July 12th – August 10th, 2013
Calgary Stampede, Calgary AB. Photo cred – Lisa
After spending a few days in Calgary, I met up with a few friends that I’d been planting with in Ontario who’d come West to check out the stampede. We didn’t make it to any of the real cowboy events there, the chuckwagon races or the rodeo – planning and expensive tickets proved to be too much of an obstacle. We spent most our time on the stampede grounds which was a spectacle of corn dogs, cowboy hats, carnival rides, texas hold ‘em, deep fried butter, country music, and overpriced budweisers.
After a few (expensive) days in Calgary I found myself a job tree planting with a small camp out of western Alberta, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I made it about halfway there in my ‘90 ford econoline, to a small farming town called Olds, before the water pump broke and started pouring bright green coolant. After getting a quote from a mechanic, I decided that a $600 repair bill for a $1000 van wasn’t worth the while and with my friend Jenna, who I was travelling to the plant with, packed up our essentials. We said a final, heartfelt goodbye to my van and home of the past three months in a Canadian Tire parking lot and hitchhiked the rest of the way to our camp near Rocky Mountain House.
To cut the past month into a quick update, the three week planting contract in Alberta went well and I was able to earn some money beyond repaying my student debts. After the contract finished I took advantage of the leftover food from the camp’s kitchen and left for a four day hike to a kool-aid glacial lake in the White Goat Wilderness Area. With the faint hope of a job, I made it to the Okanagan valley, and visited some friends who had been cherry picking since I had left Calgary. It’s a bad year to be cherry picking. There was little work, and my friends who had never picked before were struggling to make minimum wage at a job that usually pays upward of two hundred dollars a workday and rarely runs past the midday heat. Now I’m writing from the kitchen of a farm that a friend works at in southern BC, as I make my way slowly back to Vancouver. Next week in the city I’ll celebrate my 22nd birthday, spend some time reflecting on where I’ve been so far, and on what I plan to do, both with this blog and my travels. Now that the comfort and convenience of my van are gone and the summer is coming to a close, my plans are no longer some distant daydream – it’s what I’m doing next week and next month all the way into the so-called foreseeable future.
Gnarly Travels 