligence gathered at various rest stops, turning east at that point would mean highway riding, on a national holiday, with no place to camp for 80 K.
    Now, a guy who only does 30 to 60 K a day needs a closer campsite. I decided to ride three K west on the TCH to Seebe, a place I know, where I once had a wonderful conversation with the great Canadian folksinger Buffy Sainte Marie.
    Two K along the rain came, cold and wetter than the ocean. Pulling in, off the road, being whipped by wind and totally soaked, I met up with the local conservation officer who told me two things, one was the only campground still not full was at Willow Rock, and, the ride on the "1A" to Canmore was not to be missed.
    At Willow Rock I found a campground, wedged in prairie grass with highways on two sides, high on a plain, enclosed in a semi-circle by rugged peaks, aflame with great dark clouds and teeming with lightning.
    Somehow I managed to set up my camp, rig some overhead tarps, cook dinner, and change my clothes, despite the downpour. Then the weather got nice, then it got rotten, then it got nice again, then it turned rotten, and that was all before 8 pm.
    About 10:30 it got nice again, and I came out from under my hovel to meet my neighbours, a trio from Claresholm, teenagers, and their German exchange student friend. They were being chauffeured by a young ex-army guy with every kind of toy and light and chemical fire changing solution, available over the counter. They were celebrating Canada Day by turning their fire red white and blue!?
    Nice kids, a little steeped in the fear side of Christian dogma, a little  scared of the world, but willing to let this old traveler come into their camp, heat some rocks on their fire, and tell them a story or two. We had a little fun, a few laughs, and I got warm rocks for my bed before the weather turned crappy again, round about midnight.
    It was nice to have those warm rocks in my sleeping bag as the rain pounded my tent and the ground all around. I felt safe and dry and warm, tho' the wind howled and the rain was a wacky drummer.

    This morning a great Chinook Arch formed across the western ridges. A west wind, the night before it had been all north and east, came up. By time I made coffee and breakfast, and wrote an hour in my journal, the wind had dried my tarp and I was able to load up.
    The evening before I'd done a pro-con on whether to go east to Calgary or west to Canmore. The pro won for Calgary, but standing there, looking at those mountains with the blue sky arcing above them, I remembered a third thing the Conservation Officer had said: "The Alpine Club has an excellent hostel in Canmore, you'd like it!"
    Three hours after I set out, I climbed the one-K long driveway into the Alpine Club's National Headquarters, recently allied with Hostelling International.  It is a majestic place. A great hostel. Probably the best on the continent folks. High on a south face overlooking the Three Sisters Mountains, the town of Canmore, and the Bow Valley, this place has everything, and more! The accommodations are dorms, but in mountain lodges. I'm in a cabin with a living room, featuring a walk-up fireplace, hearth chimney, a sitting room, two six person dorms, a loft, the most amazing kitchen, and a deck  overlooking the valley as well. What's more, I have the entire lodge to myself, for tonight anyway. Its ama..., well enough of the bubbly.

    Passed much of my afternoon and evening in Canmore, which has become a full-fledged city since last I was here. I'd forgotten how much I like the place, and fortunately they've managed to keep some of their best parts, like their river front, the cafes, and the reasonably priced grocery stores.
    So, I'm likely to hang around a few days, take a side trip up to the big Banff, just to see how a family of beavers I used watch are making out, and have a java at the Banff Springs Hotel, just to be decadent.
    Then, in a few days I'll turn east. Got a place to stay in Calgary for a few days and, from what I've heard the Calgary Stampede will be on. Hmmm, I've never been to the Stampede!

    Anyway, I ain't stampeding, but I'm still having fun, although while I was up there in Elk Pass I sort of was worried about my sanity. This is absolutely crazy what I'm doing, but once again, I'm having the time of my life, or the life of my time.
    Oh hell, I got one great life going on here now.