Double Blind

I forgot to post this a month ago, but I visited three confluence points around the Edmonton, AB area in early July. Because of the flat topology of the land, they were rather easy to get to other than sitting in a vehicle for the time.

The three points were 54 North, 114 West; 54 North, 113 West; 53 North, 114 West.

Of note was the 54 North, 113 West point; while Google Maps at the time I visited the place (but not now!) shows that was is nothing there. Now there is a horse racing training facility, which was pretty cool.

I still want to reach my “backyard confluence” of 49 North, 122 West, which is in the southeastern depths of Columbia Valley. Me and a couple other friends attempted this three years ago, but made the mistake of hiking up an actively flowing creekbed, and got stopped when there was a three meter waterfall. We had then climbed up the 45 degree slope about 5 meters above the creekbed and tried to go parallel to the creek, but it was getting ridiculously dangerous before we decided to just tuck our tails in, turn around and go back home. More important to survive and then come back to fight another day than drowning in the water below!

I’m back from my break in Alberta.

I find it interesting that a lot of people will not do long-distance driving at night. I find driving at night is always easier than driving in the day (as long as you are not doing it in winter) simply because you can drive a lot faster and not have to worry about passing the inevitable slow vehicles on the road.

Even though Google said that the trip from St. Albert to where I live in Chilliwack is 13 hours and 15 minutes, I managed to do the drive in 10 hours and 40 minutes, even including three stops along the way (two for gas and one for bathroom).

At around Blue River, BC it was very cold at night and there was frost on some of the trees. It was also very foggy in certain areas, so much that you could only see three or four strips of yellow line in the middle of the road, so if a moose or something was on the road at the time you had no chance even at a reduced speed.

There was also an impressive lightning storm around Mount Robson Provincial Park.

There was also a deer crossing the street at the junction of Highway 16 and Highway 5 in Jasper National Park. Other than this it was an unremarkable drive.

Now what is rather eerie is that there is an elderly couple that lived in the suburb of Edmonton that we went to and they went for a trip to Chilliwack, but apparently never made it (credits to 89.5 Hawk FM News):

Alberta RCMP are asking for help in finding an elderly couple who left their home in St. Albert for a B.C. vacation

They left July 3 and haven’t been seen since.

Lyle Thomas McCann, 78, Marie Ann McCann, 77, were driving a 1999 green and white Gulf Stream Sun Voyager motorhome and towing a light green Hyundai Tucson.

They were headed for Chilliwack to meet a family member on July 10 but never showed.

Police say their motorhome was last seen in the Edson area on July 5.

The motorhome’ s Alberta licence plate is NBZ 836 while the trailer’s plate is ZPK 289.

… today, this was updated to:

Almost 3,800 people have joined a Facebook group to help an Alberta family find their missing parents.

Marie Ann and Lyle McCann, both in their late 70s, have been missing since July 3rd.

They were driving to Chilliwack to meet up with family members.

Mounties say their disappearance is ”extremely suspicious.”

The burned remains of the couple’s motorhome was found in a remote area near Edmonton, but the SUV they were towing is missing.

The Mounties are conducting an air and ground search.

My hopes that it ends well for this couple, but given the fact that there is a lot of “remote area” near Edmonton it looks like they were robbed.

I wasn’t exactly expecting to see Las Vegas again so soon after my previous trip, but circumstances (and relatively cheap tickets) dictated otherwise. It was also a nice way of capping off 2009 (in early 2010) with some gluttony and entertainment. Here are some comments in fragmented form, and note that this is about 200 times larger than what Twitter will allow you in a single post. Also if this was some sort of spammy site, I’d split this into six posts, but you will be getting it in the full unadulterated form:

1. Airport Security (LAS): As mentioned previously, airport security on the Canadian side felt more comprehensive than the security in the US side. I was fully expecting a “light massage” from security on the US end, but I guess they don’t care about terrorists boarding flights to Canada. When walking to the LAS terminal, there was zero lineup. The TSA guy looked like he was half asleep on the desk before looking at our passport and boarding pass and then whisking us along for the metal detector and carry-on bag scan. Unlike in Canada, I was actually allowed to take my netbook computer in its carrying case.

2. Airport Wireless: McCarren Airport (LAS) has free wireless. YVR has free wireless. It is amazing how a small provision of service like that can make a flight delay so much easier. Also having penny slot machines can be amusing and is probably a good source of revenue for the airport. I wonder what would happen if somebody actually won something big at the airport – would you be quickly given a wad of $5,000 cash, or would you have to miss your flight to fill in the 50 pages of paperwork to claim your prize?

3. Incident while flying back home: The flight back (Westjet 1785, scheduled departure was 10:40pm) was already delayed 45 minutes. We then boarded the plane, but the plane wouldn’t take off – it was still connected to the gate. About 20 minutes later the pilot said that “there was some paperwork that had been misplaced and has to be produced before we can take off”. Another 40 minutes later, it is obvious that something is going on. Some passengers two rows in front of me asked the attendant and it was mentioned that “there was a medical incident”. Upon being queried why this wasn’t announced to the passengers, the attendant said that “it was a private matter”. The passenger was not happy at that answer and said “Can we choose to leave the plane?” and the attendant said “Yes you can.”. After 10 minutes or so they (a group of three) left.

Their baggage had to be taken out of the airplane, but this did not cause an additional delay.

I am not sure what rules governed this situation. I have done a cursory look at various policies but couldn’t find a thing indicating what the heck happens in a situation where you expect a huge delay in taking off and you just want to get off the plane because you don’t want to be stuck with your knees against the metal of the back of an airplane seat and in a position that is nearly impossible to sleep in.

The pilot announced on the flight’s PA system that there was a medical incident, and that the paramedics have been called and they will be coming in around 10 minutes; that the decision to not take off was solely his, and that if we have anything constructive to say that we can talk to him. He was obviously very well trained for an incident like this since his words felt like they were uttered from a conflict resolution manual.

I estimated that there would be a 75% probability we would take off in exactly one hour and didn’t have much choice in the matter anyhow. Half an hour later, the pilot announced that the paramedics determined that the person in question indeed should spend the night in Las Vegas and has left the plane; and that we will be taking off. They had to locate his luggage in the hold and remove it, which took another 20 minutes. We eventually got to YVR at around 3:30am, and got back to Chilliwack at 5:15am, and suffice to say the next couple of days were write-offs as I find it very difficult to mentally recover from these trips in a day.

Two things troubled me about this. One is that despite looking at the front of the airplane constantly, I never saw any paramedics or people leaving the airplane except for the three people two rows in front of me. Maybe they were in the area just outside the airplane. The second is what medical condition might you have that could still let you board the airplane, but before the plane takes off you decide to tell somebody “Oh, I might be sick, please let me off the plane!”. Either the passenger in question is an absolute idiot (which does happen sometimes) or they decided that was the time to get a mild heart attack or something. Very strange. I’ve learned from reading other people’s experiences that the information that you get told by the airline crew pertaining to these sorts of situations is usually bullshit, so I am very highly skeptical of what I saw.

4. Wynn Las Vegas: When I walked around this place last October, I felt like I was trailer park trash walking through Beverly Hills. The place just screams “high class”, or at least people that want to pretend to be high class. The amount of money they must have spent on this place on “simple” stuff like artwork and decor must have been amazing. To prepare for this, I did bring a decent set of clothes so that way I wouldn’t look like a redneck bumpkin when walking around.

Perhaps one of the best functional innovations I’ve seen is using the hotel key-card as the “frequent gamber’s card” that most casinos issue to determine how much money they can suck out of you on future visits. You can also use it to pay for hotel services (e.g. the buffet) which goes directly to your account. So it acts as a virtual bank account for your stay. Whoever thought of this was a genius, although you better guard the card with your life.

I never had a chance to check out their fitness facilities (or pool) mainly because I started developing some symptoms of a mild touch of the flu (extremely sore throat in the morning and late evening) but looked around, and suffice to say the pool looked quite inviting if it was actually warm outside. They close it when the sun sets, which is interesting since I think it would be quite a nice place at night as well.

Of note is that the vacation package that we got (3 nights) included a US$75 “resort credit” which doesn’t go far at the Wynn, but is useful nonetheless. You just can’t use it on gambling.

5. Wynn Las Vegas (Room): Wow. Lots of red-pink. Had a view looking at the strip, primarily Treasure Island on the right and the Mirage on the left. There was a button you could press to open and close the curtains which was pretty cool. There was also a huge flatscreen TV that swiveled from the wall. Probably most impressive was the bathroom, with a shower and a soaker tub, and his-and-hers sinks. The bathroom felt like it was half the size of the entire room, which in itself was quite large. Perhaps most importantly, when you shut the curtains, the room got very dark. This is essential to getting a good night’s sleep.

6. Wynn Buffet: I never thought I could walk out of a place paying US$35 (plus 8.1% sales tax!) for a buffet and think it was worth it, but oddly enough, it was. Deciding what to eat before watching the 9:30pm show of Le Rêve, we looked at the menus of the various places and decided on some stuffy French restaurant near the waterfall. It was booked until around 8:30pm (an hour and a half later). I am glad that it was full since then we decided to do the buffet. Not only that, but it probably “saved” money too. After waiting about five minutes to line up, we got in, and stuffed our faces silly. The food was quite high quality, more than at any other buffet I have been to. In fact, it puts the rest of them to shame.

Of note is that they have a wide variety of seafoods available. It must cost them a fortune to have them shipped in, so that’s what I primarily indulged in. You literally had to have an eating strategy to make sure you got enough variety and to keep each portion at a reasonable size so you have enough stomach for future courses. I went through 4 plates of dinner, each one having roughly 5 items. I felt like a teenager reliving my “all-you-can-eat” days, except with a flair of sophistication. Something noticeable was that the Alaska King-sized crab legs were quite popular, so I grabbed three of them on my final plate, in addition to a healthy portion of smoked salmon (which I absolutely love eating). Other notable seafoods included mussels with a light brothy gravy, the sea bass, the scalloped ceviche, etc.

The only “miss” food in the dinner buffet was the anchovies and red/yellow pepper salad, which was served in a glass. It was inadequate because the anchovy flavour (a really fishy flavour) had been soaked out of the fish, and its mushy texture combined with the mushy peppers did not leave a favourable impression on me. The sushi was also mediocre, but I only had one piece to confirm my visual opinion (go to Ichiro’s in Steveston for a much better experience!).

There was a variety of desserts available, mostly served in shot glasses. Some of them were hits (the fruity ones in particular) and their Tiramisu was excellent – in fact, it nearly compares to the Tiramisu that I can make, so I was fairly impressed. They didn’t skimp out on the Marscapone cheese. There was some misses as well (in particular, the mint chocolate cake was brutal!).

The other odd thing of note here is that when I was getting ready for dessert, I got a coffee, and the waiter gave me a mug that was very hot, full of hot coffee, and it was good coffee because of flavour and the fact that it was HOT, even after you stick in a tablespoon of cream. Such a simple thing, but they got it correct. Most places do not. I was impressed.

7. Le Rêve: When entering into the theatre, the obvious thing that strikes out at you is that you are entering into a circle, where the people sit around the main stage, which itself is a circular swimming pool with a platform that can rise. The other obvious thing is that the seats looked comfortable and they were.

At no time did anybody’s cell phone ring, and the staff were very diligent at flashlighting people early on that had digital screens on their cameras on, or heaven forbid, had their flashes on. After about the first 3 minutes this was no longer a problem during the entire show. I was delighted.

The show itself is very difficult to describe – there is a very abstract plot about a girl trying to decide what guy to get, but it doesn’t feature too heavily. The main feature is the lights and water and sound and the acrobatics. I did leave thinking “What the heck did I watch?” but it was very well performed. The amount of planning and choreography that goes into these productions are immense and the athletic capability of a lot of the performers are equally immense.

If you are considering buying tickets for this, there is functionally little difference between the seats, no matter where you are around the circle – in fact, half way up the circle is the ideal spot if I had to estimate. The “splash zone” (two rows on the bottom) are slightly cheaper and you may get one or two drops of water on you during the show.

8. Blue Man Group: I’ve been meaning to see these people for nearly a decade (ever since they were the feature group that was on Intel Pentium 2 advertising) and finally got to see them. The four previous times I’ve been to Las Vegas, I told myself if I won $100 gambling in any form that I would go and see them. Unfortunately, I have done nothing but lose money in Las Vegas, so it never happened.

The best way of describing the show is that it is pure entertainment – there is no plot, it is just all fun. I quite enjoyed it, but it is at a completely different level than Le Rêve – with the Blue Man Group there is no athleticism, no dance, but it reminds me of watching a techno-fied 100 minute episode of what you would get if you had three instances of Mr. Bean with blue faces on stage mixed in with a healthy dose of Tron.

The music was just the right volume – loud, but not too loud. Lots of drumming. The guitars were not too annoying. There were lights that went on and off and of different colours. It was well done.

There were two absolutely hilarious moments that I would completely spoil by mentioning them here, so I won’t. They were just such outlandish pieces of humour, and I’d recommend the show for a “funny time”.

The ticket pricing of half of Le Rêve seemed appropriate. We sat in the “Red” seats and did not find it too far to the side considering that the “Blue” seats were 40% more expensive and were literally only two rows to the center closer. The internet ticket purchase interface could use a “seat selector” feature.

9. Poker Moment: So after a couple failed $5 attempts at trying to hit a royal flush playing some video poker, I headed downtown to hopefully find some drunk tourists playing poker and found the Golden Nugget. At this time it was around 1:00am and they had some no-limit games going on and some 3/6 and 2/4 fixed limit Holdem. Since I wasn’t in the mood to play no-limit (I felt like I would blow through $100 on something stupid), I then went to the 3/6 table. There were 7 people there including myself. It took about 10 minutes of folding to determine the poker personalities around me. Of particular note was the person three spots to my left that was obviously drunk, judging by how red his face was. He reminded me of the drunk Japanese Minister of Finance at the G7 conference. The lady to his right was a “call machine” and only played if she had an ace in her hand. There was a younger person to my immediate left which was crafty and we never clashed on the table. Finally there was a shark two spots to my right which I avoided whenever he was in a hand.

A good deal of hands saw the river, so I knew that I had to adjust accordingly and not over-commit to good starting hands in case if I got drawn out.

The feature hand (or the “suckout story”) was that I was in early position and got dealt a 99. After calling (intention is to fold if I saw face cards on the table) I got four people seeing the flop. Flop was an 8-5-4, two spades. So far, so good. I bet. Two folded, the call station lady and the drunk man called. Next turn was a queen. I figured I would be raised if somebody had one, so I bet into this. The lady folded, and the drunk guy called. Final card was a 6, not a spade. I bet into this, the drunk guy raised, and I said “oh crap, he had the 7″ and called. He had a 5-6, one spade, one club. Oh well – down $24 on that hand.

Maybe I should have raised pre-flop, but this is not a money making decision on a loose table – the way to make money is to have as many suckers in while having a killer hand – I was ideally hoping to spike a three of a kind on the flop. For the rest of the game, I noticed the drunk guy always played with connectors (e.g. 56, 78, JQ, etc.)

The table in 15 minutes broke up and I moved onto the 2/4 table which was the only other fixed limit game left, and left there after making a few bucks (which in the long run is impossible to make because of the excessive rake they take from the pots), but net down $19 after one hour of combined play.

This is continued from Newfoundland and Labrador, Part 2, a trip taken in early July, 2009.

The next part of the trip was to explore Labrador. There was no particular reason to explore Labrador, other than to say that I have been there, and the fact that it is rather to explore a part of Canada that not many people get around to. It is probably a great location to move to and live in if you have a fixed income and want to get away from everybody and start writing books – only one airline, Air Labrador, services the area. Most of the decline in the fishing industry has especially hit this area of Canada very hard – which is why most of the remaining population that are not retirement age is either involved in forestry or mining. A lot of people have left to the Alberta oilfields.

The ferry ride is roughly the same distance and duration to Labrador as it is from Tsawwassen to Victoria; the ferry ride costs less than half in Newfoundland ($30.25 vs. $72 for a car and two passengers). Makes you wonder if they are offering this under cost, or whether BC Ferries is gouging passengers out in BC. The ship itself was likely constructed in the 60′s or even 50′s – it clearly had much better days in its past. The ocean was also quite wavy and and the ship swayed back and forth – like swimming in a wave pool.

The ferry arrives in the province of Quebec – Blanc-Sablon, and the Newfoundland-Labrador border is very close to the east. It is always a strange feeling seeing all the signage in French, and in different font and colours. The main road goes east and for the most part, hugs the coastline. Once crossing the border, everything is miraculously back in English again. To cause more confusion, there is also a time zone change between the Quebec and Labrador side of the border.

One doesn’t have to drive too far east before reaching Newfoundland and Labrador again – there is a gigantic sign. It was also quite foggy and cold – not something you ordinarily would be feeling in July. There were also icebergs visible at certain spots along the journey. The buildings in the two or three towns along the way to Red Bay were very similar in construction to the western side of Newfoundland.

One item of note was that the mosquitoes outside the town areas were absolutely horrible – when taking a picture of one of the icebergs, it took five minutes to swat all of the mosquitoes out of the way. Fortunately they seemed to be dumber than the mosquitoes here in BC (by virtue of the fact that they were easy to swat), but they were still as annoying as mosquitoes get.

Making our way to Red Bay, this was a former whaling site occupied by the Basque for the purposes of harvesting whales. Inside the Red Bay historical site, there was quite an impressive reconstruction of a whaling vessel. Also, something even more impressive was the self-guided “field trip”, where you pay some person two bucks to get a boat ride across the water to Saddle Island, where they have an archaeological trail of what was going on. This was well worth it and was a great way to spend a couple hours – bring a lunch if you ever do this.

The only restaurant available for eating anything for dinner apparently was in L’Anse-au-Loup, although you’d never guess it by driving by. It also doubled as a bakery and a hotel.

For the night, we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in L’Anse Amour. It is not too difficult to find, considering that the population of the town was 9 people. The host at the B&B (an elderly lady who is still very active) was very friendly, and also her daughter (who joined us for breakfast), who was a social worker. One of the many stories of that location was that a British warship ran aground near L’Anse Amour (around the World War 2 time), and the town mobilized and rescued sailors. In appreciation of this, the Captain gave the piano on board (which they managed to salvage) to the host of the B&B. Modern amenities, such as electricity, came relatively late to this area of Canada.

The next day, we visited the lighthouse at L’Anse Amour, which is the tallest in Newfoundland and Labrador. You can climb the many steps in the lighthouse and on the very top there was a huge Fresnel lens, and a very nice view of the surrounding area. Upon returning to ground level, there were some humpback whales that were off-shore. The pictures I took were less than stellar, but it was evidence of whales offshore!

Making it back to the ferry terminal, there was a lineup of about 20 people and one teller that was selling tickets. The lineup took forever to get through, and I thought we were going to miss the morning ferry, but fortunately we made it on board for a wavy journey back to Newfoundland, which will be Part 4 of this series.

This is continued from Newfoundland and Labrador, Part 1, a trip taken in early July, 2009.

After spending a few nights at Gros Morne camping, the plan was to head further north up the Newfoundland coast. There is a highway that goes along, and the provincial tourism agency labeled it the “Viking trail”. There is pretty much only one main highway going up the Newfoundland northern peninsula (Highway 430), and one noticeable thing was that there was a lot less traffic once you got out of Gros Morne. The other feature of this route is that Parks Canada has a 7-day pass where you can visit the various national historic sites along the route and also access to Gros Morne Park. The locations were convenient and the time given was reasonable.

The first stop just slightly north of the park boundary was a location called “The Arches”, which is a rock outcropping that is very close to the ocean. The limestone interior of the formation had eroded away, which meant you could walk underneath it and dip your feet into the ocean if you so desired. The weather was very windy and not too warm, so I was very glad to have brought some heavier clothing. The pictures will do more justice than the words:

Newfoundland-Arches

I just thought it was really cool you could climb on top of the “arch”. It would be a really good place to have a picnic if it wasn’t so windy and cold. One persistent theme of Newfoundland is how the trees are so much shorter than what we have in BC.

After getting out of there, the drive up north was to Port Au Choix, which is a national historic site. This area was nearly an island, connected by a narrow strip of land. It was the first real sign of any significant form of ‘civilization’ north of Gros Morne – the rest of the settlements were fishing villages that looked mostly dormant. Stepping outside, it was even windier and colder than it was at The Arches, but this did not deter us from learning more about whatever this place’s involvement was in Canadian history.

After viewing the obligatory video in the Parks Canada building (which provided a welcome shelter and restroom), we were informed that there was an archeological dig going on, but it was too late in the day to see them in action. Not having this deter us from a healthy exploration, we went outside and explored the site, which is best described in pictures. We were the only two non-employees at that time on the site.

Newfoundland-PortAuChoix

Some miscellaneous observations:

1. Just looking at the architecture and design of towns on the Newfoundland coast is fascinating. Structures are obviously built for utilitarian purposes, and are not the 3000 square foot mansions that we typically see in suburban BC – the heating bill would kill most people in Newfoundland.

2. There are not a lot of gas stations or “rest stops” like you would see on a US Interstate freeway.

3. The difference in wind on the barren rock area of Port Au Choix and the northern end was easily visible by the vegetation, or lack thereof – the drive into the Parks Canada building was a flat and mostly barren landscape, while the northern end of the near-island was much more lush with grasses and trees. This is presumably due to the shelter from the excessive winds in the area.

After the dinner, we made our way to St. Barbe, which was the take-off point for the Labrador ferry. St. Barbe is a very, very small town. It also had one small motel, which doubled as the ferry terminal, where we stayed the night to take the morning ferry. The Labrador part of the trip will be in a subsequent post. (Part 3 is here)

It was close around an easy confluence area, so I visited 36N115W.

Other notes: A few days ago, it was snowing like mad around Twin Falls, Idaho to about Wells, Nevada. The state authorities there do a pretty good job of keeping the roads ploughed.

Reno, Nevada is a significantly “dead” place compared to Las Vegas, Nevada. Its downtown core pretty much consisted of aging properties. Something interesting is that their business district is very close to the gambling district, and that there were high density residential condominiums very close to all of this. This is a Vancouver-type zoning formula, and as far as I could tell, it seems to be working.

I always find city planning to be an interesting sightseeing activity.

The bone-headed city planning design for the day was putting a shopping mall right next to the very beautiful Snake River gorge in Twin Falls, Idaho.

On July 11th, I went to Newfoundland. I had something to attend in Ottawa at the end of July, so I figured if I was going to be on the eastern side of the country, I might as well make it part of a larger trip. The intention was to explore the western side of Newfoundland (specifically Gros Morne and area), get to Labrador and “see what’s there”, and explore PEI.

First, the travel logistics. Fortunately at the time, Air Canada had flight passes on sale (they called it the Explore Canada flight pass), which gave people four one-way flights (or two people two one-way flights, i.e. a round trip for two) to and from Western Canada to anywhere else in the rest of the country, for $1020 + 5% GST. It was $900 if you restricted your travel to either Tuesdays or Saturdays, but the timing did not work out for that option. Normally a round trip to Newfoundland would be about CAD$800 per person, so this represented about a 40% discount from usual prices for domestic travel. I snapped at the offer and also bought the Atlantic Pass because the itinerary would take us through PEI and then to Ottawa. The remainder of the Western Canada pass would be used to get from Ottawa back to Vancouver. The Ottawa part was “business” so I’ll just write about Newfoundland, Labrador and PEI.

I would have never have done this trip, purely for economic reasons, if the flight pass was not available. It would have been way too expensive.

The second issue dealt with car rental. Finding a car around Deer Lake, NL was impossible, so the flight coming into Newfoundland was through Gander, NL, which was a 300km drive away from Deer Lake. I have no problem driving long distances as long as the traffic is not stop-and go. Complicating matters somewhat was that the car rental had 1800km free on it before they started to ding you (25 cents per km), and I suspected that we would be around 400km over (which we were). It was an expensive rental (about $570 which included all taxes and the overage for 9 days), but was well worthwhile as it would be impossible to get around the island via any other route. Apparently there has been a shortage of rental cars, and the tourist associations in the province have been grumbling about it. PEI had no problems with availability (and no pesky mileage limit).

The third dealt with accommodations. We ended up doing a mix of camping and bed and breakfasts throughout the trip. The only hassle about the camping was that packing all the equipment into suitcases and backpacks was a real pain in the ass, but we managed. The security restrictions on luggage is particularly annoying – specifically with camp fuel. We did bring an attachment to a camp propane tank which we subsequently used to boil water and cook with. The camping at Gros Morne was good, the mosquitoes were nearly non-existent except for the last day, and there were fires allowed. The bed and breakfasts were fine – we just needed a hot shower and a bed, and we were able to find availability on them with little notice.

The flight to Gander involved a 3:30am arrival into St. Johns, and a 9:30am flight out to Gander, so the six-hour stopover was particularly draining (especially due to the 4.5 hour time zone difference). We eventually made it to Gander, hit a Walmart and loaded up on camping-type food and a camp propane tank, and made our way to Gros Morne.

The main highway in Newfoundland cuts through territory which is very sparsely populated, and is quite boggy in nature, with lakes all over the place. There is very little signs of civilization between these points, save the occasional camping site or two and the sparse amount of traffic around you.

Gros Morne park is a location of geology – it is a prime example of the Earth’s mantle exposed to the surface. It is also the northern point of the Appalachian Mountain range and has been significantly eroded over time. While in BC terms the mountain range is not very tall, locally it is.

Some highlights of this part of the trip –

1. Taking a ferry into Western Brook Pond. It was quite windy (and a bit of rain) that day, but the geology of the cliffs surrounding the lake was magnificent. The pictures don’t quite capture it. Apparently the lake was formerly a fjord, but was cut off from the ocean. It is now a freshwater lake, and it has salinity so low that it cannot conduct electricity. As it is a very resource poor lake, algae and other components of the food chain do not grow well there, and as a result, there is not a large population of fish.

2. The area around Western Brook Pond (boggy) was also interesting in its own right.

3. Listening and experiencing a genuine Newfoundland band play and tell stories. The way they turn on and off the accent is quite amazing.

4. The Tablelands is the number one location that you must explore if you are in the area. On one side of the U-shaped valley there is a barren patchwork of mountains (exposed mantle), while on the other side is a regular mountain of trees. On the mantle side is the tablelands, and the plant life in that area is extremely adapted for the conditions – they lie low and grow very slowly. It also had the most dense cluster of carnivorous plants I have seen – mainly Sundews and Pitcher Plants. If I had more energy on the trip I would have climbed one of the mountains, but there were other parts to be seen.

5. Trout River is a small fishing community close to the Tablelands, and is an example of the size of towns that dot the Newfoundland coast.

6. Broom Point was manned by a lady named Louise Decker who gave some very interesting insights on being a fisherwoman (before the days when it was politically correct to be a fisherwoman, opposed to a fisherman), and aptly demonstrated her total competence in the field of fisheries. She also had some interesting insights on the fishing industry in general (the mismanagement, and causes of the collapse of the cod industry in Canada).

After this, we proceeded to drive further up the Newfoundland northern peninsula – and this will be for another post. (Part 2 is posted here)

Air Canada currently is offering what I consider to be very well priced flights domestically in Canada via their “Explore Canada” flight pass.

If you are in Western Canada, you can purchase 4 one-way trips (or 2 round trips) for $900 (plus 5% GST) that will allow you to fly anywhere between Western Canada to the rest of Canada, provided that you travel on a Tuesday or Saturday. If you wish to travel on any weekday, then it would be $1020 plus GST.

Anyhow, I’ve booked a trip to Newfoundland and will be leaving the following weekend. Normally a round trip flight domestically to Newfoundland and back would set you back around $900 alone, especially during the peak summer season. The ultimate destination is Gros Morne National Park, but there will be plenty of time for supplemental exploration, including getting up to Labrador (an area of Canada which is truly desolate, and probably contaminated with mosquitoes).

One logistical issue is that the closest airport to Gros Morne is Deer Lake, which is a short distance from Gros Morne, but sourcing a car to rent in Deer Lake was impossible. So I will be flying to Gander instead, which is most famously known for doubling its population during 9/11 when they had to shut down US airspace.

I’ve also got Prince Edward Island on the itinerary.

I’ve never visited the Atlantic provinces, so it will be the first time I’ve been to that part of the country.

Alternative itineraries that I considered was exploring the Northwest Territories (Yellowknife) and the Yukon (Whitehorse), as the Western Canada-only pass was $600 plus GST. Typically a round trip between Vancouver and Yellowknife is about $600.

When I looked at the pricing, I was saying to myself that Air Canada won’t ever do this again, as it enables you to travel domestically for about half the price that you could normally do it at. The flight passes essentially represent a sale of excess seat capacity at Air Canada.

This area undoubtedly is one of the nicest places in the province, situated in the northwestern corner of Vancouver Island. The area is very remote.

It takes 17 kilometers of hiking in to get to the camping spot, but it was well worth it. Unfortunately, words cannot describe it very well, but pictures can do it somewhat – click on the link below and it will take you to a photo album of some selected pictures.

2008-CapeScottPark

The most difficult part of this trip was the logistics and the sheer distances involved – in order to get to the beach at a respectable hour, you have to arrive at the parking lot in the morning. Since the parking lot is about 70km west of Port Hardy on an bumpy gravel road that is otherwise used by Western Forest Products, that means you should leave Nanaimo at around midnight. In order to get to Nanaimo at midnight, you should take the 10:45pm ferry from Tsawwassen. In other words, either plan to spend an extra night on the island, or do the drive overnight. North of Nanaimo there’s hardly anybody on the roads past midnight and even less people north of Campbell River.

The other logistical constraint is being able to lift 40 pounds of stuff on a pack for the distance required, but that went well.

The water availability at the beach wasn’t bad – there was a trickle of water available that came from a creek. The colour of the water looked like apple juice, but boiling the water was adequate and the taste of the water was fine – just the appearance was a little disturbing.

After doing this trip, I felt physically and mentally exhausted and needed a day and a half to recover, but I’m getting back to normal again.

Actually the story here is that at 6500 feet, the snow has not quite melted from the mountains. Since the weather outside was considerably above freezing, it was melting and causing quite a bit of ground to soak. There was no way to get to the destination we were headed toward without going through a huge patch of ground that was swampy (a step in it would result in two inches of water seeping up from the marshy ground) – I just took off my shoes and went barefoot for a few hundred meters.

It worked surprisingly well, and I’m even more impressed that you can find locations on summer long weekends where you won’t find anybody else.