Crossing Canada - Part I - Leaving Home

Leaving home – that’s the hard part. My bags are packed, stashed out in the office on the first floor of the apartment building on Indian Road where we live and work. Victor, one of our tenants who has been a good friend to us, will be bringing the car around to the front door at any moment now. We need only to put the luggage in the trunk and head downtown to the station.

Jeff has had his little rant – what if I get sick, what if there’s an accident, what if . . . what if . . . yes, he’s worried, but I do not blame him. I’m worried too. I have my own list of what ifs – what if I get sick – what if HE gets sick – what if . .

This will be the first time I will set out on a long trip, on my own. It’s not that I’ve never been anywhere. Although I have never been off the North American continent, my memory holds images of many towns in Northern Ontario, motor trips to the east coast of both Canada and America, little jaunts into New York State, The Adirondack Mountains, Vermont – in July of 1956, when I was thirteen, we went all the way down to Miami, Florida by train.

But there are two things I have never done;

- I have never been to the west coast and have never seen the Canadian Rockies;

- I have never travelled a long distance, to speak of, alone. Until now . . .

It has been my intention to cross my own country by rail the past few years, and I will not put it off one more time. My train pass was originally booked for September; even though fares were higher then, I had intended to make the three-and-a-half day trek by rail, while the last remnants of a Canadian summer were on the land.

Unfortunately, by the beginning of that month, everything I wanted to do out in British Columbia was on fire. My daughter was evacuated from the farm where she and her children were staying, near Ashcroft, and I figured I didn’t want to arrive there and become one more burden to the province. I re-booked for mid-October.

Now, it’s the sixteenth of the month, the fires are over and I’m ready to go. There’s no reason to put it off. Chris and my two granddaughters, Kat and Mandy, have returned to Vancouver and are avidly awaiting my arrival. We can drive up through the mountains and stay at the farm for a few days while I’m out there.