Category Archives: Canada

Journals and photos from tandem bicycle travels of 15,000 kilometres by Bob Rogers and Claire Rogers, from British Columbia to Newfoundland.

Happy Canada Day, July 1

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Americas very best friend in the World is our neighbor to the north, Canada. We don’t always treat her with the respect due the second largest country in the world. Rich in resources and diverse in cultures, she is held in high reguard everywhere, yet too often ignored by the United States.

Beginning in 1997 we bicycled the lower provinces over three summers, a total of 15,000 kilometers, or perhaps I should write kilometres. We got a feel for the imensity of the country, but mostly we experienced the warmth, hospitality, and fun-loving ways of the people. 

Someday we will do complete page on our Canada travels, but for now, Happy birthday! We love you.

Eddie McMaster at a firehouse Ceikidh

Motorhome Boondock view of Kluane Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada

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Kluane Lake, Yukon in late August, 2010 from the window of our motorhome. In Yukon Territory, you can pretty much “camp” wherever you can find a flat spot to park. Our Winnebego View is small enough to park just about any place you could park a van, yet has the essentials of any home. We watched the view morph to mellow evening light. We followed animal tracks in the rock and sand beach, and returned “home” to stir fry vegetables and pasta and a glass of wine. Darkness came quickly and we watched night displace day with billions of stars through our skylight. Simple pleasures are best.

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Kettle Valley Rail and Wine Trail

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The Kettle Valley Rail Trail isn’t all remote mountain views and trestles; we rode beside grapevines and past winery doors on a section from Penticton to cute little Naramata. I liked Naramata, lovely by the lake, but also because it reminded me of Australian names, many of which end with …ata, sometimes …atta. Homesick for Australian wine country again.

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Kettle Valley Rail Trail

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We got on the, still unfinished, Kettle Valley Railway (rail trail) bypassing Kelona and on to Penticton. The Myra-Bellevue Provincial Park is the most spectacular section of the trail, with 18 trestles and two tunnels in an 8.5 kilometer section.

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Goodby Alaska, Hello Again Canada

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We missed a sow grizzly by seconds. According to volunteers, something spooked her up on to the road just before our arrival. We saw her still wet paw prints in the road after we rounded a corner. I sure am glad we weren’t there when she burst out of the brush, scared for her cubs and soon to become mad at innocent us! All we saw at the site was a few bushes rustling. All this time in the far north, and not one grizzly sighting. Maybe the wet paw prints were more exciting than seeing her from the protection of a raised viewing platform.

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St. Elias Mountains Yukon Territory Canada

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We expected bears or moose, but only had birds and wildflowers for company. The daylight is almost continuous now, and the light, when there is a break in the rainclouds, just fades and warms slowly toward 11pm, and it is light all night. I enjoy waking up and looking at the light at 2am or so, just as morning color begins to wash the sky.

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Whitehorse: A Busy First Nations Day and Solstice

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A fun example of the cultural mixing here was the jig contest. Now, I’ve always thought of the jig, danced to a fast fiddle, as an Anglo-Saxon tradition: Irish, Scottish, French, but here it’s a local tradition, with most of the dancers of First Nations descent, with plenty of mixed and white faces giving it a go. Oh, by the way, the really really excellent fiddler seemed to be from the orient. Go figure.

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Enjoying big and beautiful British Columbia, on the cheap and slow.

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t becomes almost difficult to sleep as we near the Yukon, the days are so long, the nights so short. We close all the blinds in Turtle, and it still is late before we can sleep. Light usually wakes me at 3:30am, but I’m a good sleeper, and Claire’s warmth makes it easy to wait for full sun to warm us through the windshield sometime around 6:30. At that 3:30 awakening, I open the blinds and curtain between our living area and the cab to welcome the sun. A warm house makes it easier to get out of bed at a reasonable hour.

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Beautiful British Columbia on the Alaska Highway: a hint of true North

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This was taken after 10pm through the window of Turtle at a boondock on the Alaska Highway, or as the Canadians have signed it, the Great Northern. I prefer Great Northern; more romantic than the Alaska Highway.

Long days of slantlong light, and the landscape rolling off to infinity, makes for a magical sense of otherness, of strange timelessness. We love the road, and this one is special.

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