Under mounting pressure from certain people, I bring you another installment in the GCA chronicles. I am ever so glad I got to update as went along, otherwise I doubt I would be able to remember anything. (I actually don't remember anything - these chronicles are entirely aided by my trusty journal). So, yeah, we went to a lot of places. A couple of planned cities (Victoria and Whistler) were kiboshed due to VIA, but other than that, we hit every stop we planned and then some. So, here are some of the highlights:
The city that most surprised me: Winnipeg.
- Yeah, you read that right, Winnipeg. From the Forks to the French Quarter, from huge bowls of soup to the Canadian Mint, I really enjoyed our brief stint here. It's a big enough city to have all the amenities, but small enough to still feel safe and quaint. Also: it has real attractions (unlike boring Toronto, where there's lots to do if you live near here, but not really a lot of tourist appeal). I thoroughly enjoyed the Boniface ruins, which looked so stark and majestic. Do pop over there.
The city I'm going back to: Churchill.
- Two for two in Manitoba! Yes, there are definite plans to go back to Churchill. There are some things I have to do there that I just didn't get a chance to: polar bears, whale-watching, northern lights. Six hours is too little (you hear me, VIA?) to do anything but fall in love and leave. It was an amazing cold clear day, negative 22 degrees, but no wind, so we walked about in six layers and were okay. Gypsy's Bakery helped warm us up with delicious Apple Fritters, Hot Chocolate and attentive service. Special thanks to Fred for his Where to Eat in Canada guide.
Most rain I've ever seen: the West Coast.
- Perhaps I set myself up for too much wonderfulness. Perhaps I was spoiled by the excellent weather we seemed to unpack with us whenever we arrived. Perhaps I had an unrealistic expectation of what the west coast would feel like. Either way, the overcast drizzlefest that was BC (with only a three day exception - one in Nanaimo, one in QCC and one in VanCity) made me rethink my dreams of moving there. It wasn't even a cathartic downpour, just spit. spit. spit-spit. blah. I guess I should be happy that a place that gets 360 days of rain a year (I'm looking at you, Port Hardy) has things like the Inside Passage to make up for it. (The inside passage, btw, is a series of islands that are really the tops of underwater mountains and one of the most beautiful things to go through... when it's not raining).
The most unexplainable: Saskatchewan.
- You know, I actually liked our brief three-day stint in Saskatchewan. We took in the historical tunnel tours in Moosejaw and visited the legislative building and the RSM in Regina. Saskatoon we just indulged in Stuart's hospitality, so I'll associate it with good things always. However, the thing I can't seem to explain and couldn't get the camera to quite capture was the sheer flatness of the place. It was like living in an optical illusion where hydro tours literally became too small to see, where entire cities emerged over the curve of the Earth hundreds of kilometres away, where the horizon is broken only by man and his machinery. It's phenomenal and entirely cool.
- What I also really learned to appreciate is how hard this province works for the rest of us. Just over a million people live in the province, and it's primarily responsible for most of the food we ingest. We were there on a Saturday/Sunday, and we saw farmers working both days - no weekends for those guys. It's a wonderful part of our country that I encourage everyone to indulge in.
Where I fell in love: Jasper.
- Oh, I know what you're thinking. It's easy to fall in love with Jasper, with its various Rocky Mountain ranges within hiking distance, it's clear and colourful glacier-fed lakes, its abundant wildlife, its historical chalet town, its friendly people, its temperate weather... well, yeah, it is. It really is. I sat in a park to eat lunch and counted four mountain peaks in clear view (not counting the ones behind me or trees or buildings). I went halfway up Whistler's Mountain in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, where snow was still on the ground and I was greeted by one of the most spectacular views I think I'll ever see in my entire life. I saw wolf-elk (okay, just elk, but it looked like a wolf from far away! dammit.) and real elk, and bears and ravens. I fell in love - in drunken, crazy love with Canada - while watching Mount Robson wink at me in the distance.
If you ever need to affirm why this country is an amazing and awesome place, take a ride on the Canadian. Even when you're being rained upon, you can't help but stare at the giant redwoods and be in reverence. When I went to Paris and saw the Notredame, I had thought "it's places like this that make people believe in God" - I was wrong. The Notredame was built by human hands and should really make one marvel at the capacity of human creativity and ingenuity. Watching the Rockies plunge straight into the Pacific Ocean, standing inside a tree that's thousands of years old, gazing at the crystalline lakes in the middle of the mountains - that, poppets, that makes one believe in God.
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