On April 1, 2005 I set off across Canada on my bicycle. Or at least I'd planned to cross Canada. These pages are an account of that trip, as told through travelogs I sent to friends. I hope you enjoy the ride!


Over the Top

Hey Folks,
It was provincial election day when I decided to pull out of Penticton. So off I went across town to perform my democratic duty.

Well, no sooner did I enter the polling place and situate myself at the absentee ballot cubicle, when my old reporter instincts came sleuthing to the surface.

Now, the way its supposed to work is: You fill in your ballot. Then you take it to the elections official. He or she places it inside an envelope and then marks the name of the riding on the outside of the envelope (so officials know which riding to count the ballot in). Then you slide the whole thing into the ballot box.

Right away I noticed the election official marking the word "Penticton" on the outside of every ballot envelope. Being me, I said, "Hey Buddy, I think you're doing that wrong. You're supposed to write the name of the voter's riding on there. The way you're doing it those ballots are going to be counted in this riding.

Then, when the counters don't recognize the name of the candidate we've written on our ballots, those ballots are going to be spoiled, and our votes will be wasted!"

He just looked up and said, "No, I'm doing it right."

Just then I noticed a fellow with an Elections BC badge and a little name tag that identified him as an actual official official.

Still being me, I said, "Hey Buddy, I think this guy is doing something incorrect here." (Whilst the previous lesser offical gave me a look of disdain.) The official official came over, looked at what was going on, and realized the validity of my concern.

"How long have you been doing this?" asked the official offical of the lesser official.

"All morning," came his tale-between-the-legs style response.

It was a close election folks, some of those ballots might have made a serious difference. I alerted the official opposition and the news media. (I wanted to make sure those ballots were properly counted) then got the heck out of town.

After the week of rain, the trail up the side of the hill to Okanagan Mountain Park, the site of the big burn a few years ago, was well compacted and easy to ride. On top of that, the sun was shining brightly, providing me the first pleasant day of riding in quite a while. By dusk I was pulling into Chute Lake, known to the local Quebec fruit pickers as "Shit Lake" because they go there every St. Jean Baptiste Day to drink their faces off and throw their shit everywhere.

Pulling up to the funky, half tourist museum, half junk shop, Chute Lake Lodge, where I was once again greeted by the quirky old couple, Gary and Doreen, who run the place. Doreen was her usual glib self, explaining they were glued to the TV watching the provincial election results, then attempting to sell me everything from a microwaved hot dog to two dollar chewing gum, and trying to get me to pre-purchase breakfast for the next morning, before finally giving it up and offering me a spot in their totally empty campground for ten dollars plus tax.

As wind and clouds rolled in, I set up camp, cooked up some pasta, then pulled out my little transistor radio to listen to the election results, and the other big news of the day, wherein the only pretty blonde on the conservative side of our federal parliament, pulled the rug from under the right wing minority and walked across the floor to join the embattled Liberal government, thus securing the government's stability for the time being.

The Blonde, Belinda Stronach, a single mother and daughter of a billionaire industrialist who worked for her daddy earning a multi-million dollar salary, entered national politics just two years ago when she ran for the leadership of the newly formed right wing alliance. At the time, she came out in favour of things like gay marriage, abortion rights, nationalized medicine, and a lot of other things most people in her chosen party were dead set against. I wrote at the time that, once she completed a first year college political science course, she would realize she was a liberal. In the meantime, she got herself elected to the house and started a romance with one of the big wigs in the Conservative party.

Then she waited. She probably figured out she was a liberal a long time ago, perhaps even before she got into the big four posted Conservative bed. Then, in a single day, when the big news nationally should have been the BC election, she jumps ship, steals the headlines, dumps her righty boyfriend, and gets herself named to the federal cabinet.

Now folks, this woman is gorgeous, in a cosmopolitan sort of way, and she's blonde, but she's no dumby. In two years she's gone from a no name, who's biggest claim to fame was she once had a dinner date with Bill Clinton, to being the minister in charge of the federal public service. That's no giant step, that's a freaking pole vault!

And, I figure, if she's given a few more years to wheel and deal, she'll be Prime Minister. She'll use her wiles to give the current PM, Pablo Martinis, a massive coronary, and poof, she'll be in his chair. You mark my words! Clever, good looking and ruthless, look out boys!

So, after a good sleep in the wind and rain, I stopped by the lodge to say farewell to Doreen and Gary, commiserating for a moment with the fact the facists were re-elected, despite a vastly diminished majority, then, after promising to send them a trail report of the Myra Bypass, I set out.

Here is that trail report:

Hello Doreen,
As promised, here is my report on the Myra Bypass.

I rolled over it on May 18/05, a windy and oftimes rainy afternoon. My guess is the bypass is about 20 K long. It took me several hours to complete it.

To start, this is not a trail that should be undertaken by the ill-prepared, and it should be avoided in bad weather.

Going West to East, the first part of the route, along Little White Forest Service Road, has some steep but mercifully short inclines. The road was potholed, a little muddy, with a few minor washouts. Nothing really horrible or unrideable.

It is when the trail takes its first turn off Little White, to the left, that things get interesting. Here, along a steep downhill switchback to a creek, the trail has washed out in several places. Workers have installed culverts, but still the deeply rutted, muddy, and very very soft road is under constant threat.

Once past the switchback, and up another steep climb, the route transverses an area of the 2003 burn that has been completely bulldozed. In this area the road bed is often steep, features several minor washouts, and has no shelter at all from wind or weather.

Eventually this section branches off, again to the left, on a former skid trail that cuts through some small saplings. This stretch is the most treacherous. There are some washouts and minor steep hills, but the worse thing is, hundreds of small saplings have been shorn off at about two inches above ground. As spring arrives, the trail bed is green with new growth, hiding the shorn-off sapling stumps. Attempting to ride this section, even on a good mountain bike with super fat tires and lots of suspension, would be foolish. It is the most dangerous section, for the welfare of the bicycle, as well as the rider.

The final section, along the Myra FSR, is good, a nice downhill slope, if you're moving west to east. Much of the route W to E is uphill. Where the burn has been levelled it is extremely vulnerable to any weather.

I would suggest care and preparation before attempting the bypass. One should also be aware that McCullough Lodge is closed and there is no supply depot until Beaverdell. There is a no-trace campsite at Ruth Station, on the bypass just above the former station site, and a well maintained and manned Forest Service Site on Hydraulic Lake.

Someone really ought to look into setting up a shuttle service from Ruth to Myra. I'm afraid this bypass would be just too much for some folks. Also, for those heading south down the Kettle Valley, they should be aware of severe damage to the trail south of Arlington Lakes for a few kilometers. Logging machinery has deeply gouged the railbed, leaving only deeply rutted soft clay. It would be impassable in rain.

It was the end of a hard day when I pulled into Hydraulic Lake,about 7pm that night. I was dogged tired, my muscles ached, and the wind was in a torrent. So, I was much pleased to be greeted warm and friendly, and provided a full compliment of drinking water and firewood, by the new camp hosts, a fifty-something couple from Grand Forks. They said, almost in unison, "You're our first long distance cyclist. Welcome!"

I'd no sooner set up camp and cooked dinner when the wind blew in a fierce hail storm. It would wail, and bash, and thunder, and crash, on and off for three days. And in between, when the wind died and the sky cleared, the loons, joined by an old owl, would let up in symphony that carried over the lake and echoed in the trees. It was the best and worst of camping conditions, and I found myself peeling layers off, putting layers on, both inside and outside of my sleeping bag, until, after three long days and nights, the dawn broke clear and sunny and I knew I had to make tracks.

And tracks I did make, covering the slight 60 K downhill, past the sleepy town of Beaverdell, to a lovely little moose pasture on the Kettle River called Taurus Station. There I set camp, cooked up a wicked chilli and settled down to small fire of dead cottonwood boughs to listen to the river and watch the clouds roll in once again.

That night, as I lay down by the fire, writing in my rough book, I could hear the sounds of young men somewhere nearby letting up plaintive moans and groans. It was a strange sound, like lonely bull moose in rutting season. Eventually their cries were drowned out in yet another pelting rain, and I retired to the dryness of my big tarp, and warm mummy bag, for one of the nicest sleeps of my life.

The next morning, as I was writing in my journal beneath another clear sky, the young males I'd heard in the night, drove by, heading back into town, looking somewhat disturbed when they realized, as they rode by, that someone might have actually heard their late night wailing.

It was lovely day for a ride and in no time at all I found myself rolling into Kettle Valley Provincial Park near Rock Creek. I'd no sooner chosen a site when two lovely young women from Kelowna pulled up next to me, and started sending all those signals, the batting eyes, the waves, the smiles, that, to my senses anyway, said; "COME ON OVER BIG BOY."

Well, I did! I don't know if I'll ever get by that thing where, when a pretty woman or two walk by, I lose all sense, both my short term and long term memories go out the window, and I turn into a sappy push over, but it didn't happen that day.

When they showed up in my camp early the next morning asking for help to light their coleman stove, I was hooked. The only thing that was going to tear me from that campsite was when these two women, sisters, checked out. So I checked in for another night and made what time I could with these two, until their incessant babble and nonsense, drove me to an early bed.

We parted friendly the next morning, and I rode off again. Passing through Rock Creek, Midway, and Greenwood, putting on another 60 K, before finally stopping on the Columbia Western Rail Trail, at an old lineman's shack located near a tunnel, perched high on a cliffside above the Grand Forks Valley. There, in the shack that has been outfitted by the Trails BC folks as a bunk house, I passed a lovely secluded evening, watching the stars and full moon and listening to the silence. It was just one of those nights that makes all the hard travelling worthwhile.

Early the next day I rolled down the hill, 12 K, into Grand Forks, where I resupplied, and headed out towards Christina Lake.

My good day, the easy ride down from the linemans shack, and the happy slouching on the streets of Grand Forks, all came to an abrupt halt, and went straight to cyclists hell, as I rode the trail, to find it chewed to crap by horse hoofs. Yes folks, some horse person has decided that the rail trail is a good place to gallop a horse, and thus ruined several k of trail. At one point I hit a patch of sand, started to loose control of Blu, tried to hop off and keep the rig from falling over, and thus gouged a huge hole in my right calf. I was livid as I pulled out my first aid kit, washed out the gouge, disinfected in, and wrapped it in a cotton bandage.

Then things went from bad to worse. The trail around Christina Lake, high on the side of the mountain, was full of loose ballast and rock slides. I took nearly six hours to cover a distance of 20 K, but my persistence paid off, and an hour before sunset I found myself on a patch of wide open ground at a place called Lafferty Station.

Setting camp, I was grateful for the clear sky, the third night in a row I'd had clear skies.

Up at dawn the next morning I was pleasantly surprised to find the wear and tear of the previous day showed no residual affect. I was well rested, had no aches or pains, and the gouge in my leg seemed to be healing up nicely. After a hearty breakfast, a couple cups of Karma Koffee, and a good write, I set out again, thinking, if I could make the summit, a distance of 30 K, that day, I'd be in good shape for an arrival in Nelson two nights later.

Well, I made the summit shorty after noon. A couple hours later I was at the kilometer-long Bulldog Tunnel, and a few hours after that, I was down the other side, at a place called Shields Station, about 15 K north of Castlegar. I'd done another 60 K day and was not the least bit worse for wear. After the hellish day before, this was, once again, one of those days that make it all worthwhile.

Took my time setting camp and cooking dinner that night and breakfast in the morning, another bright warm and beautiful day. After writing in my journal and sorting my possessions I set out, covering the rock strewn remainder of the C&W rail trail in just over an hour, steaming into the car cultured town of Castlegar, picking up some food, and steaming out again towards Nelson.

With one long rest stop to talk with a recreational cyclist, who many years ago was my nieghbour in an apartment building in Nelson (he didn't recognize me, and seemed mildly perturbed, after an hour talking to this apparent long distance grinder, he'd actually just been hanging out with another Kootenian), I carried on.

I made town about six pm and was greeted there by Dennis. Remember him? He's the guy on the recumbant bicycle, with the cat in a cage and all the funny stuff, I first met west of Hope and last saw at the Hope slide. Turns out he'd arrived in Nelson, minus the cat, which abandoned him in Osoyoss, just an hour ahead of me.

So, since then we've been sharing a campsite in the local tourist park, taking care of business, and waiting out the weekend until the journey begins again.

It's Sunday morning now. All the other campers are packing up and leaving. Dennis is at one table, I'm at another. We both have our laptops out and are clicking away. The warm wind plays tricks in the trees. The ravens squawk, and the town that would be a city hums around us.

My porridge is ready and I've already had three cups of coffee, and a visit from my pal David, you know, the guy who got hit by the car last November. He's up and around. Showed up here this morning on his bicycle, with his giant poodle, Polly, looking much better than he did.

Anyway, the adventure continues. Should be moving further east by Tuesday or Wednesday. See you all then.
Will


 
 

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