The past 4 months have been such a hustle, that only after Moonroof broke down, and I spent 2 too long days in Hamilton waiting for the repair, that I managed to finally take a few hours to reflect on what I’ve seen in this time.
These past 4 months have allowed me to experience the stunning peaks of British Columbia, the plains of the prairies, the vastness of The Yukon, and the crashing waves of the west coast. Besides this I got to learn, see, and touch the history which was vital in the forming of our country.
It has allowed me to appreciate Canada for what it is to 100s of thousands of immigrants that now call it home. Hope and a new beginning. Something that can be said for only a few select countries in the world.
But most importantly there were many extremely generous people who opened their homes to me. You all were so kind and welcomed me with open arms that it left me gleaming every day. Without you, this trip wouldn’t have been possible, so an enormous thank you!
And it’s through this journey of discovering the kindness of people, of learning our history, and seeing the raw nature in our country, that I suddenly felt like I understood. I understood what it is to be Canadian.
It is living in a country that is cold, barren, treacherous, and vast, and is beautiful because of it.
It is dozens of cultures and ethnicities coming together in one place, to get along, and to better their lives.
It is people opening their homes and hearts to, sometimes a stranger, to allow him to discover these things.
It is this mix of camaraderie, raw nature, history, and culture, that makes me proud to say I Am Canadian.
I work as an executive consultant for IBM. Our team advises CIOs on policy in their IT environment, in regards to hardware, strategy, labor, and processes.
Besides getting to work with huge data centers, something that our entire planet runs on, another amazing thing about my job is that I get to work from home. The other amazing thing is that I get to travel.
So I left Moonroof with Geoff and Maggie in Berkley, California, and it was off to Paris for 3 weeks.
One of the best parts of the entire trip, maybe even cooler than France itself, was the trip there. As I was doing the check-in the day before, I found out it was going to be in an A380. I was telling everyone and anyone who would listen that it’s going to be an A380. Most reactions where what’s that, but that’s ok, because it’s only the most amazing airplane ever.
The plane has two full passenger levels, and is an engineering marvel. It also has 3 cameras, one on the tail, belly, and nose, so during the flight you can watch yourself fly in first person. Earlier that day Geoff took me to “breakfast burritos”. I was skeptical, but once we bit into these they were delightful. Problem was I got a bit carried with ingredients, and the mixture of beans, guacamole, tomatoes, lettuce, and everything else, did me no favors on a 10 hour flight. It was still delicious, Geoff.
Alcatraz from the Air
On a related note, Air France has the best airplane food I’ve ever had. Dinner was an unrecognizable piece of chicken, that tasted great, and breakfast was an authentic French-style crepe.
I laughed at the fact that I was flying over every, single, beautiful, kilometer, I had just spent the past 2 months driving across. But oh well.
I got to Charles de Gaule airport at 11:00. After getting to the hotel I was spent, I didn’t sleep at all in the plane, and just as I was getting drowsy as we had landed. The 9 hour time zone difference was brutal and the breakfast burrito from 24 hours ago was still working its way through me.
Any hotel room I’ve stayed at is horribly organized. There’s really no comfortable seat, except the bed. Even though you know you’re not allowed to sleep until night time, you cave. I’ll just sit on the bed. To rest, of course. Oh I’ll just lean back and lounge a bit. Oh I’ll just close my eyes for a… out cold. 6 hours later it’s still day time and you’re full of energy. Wandered around Champs-Élysées for an hour and coincidentally sat down at a restaurant called “Berkley”. There was a girl sitting next to me so we chatted for a bit.
She’s an assistant to a “famous” sculptor. I always saw modern art as, art, however she let me in on a secret, that a lot of modern day investors use art to diversify their portfolios. Buying a sculpture now for 500k and selling it for $3-4M in a few years is a good return on investment. Now I just need 500k.
Back at the hotel room I couldn’t sleep, and all the standard jet lag stuff. Fell asleep at 4:00, and had to get up for work at 7.
As I got into a French business environment, things already looked very different than North America. There’s very little “personal” chat while in the building. It’s very business centered until you get out of work. We work in a big room of 6-10 people, all consultants, and the first day everyone came to shake my hand. Ah, I’m the new guy. Next day, everyone shakes my hand again. Not the new guy, so what’s up?
It’s just manners here, when you enter a group of people you say hello to everyone, so you shake their hand out of a sign of respect, while the women get a left cheek, right cheek, mwauh, mwauh. This happens every morning.
You’re in an elevator and someone is getting off at a floor? “Bonne Journée ” everyone chimes in unison. Whether you know them or not.
Even though I was in Paris two years ago, I didn’t get to see this interesting business side of things. North America, you could learn a thing or two.
On the second day in Paris I was so exhausted from the jet lag, working in French, and a 12 hour day, that I took the metro to the hotel, bought Subway (the foot long tuna variant, on whole wheat), and watched the Walking Dead in my hotel room. Here I was in one of the, if not the most iconic cities of the world, and I was eating Subway in my hotel room, watching TV. I fell asleep by 20:00. Paris really is magical.
Finally it was the weekend. Although I had spent 2 full days at the Louvre 2 years ago, I had developed an interest in Tapestries and Dutch landscape paintings. So I spent a full day targeting just those beautiful pieces of art. This one particular set of tapestries is called Maximilian’s hunt.
Each tapestry represents a month of the year and outlines the life that people lived. The way the details pop out, and have actual texture really appeals to me. They have miniatures of these for sale around town for 500E. Maybe they’ll appreciate in a few years…
Some more favorites from the Louvre.
Following this I met up with Omar, the first person I met in highschool, for dinner. Now everyone always says ”French Cuisine”, “Haute Cuisine”… but if you really think about it what famous French meals are there? Duck, cheese, foi gras, anything? Think of a French meal you REALLY want to try. Escargot? Well after spending 21 days in Paris, eating out for literally every single meal, I tried about 20 different restaurants. I’ve started getting back to the vegetarian diet as my body needed it, however there is nothing vegetarian and healthy at any restaurant. One of the strategies I’ve adopted at restaurants is, “surprise me”. Here’s my reasoning. There are literally millions of people in the world who don’t have any clean water to drink, yet here I am asking for a burger with no lettuce, oh and is the bun gluten free? Really? Simplicity is bliss, the less that bothers you, the happier you’ll be. So in order to speed up the process of ordering I just tell the waiter, surprise me. It’s only this way that you’ll get something new to try. Through this process I got to try duck and escargot, something I may have not ordered purposely. After the waiter surprised me with a 1664 beer, which is too light in my opinion, I said, ”Une autre surprise, un biere plus fort” (another surprise, but a stronger beer). Whether this was a language barrier or not, I will never know, but he brought me a Carlsberg, and charged me 10E (14$ Canadian) for a 0.5L. Surprise.
We went out to the Bastille district and went out to a bar. Didn’t even ask for a surprise this time around, but each mojito is 13E. That’s $18.5 Canadian. Guess it’s not a language barrier.
The next day we woke up bright and early at 12, and went out for breakfast at 14:00. The streets are crowded, dirty, smelly, and the wafts of restaurant food combined with people’s heating systems dumping hot air onto the street made for an aroma which was not helping our state from last night. As we wandered the streets not in the greatest of moods, we found an Italian restaurant because Omar was born in Rome, and without exaggeration, this table would not fit a large, cheese crust, pizza. Yet we were both going to eat lunch on this thing. We somehow managed to elbow each other out in such a way as to create space, and didn’t move. The food came and it was extremely under whelming. We weren’t even in a touristy area of town, the food in Paris is just bland.
Fast forward another work week, and finally, for the first time in 90 days, I had a schedule. I wasn’t going out to dinners or exploring the city, I needed to do things for myself. There are no gyms in my area that I could find, so I would go for a nice long run around Paris. The mixture of diesel fumes, restaurants, and heating systems didn’t help my running, so I would always run beside the Siene and make my way to the iconic Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumphe. The best way to see a city. As the weekend came I decided I needed a break from this mega-metropolis.
I always knew I’m not much of a big city guy. Paris, Toronto, New York, are usually not my thing. Ottawa, Victoria, Berkley sized towns are much more enjoyable. One of the main things I miss from back home is the cottage. The peace. The quiet. I wanted, no, needed the countryside. Unfortunately for me 80% of the country closes on the weekend. Of the 10 car rental shops I called, 8 were closed. One told me “c’est difficile” (it’s difficult), to rent a car. I asked, what does that mean, “c’est difficile”. I was getting a bit frustrated, is it impossible or difficult, which is it? No, it’s not possible, but c’est difficile. I hung up. Finally managed to rent a Peugot 208c, for 150E, a mind boggling price, but oh well. Loaded the map up on my phone and started driving out to Pierrefonds, a gorgeous castle! A nice little town, surrounding a small lake holds the biggest, and most grandiose castle I’ve ever seen!
After this even though I could have stayed in this small town all day it was an hour drive to Chantilly! This is a beautiful chateau surrounded by a big moat.
After a full day of using my phone, the dreaded moment happened. The battery died, and I hadn’t even entered Paris. So time to find my way through this maze of a city. I knew how to get home from the Eiffel tower. So I played Marco Polo with the Eiffel tower. Whenever it would pop out behind a building, or I’d see the spotlight rotate on it, I’d adjust my course towards it. Somehow through this I ended up exactly on the street where I needed to dump the car. A minor miracle.
If you ever have the chance to drive a car in downtown Paris, don’t. It was a nightmare.
Throughout the week I passed a gorgeous boutique, and you know when a guy stops to look at shirts and scarfs, this was some good looking clothing. I had a feeling of what was going to happen, but I wearily wandered in.
I found the object which I thought would cost the least, a scarf, which looked like a kitchen rag way past its prime. 185E. I don’t know what virgin silk or tears they used in the manufacturing, but not in a million years would that happen.
A pair of pants, 220E, and the absurdity went on and on.
I walked into an antique book store down the road which was much more my style. So I start speaking to the shop owner, and the shop has been in the family for 5 generations, and they collect books from all over. I see an old French book, about botany, from the 1820s. I ask how much? He tries to sell it to me, well it’s quite old, oh, and the pictures are in color. 2,300E. Ah.
I pick up a book by an English author. The store owner starts telling me how it’s in good condition and how the author was a “homosexual”. So the price is 150E. I’m not sure if it was worth more, or less because of this, but I was “MDR”. (that’s “mort de rire”, or dying of laughter in French, effectively their “lmao”). The things you learn.
I ended up picking up a 200 year old book with German Poetry, and a 180 year old book with English short stories.
As I write this, I can say, I lived in Paris for 3 weeks. The city is crowded, dirty, odorous, the food is horrible, the service at restaurants is even worse, there are no gyms, and the prices are exorbitant, but the city oozes culture in every imaginable way.
The Louvre, Arc de Triumphe, the hundreds of other museums, which have defined what the pinnacles or art and architecture are today. The delicious cheese and wine which tickle your pallet and the small gestures of saying hello to everyone, or wishing them a nice day, give you a warm feeling of camaraderie and society. The passionate language which rolls off your tongue, and is called the language of love for a reason, makes you love everything French. And it is a combination of those things, which define the culture here that allows me to say, I love Paris, and would love to live here.
I was in Vancouver almost a month ago, it’s scary how time flies, and how much has been happening. Vancouver is a great city, lots of food, and activity wise, the Rockies, and Vancouver Island, all there within weekend striking distance. We explored Whistler for a day, visited the beaches around Vancouver and really just relaxed.
On the topic of food, I was astounded to discover something.
In Ottawa the majority (all?) of the sushi spots that we frequent are all you can eat. In Vancouver the majority of the sushi places are a la carte. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but the result was much better. Instead of paying 30$ and ending up in food-coma, regretting why you ever went to sushi, you end up paying 25$ and you end up content. A much better way of doing sushi.
The one thing I couldn’t proverbially swallow, however, was shawarmas. In Ottawa we have been blessed with excellent mixtures of chicken, beef, or falafel shawarmas, with lots of garlic. I went to 2 shawarma places in Vancouver, where when I said “lots of garlic”, I got a kurt nod. The response was a generic wrap with no garlic sauce, because that’s simply not a thing here. This was a tragedy and I am still recovering from that.
Although Vancouver was great, what really hit me was Tofino.
After two weeks of having fun around the city I wanted to get to Victoria. My friend in Victoria, Larissa, recommended we go camping and surfing in Tofino before Victoria. I didn’t know how to surf but I definitely wanted to see where this was, another 6 hour drive. (2 hours of which is a ferry ride)
Waseem and I got in Friday evening at 23:30. We had to setup our tent in the pitch black while Larissa and Ray were already there. Larissa was my neighbor, all the way back in Ottawa. Small world.
We woke up the next morning and loaded up on calories. We would be in the cold water all day and fighting the Pacific ocean. More on that soon.
Calories – Notice the peanut butter
Larissa strongly recommended we get surfing lessons instead of just trying it on our own.
We started making the drive to Tofino and finally saw the ocean to our left. This was the first time seeing the open Pacific ocean so we pulled over onto a beach and the view took our breath away. A beach as far as the eye can see towards the North, and the South. 100’s of pieces of driftwood on the beach, and enormous waves crashing on the beach. It was a stunning site. It was also terrifying cause these waves were big. Are we going to be surfing on that ? Yes. We were.
We drove to Tofino, which is a town of 2,000 people. During summer surfing season, that number swells to 20,000, as people from all over the world come to Tofino for it’s biodiviersity, and surfing.
Larissa recommended we go to “Tofino Surf Adventures” where we met the nicest guy ever. Esduardo owns Tofino Surf Adventures, and knew mine and Waseem’s name within seconds, no small feet. He’s the most happy, enthusiastic, and honest guy ever, who will really try and help you out with your surfing adventures. Once you come into Tofino, there is 1 stop sign (in the entire town). Turn right and that’s where the shop is located. Tell him Bojan recommended you!
We had another hour to kill before the lesson, so we walked through Tofino, in about 5 minutes. We found a burger joint, with fish burgers and fries. This was the best burger I have eaten. Ever. It’s called the Fiesta Cafe and is 30m from the surfing shop.
We met some girls from Toronto, and talked about all our travel adventures and suited up, and drove to the beach where we’d learn how to surf. Now I was optimistic that I would “get” surfing. You paddle a bit, ride the wave, and stand up. Seems straight forward.
Well it was a lot harder than that. You have to learn how to read the waves, catch the right one and make sure that it hasn’t already “broken”. (when the white caps tumble over) If you didn’t stand up properly you’ve already lost your balance and you’re going hit the water hard.
In general the process is as follows.
Waves arrive in sets. You can have large, crashing waves coming in for 10 minutes, and then all of a sudden no waves coming in. This is your cue, where you lay down on the board face first, and paddle 50-80m off shore. This is where the waves start forming and where you should catch them. If you miss your chance to paddle out, you are being hammered by waves at least 2-3m tall. In one of these scenarios I was hoping to make it over the wave however I got folded backwards and slammed into the sand below.
Once the right wave comes, you start paddling towards shore, to match the speed of the wave. Once you feel the wave pick you up, you are technically surfing. This is where you stand up, carefully, and then start steering, or falling over. It was more of the latter.
The forces at play here are enormous. Think of it this way. A 1x1x1m cube of water is approximately 1000 kg. A lot of these waves were more than a meter tall. This is 1000 kg of liquid hitting you in the face, and then keeping you underwater while you were just winded, didn’t get a full breath of air anyways, and you’re trying to remember which way to swim back to air. It’s quite an experience.
During this time we even managed to catch a few waves, Surf’s up dude!
After 3 hours of trying to catch waves, and what must of looked like 2 grown men just playing in the water, we were exhausted. We drove back to Tofino and were in dire need of food. We were so impressed by the fish burgers we went back for more. The lady looked at us as in “Is everything ok?” “Yea, we just loved them so much!”.
After this it was a quick visit to a local Tofino Brewery. Here you could purchase a big 2L jug of beer, for 22$. Following this you can keep the jug, and fill it up all around Canada for ~10$!
As we were sitting beside our fire and munching on camping food I looked up, and even through the fire smoke, I could see hundreds of stars. This was literally the darkest sky I have ever seen. Now here’s the toughest part about being an astronomer. After a full day of surfing, it was 21:00 and everyone was exhausted, our eyes barely open. But I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I packed up all my camera gear, and made sure it was configured before I got to the beach. There is nothing worse than making the trek out to an astronomy site, all to realize that you forgot a battery, tripod, or widget. Ask me how I know.
I drove for 30 minutes to an even darker beach looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, then had to walk through a pitch black forest to get to the beach. After telling a local this story, he told me that it wasn’t the smartest idea, as the forest is full of cougars and bears. Luckily I had my knife and lasers with me.
I got onto the beach, and the sky literally took my breath away. 1000s, 10,o00s of stars sourounding me. For the first time I could see structure in the Milky Way, details which I had never seen. The dust of the stars, the dust that we are made of, being illuminated by stars thousands of light years away. It was breathtaking.
I put the camera down on the tripod, set the exposure to 15 seconds, at an ISO of 6400, clicked the button, and this is what came out.
Tofino was stunning. It was such a beautiful place, that the following weekend I was thinking of what to do. No one wanted to go back to Tofino with me, so I decided to go back, get beat up by some waves, and take the pictures you saw above. A little gem hidden far away from the city, with the Pacific, and beautiful forests as far as the eye can see. A definite highlight of this trip, and will have to make my way back soon.
I was sitting in Calgary and was planning my route to Vancouver, when I read about a World Heritage site called “Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump”. With a name like that, who wouldn’t go visit?
The night before we had gone out to a bar, so I was a bit slow getting out of bed. I finally left Calgary around 10, and was sad to leave. It’s a great city with some great locals. A big town with a small town feel, and with the Rocky mountains within striking range, a definite location where I could see myself living…
As I was driving South towards the site I had to readjust my driving style. For the past two weeks I had had someone in the car to navigate while I made sure we didn’t hit any animals. It got so bad that when Seb was in the car with me I would blatantly miss an exit, or road sign, but I would be the first to spot a bear, or bison on the road 200m ahead. Go figure. The route would take me South to the heritage site, and west, driving along the American border to Vancouver.
As I was driving I saw a sign for the “Nanton Air Museum”. As an aerospace engineer, anything that flies, or moves for that matter, I love, so a detour it was. This museum is dedicated the aircraft of WW2. The weather in this part of the country is very favorable so during WW2 a lot of the pilot training was done in this area, and in turn there’s a lot of aerospace history here.
The museum contained a full Lancaster bomber, which was the Canadian bomber workhorse in WW2. This is an enormous plane and you could even go insde! Twist my arm why don’t you.
There we many more planes, and heroic stories performed by soldiers who were from the area around Calgary.
This one story I found absolutely remarkable. In WW2 the allies needed to target some hydroelectric dams in Germany. If you take out the damn, you take out the electricity, which means you take out their production, and in turn Germany can no longer create bullets, refine gas, power their machinery, and fight the war.
The typical approach had been to fly along the river or lake above the damn and drop a torpedo from the air. The torpedo would travel for a few hundred meters, hit the damn, blow a hole, or crack in the damn, and then the water pressure would push through the cracks and destroy the rest of the damn. However after a few of these raids the Germans figured it out, and placed underwater nets behind the damn. This mean the Allies could no longer drop torpedoes.
Drawing by me, All Rights Reserved
The Allies needed a new strategy. and along came Barnes Wallis.
The Lancaster would carry a bomb that was spinning backwards at 500 rpm. The bomb would be dropped from a height of 60 ft, and 450 yards away from the damn. The backwards spin would be for the bomb to be stable in it’s travel, and to slow it down. Since the bomb would be dropped at a speed of 230 mph, the bomb would skip over any nets, and still make it to the damn.
On a morning in May when there was a full moon, the Dams Raid was successful, This technique was used on 3 damns, all with great success. Not only was there no power in the area, but trains were swept off their tracks 90km away, due to the flooding after the dam had collapsed.
I continued the the drive to the Heritge site. This entire site is dedicated to the Plaines Natives, and their method of hunting Buffalo in this area.
The Plaines Natives
The Plaines Natives lived all across the lands in what is today known as the Praries. From Manitoba to the beginning of the Rockies, they learned how to hunt in this wide expanse of fields. The entire drive from Winnipeg to Calgary is just farm fields with the occasional cliff, and these cliffs are what the Natives needed.
Imagine being in the middle of a field and you can see 5-6 km in every direction. Now imagine you have to try and hunt down a bison to survive the long Canadian Winter. By the time you get to the bison you have scared the entire heard, and they start moving. It’s very difficult to sneak up, or catch up with the bison in a field.
What ensued was a hunting method that is thought to have evolved over many generations.
As the natives considered how to hunt bison, they noticed that bison had very poor eyesight, however a very good sense of smell. This is something the natives could leverage. Another characteristic of bison is that they are very protective of their young, more so than other types of animals. This, was also used as leverage during the bison hunt.
The Hunt
The bison hunt would usually occur in the Fall, as this is when the bison’s fur is the softest, getting ready to go into winter. Many animals are born in the Spring as this is when food is plentiful and there is a lot of water, which gives the young 6-8 months to strengthen up before the brutal winters.
Months before the hunt would begin the tribe would collect stones and branches, and using the rocks to make the branches stand up. This would create a “walled funnel” towards a cliff. Think of it as posts on the side of a road. This would be laborious as there aren’t too many rocks or branches in the prairies, so this would be a job for everyone.
Next there would be a group of fit men who would get dressed up as animals. One man would wear the skins of a baby bison. The remaining men would wear the skins of a wolf.
Slowly, over many hours, the man dressed as a younger bison would slowly start moving away from the heard, but towards the cliff. Bison are extremely protective of their young, and a lone bison is easy pray to wolves. The bison also have a pack mentality so as one bison moves towards the young bison, the entire heard follows.
On the other side of the bison herd, the members wearing wolf skins slowly herded them towards the young bison and the cliff. Remember that they were all playing on the weaknesses of the bison. The bison couldn’t see that these were fake wolves and bison, but they smelled like them which was good enough.
And in one quick motion, the fake wolves would erupt and start chasing the bison. A stampede would ensue as the frightened bison run towards the cliff. The “wolves” would be yelling and screaming to get the bison wound up, while everyone else in the tribe would stand on the sides of the herd holding up bison skins. These bison skins would be large and opaque, and would look like an impassable wall to the bison.
Imagine being that fake bison, infront of 100’s of 1000kg bison stampeding behind you, and you are sprinting for your life. Heart pounding, sweat pouring down your face, in the last second you have to make a sharp turn and run towards your tribe members on the side, or surely face the death of 10,000 hooves. The bison are so antagonized at this point that they keep going straight, and one by one, fall off a cliff.
The horror which the bison must have felt taking a 10m plunge onto rocks below must have been something to see. In a good hunt 100s of bison may have jumped off the cliff. The pile of meat at the bottom of the jump was immediately processed for the long winter.
This method of hunting was used in the area and had even more intricacies which were tied into their every day lives. For example I had always heard of the Natives and their ceremonies or rituals dedicated to, the Sun god, or the Wind god, or the Fire god. However these ceremonies weren’t as religious in nature as I thought.
They prayed to their Sun god, for a good growing season, so that the bison would come to the area for food. The would pray to the Wind god, so that the wind would be favorable during the hunt. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction it could ruin the hunt, and the tribe would not have food for the winter. They would have a cleansing ceremony before the hunt, where the hunters would enter the sweat lodge, to clean themselves of any human smells, as to not warn the bison of their presence.
And what was most impressive to me, they prayed to the Fire gods so that when the Plaines Natives would purposely set fire to the plain, the fire would spread in such a way, so that the grass the bison eat would only be left in a location, that is favorable for the hunt. They herded the bison into the area by burning their food; I find it astounding that people 6000 years ago new of setting fire to plains or forests, to serve their interests.
The name? Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump? The legend goes that in the 1800s a man wanted to experience the bison jump first hand. He decided to stand underneath the cliff, under a protective rock. The hunt was exceptionally good that day, and as the bodies mounted no one could find him. After so many buffalo had jumped off the cliff, they had fallen on him, and they found his body, with his Head Smashed In. Or so the story goes…
A few months ago my mom said she’d love to see Banff. We planned the September long weekend for her to come and visit.
She arrived on a Thursday; I picked her up from Calgary and we made the drive to Banff. It was great seeing my mom, and we spent the rest of the night catching up.
The Friday I worked from the hotel room while she explored the town. In the late afternoon we went for a walk through town and checked out the sites. Banff is a gorgeous town in a bowl of mountains. In any direction you look there are enormous peaks towering over you.
One neat thing you notice when coming into town is these big metal grates on the road. These are called “texas gates” or cattle grid. They are designed so that a human foot, or car can easily traverse it, while a hoof, or bear paw will fall through. Effectively you can fence off an entire city such as Banff, and very few animals can make it into city center.
We continued to explore Banff, Lake Louise, and made the drive up to the Athabasca Glacier.
Banff
Lake Louise
Athabasca Glacier
The Athabasca Glacier is one of the 6 glaciers in the Columbia Icefields.
Glacier ice, it turns out is different than normal ice. When a lake freezes, the water simply freezes into ice. However a glacier forms differently. By definition a glacier only forms on land. As snow falls, that weight of the snow above compresses the snow below, and pushes out all the air. Due to the high pressure, this compressed snow forms into a dense ice. This is a process that goes on for thousands of years, allowing the thickness of the glacier to be up to 300m today.
We got to take this big truck up to the glacier. The truck alone is an impressive piece of technology. It’s a diesel powered, 6×6 truck, with selectable low and high gears. The engine puts out 750 lb-ft of torque, being pushed to all the wheels. If any of the wheels fall into a crevasse on the glacier, it can pull itself out with the remaining wheels. In theory.
Over the years many people have gone hiking on the glacier. Some have been prepared, and some haven’t been. Regardless of their preparation, even experienced climbers have fallen into crevasses. 2 weeks prior to our arrival there was a tour on the glacier. As the tour was happening they saw an arm sticking out of the snow. A hiker had disappeared 19 years ago, however as the glacier shifted and more snow fell, he was never found. 19 years later, through sheer luck, his body was found.
On our way up to the glacier there was an enormous hill. This hill had a 32% grade! This is the second steepest “road” in North America and it was so steep I couldn’t stand in the truck.
Another interesting fact is that this glacier is receding at a rate of 5m a year. In the past 125 years that we have been recording, the glacier has receded 1.5km!
The glacier is also known as a Triple Continental Divide. As the glacier melts, the water goes down hill, and naturally some of it empties into the Pacific Ocean. However some of the water actually travels north all the way through the Yukon, Alaska, and into the Arctic Ocean. And the most remarkable thing is the that the water also travels across Canada, and into the Atlantic as well, hence the name Triple Continental Divide.
Athabasca Glacier Drainage
After a day of exploring Banff, Lake Louise, and the glacier it was time for a meal. There was a restaurant at the base of the mountain where we ordered delicious food.
As I was sitting there looking at an ancient glacier, it hit me.
I felt like the most fortunate person in the world. To be able to be sitting beside an ancient glacier, in the beautiful Banff mountains, enjoying a wonderful meal.
I mean I was dining beside a glacier! Wow.
But even more so to be able to travel to Banff, to Alberta, through Canada.
But more importantly to live in Canada…
In 1989 I was born in what was then known as Yugoslavia. This was a conglomeration of various “ethnicities” (genetically they are all the same, Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, etc), religions, and languages. For reasons which I still don’t entirely understand, a bloody civil war ensued in 1991. Through this process, one ethnicity bombed another, and another retaliated. From this situation things snowballed, and bombs started falling indiscriminately. During this time people’s houses and lives were ruined.
I was too young to remember any of this, but at times there would be “bomb” sirens, where you would have to run to your basement to hide from the bombs. During this time my mom would be sheltering me, hugging me, to prevent a stray piece of shrapnel or bomb from hitting me. As the bombs rained down, my familie’s house was hit multiple times, and many things were destroyed.
To this day, when I visit I can still see the damage the shrapnel did on concrete buildings, and the land mines that still sourround the city where I was born. But more importantly the emotional damage it did to people. When people are in fear of death, on a daily basis, one can only imagine how they would act. Because of this property was lost, as someone would simply move into your house while you’re not there. Any record of your previous education or land was destroyed, and you could wake up one day with literally nothing, or no one you hold dear. Through the complexities of war we lost a large chunk of our family, family which I never got to meet.
As this developed my parents made a decision which must have been the most difficult decision of their lives. They decided to leave the only country they had lived in, to leave the family they loved, to leave anything they knew as familiar, and to move to a foreign country.
The sacrifices they made in this scenario were enormous, and it was all to try and provide a better opportunity for themselves, and me.
As I sat there, looking at the Athabasca Glacier, not worrying if bombs would be falling on my head, if I would wake up without a house, or my diploma, I said thank you.
Thank you to Canada, for being a country of opportunity. For allowing me to work towards an amazing education. For being tolerant of all cultures here, where we all get along and don’t start wars. For the kind people who are here and in the states, who I know I’ll be friends with forever, and who are in a way my second family. Thank you for being a country of opportunity where I have the chance for a job with a future, and that allows me to fill this blog with details on such a beautiful and amazing country.
But most importantly, thank you to my parents who were strong enough to deal with everything, to make the tough calls to come to Canada, and for me to be able to have the fortunate life I now have.
Thank you.
N.B – Although this happened 20+ years ago, these problems and fears are still experienced by 100,000’s of people every day. As the world ramps up even more bombing campaigns, it seems no one stops to think about the long term consequences of these actions, none of which can end positively.
I woke up at 3 a.m on Wednesday. And it was cold. I could see my breath. I pulled on a hat, gloves, and another pair of pants and managed to fall asleep again.
We got so cozy in the tent that we stayed in bed till 9. The Germans were gone by that point.
We quickly made breakfast and repacked our bags for the short 10 km hike.
The previous day we had pushed the tempo hard. My feet were not cooperating this morning. I had this sharp pain on the bottom of my left foot, on the outside of the arch. I had a feeling of what the problem was. 2 years ago I started wearing minimalist shoes. My feet have gotten so accustomed to walking in these, that with the extra support from my hiking boots, my feet were confused as to how to walk. Combined with the 20 kg I had on my back and I was having trouble walking.
We had 10 km to cover to the top of Observation Mountain. 6 km of that was over another fan, and then 4 km up the mountain. As we started off I already had a bad feeling that I wasn’t going to make it up the mountain.
This fan is enormous, and goes as far as the eye can see. On top of this we had another “creek” crossing with frigid cold water.
We continued moving our way up the fan and my foot was really bothering me now. My pain threshold is usually pretty good, but this was really bothersome. I popped two Tylenol Extra strengths, something I’ve never needed before, and pushed forward.
Many may already know this, but the hardest thing for a man is to admit physical defeat. It must be imprinted in our genes, but a man 10, o00 years ago who was physically not able, would quickly get weeded out of the gene pool. When we sprain our ankle, or aren’t physically able to do something, it’s quite an ego blow. But every step I was taking, I was limping, and Seb was slowly pulling ahead further and further. Here I was, staring up at the mountain, and thought the whole process through.
This is the easy part of the hike, and my foot had turned into a dull pain from all the rocks. If I try to make the summit and get stuck somewhere on the mountain that’ll be a really bad time. Even if I do make it, the hike back to the car was another 23 km, plus back to camp was another 6km. Getting stuck in the Yukon back country on a bad foot isn’t something I’d like to write in the blog, so I made the call and told Seb there was no way I could make the climb.
I gave Seb the water pump and some food as the next part of the hike would take him at least another 10 hours.
A few weeks later Seb said, why don’t I write a guest chapter for your blog, about the mountain climb, so without further ado, this was Seb’s climb onto Observation Mountain. Observation Mountain Blog Post
I made my way back, and as I was approaching camp, there was someone at the fire pit. I was looking forward to devouring some more food and taking a nap but oh well. As I get closer, in my head I’m just thinking one thing. We introduce ourselves and his name is Jan. I didn’t even ask if he’s German, but just transitioned over into speaking it. I asked how come there is so many Germans in Northern BC/Yukon?
It turns out, Germans love nature and the wild. However they have very little “remote” destinations left in their own country, so, believe it or not, there is a direct flight from Frankfurt -> Whitehorse. Every year thousands of Germans come up to the Yukon to see our great frontier.
We continued chatting and sharing some food, and discussed what he thought of the route. Jan was doing this trip by himself and he had encountered a bear 2 hours prior. He said they looked at each other from about 100m, and the bear wandered off. Doing this type of trip with someone is good, you know you have someone to count on if needed, and if you can run faster than him, you know who the bear will get first.
As we chatted another hiker came over the ridge, and down by the fire. Eric. From Germany. Both guys are really cool and we spent the next 6 hours sitting by the fire, chopping wood, eating, and drinking. Conversation always steered away from “what do you do in the outside world”, to comparing who has what gear. Camping knives, sleeping bags, tents, type of food, and boots were the topic of discussion.
However both Jan’s and Eric’s stories were quite impressive. Jan had finished his bachelors, and bought a one way ticket to Toronto. From Toronto he hitch hiked east to Newfoundland where he spent a couple weeks in the area. After that he hitch hiked back across the country, all the way to Whitehorse. He had a few more days in Canada and was heading back to Germany to start his masters. Really cool.
Eric had taken a year off from work. He flew over to Canada, bought a van, and has been doing a similar road trip to mine. Visiting family, friends, and exploring Canada. His dad was going to fly in 3 days into Anchorage for a fishing trip, so he needed to be back by Friday evening.
Seb arrived sometime around 21:00 and told us of his adventure. We spent the rest of the night eating, and drinking tea, and had no issues falling asleep.
The Trip Back
The next morning we decided that the 4 of us would head back together. Seb, Jan, and I would spend the night at the first (now last) creek crossing, while Eric had to set a quicker pace back to the city to start his trip.
Luckily the difficult part of the trek back would be the first step to tackle. It was over very mountainous terrain. We weren’t 50m away from the camp, with Jan behind me says “Bojan, what you’re doing with your foot doesn’t look so good.” It sure wasn’t. I had this strange limp, where I had to put all my weight into my toes, so that my calf muscle would take the majority of the impact. Come to think of it this is exactly how I walk in my minimalist shoes. My feet had gotten so accustomed to it that that’s what they naturally wanted to do.
We made it to the top of this ridge and stopped for some gorgeous views. Here is the gang. (Eric in the black, Jan in the blue)
We continued onward and finally reached flat land. The past few days had seen no rain, so there was an interesting development. The river along which we were walking the whole time had lowered noticeably. There was up to 100m of land available to traverse which hand’t been there on our way in. We started off along the river, in what would resemble firm mud.
We were making great time! And best of all my feet loved this terrain. It was soft so my foot hurt, less.
We came to a creek crossing. Genuinely this was a creek and our feet may have even stayed dry had we tried it. I looked around… we need a bridge. So we built one.
We decided to take 5 min. We all ate our 5000th cliff/chocolate bar, washed down with some luke warm, marginally filtered river water. We all stared at the mountain and thought, boy what we would do for a beer. I said I’d be willing to pay up to 100$ for 1 beer to be air lifted and parachuted right here, right now. We all laughed, and they reminded me I’m the only one who’s employed. Then it hit me.
“Tell you what guys? My foot be damned, if we pushed the pace hard, we can make it back to the car by 19:00, we’ll be in Haines Junction (a city) by 20:00, and in a bar by 20:05. First round is on me.” Our only goal, and driver now, was beer.
We picked up our bags with our new found motivation and picked up the pace.
My “My foot hurts” face
There always seemed to be a bear going in our direction
We continued going on the mud, however it was starting to actually act, like you know, mud. It got wet, muddy, and we started sinking. The guys didn’t want to keep going over the mud, but my feet needed it. The three guys went one way, while I told them I’d meet them at the “creek”.
I kept walking and found myself in the middle of a berry bush. With bear scat. That still “smelled” like bear scat.
What happened next was very interesting. As I found myself in the middle of the Yukon, my friends not in visual, or auditory range, my foot stopped hurting. I dropped the walking stick, and picked up the pace even more. In hindsight, it must have been another evolutionary response. Your body makes a decision, your friends are near, you’re more safe, you can feel pain now as they can take care of you. On the flip side when you’re alone in the forest, your body says, that foot that hurts isn’t so bad, perhaps you should just tough it out.
To be clear, this isn’t what I was thinking at the time, but is my possible explanation as to how our body works, once I had time to reflect.
We met up at the “creek”, and it was a pain to cross, however the thought of a cold Stella Artois was helping us make good time.
We made it back to the cars and were spent. We pulled out our last food reserves and started spooning penut butter with extreme prejudice again.
We got into our cars and started the drive to Haines Junction. A city about 180km west of Whitehorse. This was the last major city before Anchorage, Alaska.
We didn’t know where the nearest restaurant was, so we walked into a bakery. We were 4 smelly, limping, guys, who looked like they… just got out of the bush. One couple actually laughed at the site of us as we limped inside. We all ordered various danishes, muffins, and bagels to satisfy our cravings until we found a restaurant.
We found a restaurant, and sheepishly asked, “Is your kitchen still open” (although our real question was do you have beer).
She said, we JUST made it. We all looked at each other, not sure how to phrase the question of “Do you serve alcohol”?
I decided to spearhead the problem and asked do you have beer? “No, but the place next door does.”
We headed over to the restaurant which was a Chinese restaurant with “western dishes”.
I ordered a round of “Yukon Gold” beer, and we were in heaven.
We all spent a good 10 minutes looking at the menu. We had gone from wolfing down chocolate bars, without really considering what we were eating to having 5 pages of food to choose from. Adrian our waiter was really helpful and got us all drinks, and also interestingly was Chinese-Canadian. (interesting because he has an interesting life, more on that soon)
My body was craving calories however my moral vegetarian voice still had some death throes in the background. I pushed it aside, looked at Adrian our waiter in the eye, and said:
“I’d like the bison burger, with bacon, ham, and cheese.”
“Sure, would you like fries or a salad with that?”
“I’d like to upgrade the fries to a poutine.” My vegetarian days are safely, over. (while I travel anyways)
We got busy on our beers and burgers, and were having a grand time. We hadn’t considered where were going to sleep that night, so I called over Adrian.
“We just got back from camping, all we need is a room, we’ll all sleep on the floor; as long as it’s not -5C in there. Do you have any rooms?”
Turn out Adrian’s parents own all the hotels in Haines Junction. He goes to highschool in Vancouver, but works at his parent’s hotel in the summer. He said he’d charge us for 2 people, for 90$. Any camp site would be 20$/tent, and it was cold. We were delighted.
Back to BC
The next morning Eric left early for Anchorage to meet his dad.
We drove back to Whitehorse and dropped off Jan at the local hostel. Next we drove to visit Travis, the guy who was going to put in my wheel bearing. He jacks up the car, and wiggles the tires. Turns out it was the REAR left wheel bearing. I had bought a FRONT left wheel bearing. Well great. What was even more impressive was that this was a wheel bearing that was put in by a shop, professionally, on July 30, the day before I left. Ah well, it happens.
Travis and his wife were delightful people and really helped us out a lot. If you need an honest guy to take a look at your car, in Whitehorse: http://johnsautoyukon.com/.
The car was fixed and we were good to go.
We started the drive back, and our bodies hated us. We had spent three days in a car. Then we had spent 3 days in the Yukon back country, breaking our bodies. Now it was another 3 days in the car.
Luckily there was a saviour.
The Liard Hot Springs
On the way up we had seen a sign for the Liard Hot Springs. A natural hot water spring, in the middle of the BC wilderness.
We pulled in, 10$ entrance fee for the both of us. The only thing we had to watch out for was the resident moose. Turns out moose also like lounging in the hot water. Who would of thought. We walked for a few minutes and we came into what was like an Oasis for us. No palm trees or mojitos needed.
Boiling water at one end of the pool, and gradually getting cooler.
We lounged in here for what felt like eternity, and continued the drive.
After crossing the alluvial fan of the Canada Creek we began hiking the gentle uphill alongside the creek. On this section of the hike, the smooth more predictable stones have turned into treacherous, unstable and sharp rocks with the added thrill of rain. After the trail steepened more, Bojan turned around (I may have shed a tear) and I got a photo at our departing moment. You can see it’s the not the greatest of hiking surfaces.
A couple hundred meters later I arrive at the base of Observation Mountain trail. A small stick with a few faded red ribbons marked the beginning of the steep climb up. How steep? I considered a 40 degree slope to be a ‘flat section’ on my way up. The switchbacks were laughable with each switch being less than 2 meters long. It was not my first time climbing such a steep slope (Kjeragbolten hike in Norway) but it was the longest. With GPS points, I plotted the start of the climb, the ‘turning point’ and where I took a food break. The direct distance (which the trail didn’t wander much from) was just over 1 KM while the elevation gain was about 560 meters. That’s quite a long steep climb!
On the way up the views became more and more spectacular with literally every few steps, and the sky was clearing up. I realized that I can spot Bojan on his journey back so I snapped a few photos which gave an amazing sense of scale (He’s the small group of pixels in the red circle). About half way up the steepest section, I needed a break, so I found a stable rock to stand, leaned back on the mountain (like on a bus) and took selfie. It wasn’t until I looked at the photos later that I realized just how steep that climb was.
Once the steepest part of the trail mostly ended, it then became a ridge walk for a few hundred meters with vertical drops on either side. This ridge, if you’re not paying attention, could be the direct route down to the bottom in a few seconds. To demonstrate the dangers of this part of the trail, I filmed a short video pushing a rock slightly off the path you hike. Just a slight misstep off the trail and you won’t have a good time.
Rock falling video –
My travel companion, the Adventure Gnome quite enjoyed the view alongside me.
Once the ridge ended a grassy mountain plain began and for one reason or another I had managed to lose the trail a couple hundred meters back. Before deciding my next move, I sat down for a much needed food break. I contemplated turning around to find the trail again but decided I’ll do some true wilderness navigating with that compass I so recently bought. I knew where I was on the topographical map, so I measured out the degree coordinates to the top relative to magnetic north on the map (345°) and started a beeline hike towards it.
We are in bear country, this is their land and we’re only guests. If it hasn’t been fully clear already it was made so closer to the top of Observation Mountain where I discovered bear tracks. This was several hundred meters above any sort of berry or source of food a bear may eat. While the tracks looked at least a few days old, I promptly glanced around and whistled to see if I can spot any bears. It was quite a difficult having to be on alert for the rough trail beneath your feet, bear tracks, general hazards. This while navigating successfully without getting lost or hurt which would mean awaiting a helicopter rescue, at the earliest, two days time away. But I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Now that I’ve been hiking for hours I finally encounter a small patch of snow! I know there’s a lot of it in the higher mountains and I was hoping to see at least a bit of it. It was a bit of effort getting to the small pile of snow since the ground around it was a scree-mud mixture. Scree for those who aren’t aware is very loose rock that has the saying “For every two steps you take up, you’ll slide down three”, fun stuff. I’ve always been fascinated when I can handle snow in the middle of summer left over from winter, something you only can get at high altitudes.
The Germans Bojan mentioned in another post had told us that there will be numerous false peaks on the way up. A false peak is exactly what it sounds like, you look up while hiking and see the ‘top’, but once you get there you can see another ‘top’. These are very demoralizing on an already tiring hike. This happened at least four separate times until finally… Glaciers! This is what the climb was all about. I’ve finally made it close enough to the top to have an incredible view. I’m not capable of describing and photos will never do justice. But I’ll let the photos do the talking with an explanation around one of them.
Yes, I am naked in the smile face photo but since I’m aiming for a more PG-rated posting you get a smile instead. Here’s some back story to those who are interested. When I hiked in Norway to Kjeragbolten I had the lovely pleasure of meeting a German and a couple from New Zealand. We spent many hours hiking up and down slippery rock of Norway, spreading out to find the trail we lost, and general chit-chat from worlds apart. The destination is a rock, about the size of a small car, wedged between two cliffs that drop almost 1000m straight down to the fjord. We’re the first ones to arrive for the day and I volunteer to get on it first. This was to test out the surface and actual access to it among the snow and rain. The access wasn’t too slippery or difficult despite the hazards. For my photo I decided I’ll take off my shirt (It was just above 0 degrees) since that looks cooler. The New Zealand couple had my camera and didn’t take any photos until a much detailed pause. Once I’m off I ask them why it took so long? Their answer, “We were waiting until you got naked, from what we know about you, you’re the kind of person who’ll do that.” Within half an hour, ever person in our group of four had naked photos on that rock. You really don’t make friends with pants on, what better place than in near freezing temperatures with cliffs dropping a vertical kilometer just one step away?
In conclusion, there’s no better way to be one with nature, in true wilderness, and at least a half a day’s hike to the closest human being (Bojan). It is truly one of the most fascinating and amazing experiences in my life. Would I do it again? Give me a small bag of money and I’ll be out the door on my way before your facebook feed refreshes with more crap.
We got into Whitehorse near 16:00 on Monday. Somehow, we had missed the fact that in August, the third Monday is Discovery Day or “Klondike Gold Discovery” Day in the Yukon. This commemorates the discovery of gold in the Yukon, the influx of thousands of people coming to the Yukon to prospect for gold, and the economic positives that go with that.
What’s interesting is that Seb and I love nature, and we love camping, but we hadn’t the foggiest plan of where we were going to do so. We pulled into an information center and asked the lady if she could recommend a “challenging” back country route. She pulled out a map, and pointed at Klaune National Park. 2 hours west of Whitehorse, the park borders the state of Alaska, and has mountain ranges which give the Rockies a run for their money. The Route? 66 km round trip, with a 23 km hike to “base camp”, with crossings of fans, “creeks”, marshes, and the forest, then a 10 km hike to the top of Observation Mountain for gorgeous views of a glacier. Seb and I looked at each other, and nodded.
We got to a campsite that was 5 minutes from Whitehorse and read the sign. “We’re not at the office right now, but go ahead and pitch your tent. Find us later and we’ll figure something out”. Everyone’s just very trustworthy, honest, and happy here.
We pitched our tent and the rain started coming down. Our bags were packed so we just discussed what we’d be up against the next day. We couldn’t leave early morning, because we still had to resolve the car issue.
Although this was a two person tent, we fit two guys, a chair, and gear. Still a miracle.
We wanted to turn in early, so we waited for darkness to fall asleep. We kept chatting and passed some Germans in the camp. Ah, coincidence! Guten Abend (good evening)!
We kept talking, checking out the camp, talking, went to the bathroom, and I’m like “Seb, what time is it?”
22:00, and it was still daylight outside. The further North you go, the later the Sun sets (in the Summer) and we realized we wouldn’t be going to bed till 1 am if we waited for the Sun.
This is a picture at 22:00. Well that would take some getting used to.
We woke up the next day, and the first thing I thought was, wheel bearing. As much as I love my car, it has these peculiarities that are always on your mind. Special oil requirements, wheel bearings going after 6000 km, etc. We woke up at 7 to get to any garage we could find at 8. We pull into a garage, and I tell the mechanic what’s going on, and again, I need 30 seconds, just for him to confirm that it’s the wheel bearing. He said sure, but in 3 hours. At this point I realized, any mechanic is going to tell me what I already know.
So I call NAPPA. NAPPA is a car parts store, from which I frequently buy parts in Ottawa. They’re much cheaper than what you would get from your mechanic. I was going to buy the part here and get a mechanic to install it.
I pull into NAPPA and as I’m walking in, I size up the guy walking out. I’ve met enough mechanics in the past 8 months, so I innocently ask, hey do you know a mechanic? Sure as day, Travis is a mechanic. I get the name of his shop and give him a call 20 minutes later. We setup a time for when we’re back from camping to fix up the wheel bearing, and I buy the wheel bearing at 8:25.
It was cold that morning and I needed some camping pants to survive the trip. We pull into Mark’s Work Warehouse and I pick up two pairs of pants. It’s 8:35, the car is “fixed”, and we’re ready to go. Love it when a plan comes together.
The Adventure
We drove the two hours to the starting point of the hike. On the way, there was a sign that read, “You are now leaving the 911 zone”. We were so deep in the back country that the 911 number no longer worked here. We had a list of special numbers to dial if in trouble; specific ones for the area that we are in. That was a nice thought because there had been no cellphone signal for the past 1.5 hours anyway.
We park at the information center and I start repacking my bag while Seb goes to check us in. You need to leave information on who your family or friends are, tell them what route you’re taking, and when you’ll be back. You also get a crash course on bear safety and what to do. If you don’t show up at your scheduled time, they send out the helicopters to look for you.
Now some of the cooler things we learnt about bears:
You don’t want to surprise the animal. A surprised bear is an angry bear, so I had bells on my bag to let them know we were coming. Were there bears? During our bear crash course, her first words were “There was a grizzly bear that walked right by your car 30 min ago, heading that way” (Points). That’s the direction we’re heading isn’t it? Sure was.
Bears are very curious. It’s not that they’re constantly foraging for food, but they’re attracted to strong foreign scents.
In light of this, Seb and I rented some bear containers. These are black cylinders that a bear can’t open and is seen below in the pictures. Anything that has a scent to it goes in this black box. This includes food, deodorants, etc. Even your toothpaste has a strong smell and that has to be put in your bear container so that he doesn’t get curious. The night before at the campground, I was actually going to go shower, and was getting change (1$/min for a hot shower). I was chatting to the lady and getting some more advice and she said “don’t shower”. The bear would be attracted to my shampoo, and the last thing I wanted was a bear to be curious about me. No shower is ok with me, though maybe not with Seb.
So we had all the information we needed. No showering, no strong smells. And whenever you eat, you do it at least 50 m downwind of where the rest of your gear is. That way, if the bear does go to town on your food, you at least have your camping gear intact.
We now each had a container to repack into our bags. So we laid out all our gear so it was easier to visualize. We start packing and behind me … I hear German again? What the? I start chatting to them in German again, and they were delighted by Seb and me. They wanted to know how far and how long we were going for, and what we would do about bears. Then they asked, “Can we take pictures of you, since you look so prepared?”. In my head I thought, you’ve been in the Yukon longer than I have, but “Naturlich!” (of course).
We loaded up our gear and drove another 2.5 km to the beginning of the trail. We were ready.
We started off at a brisk pace on relatively flat land. We had a map of the route, as well as a topographical (topo) map. It would be relatively straight for the next 23 km. Up first was a small creek. It was only up to your ankles, but you had to stop, take your pack off, switch to flip flops and cross. The only problem is that all this water is coming from the mountains and is cold. 10 seconds in the water and I couldn’t feel my feet. Wonderful.
Crossing the creek
Crossing the creek
Next was big marsh; luckily it had a “Boardwalk” on it. All I could think of was if I had Park Place I could start building hotels.
Next was the crossing of Bullion “Creek”. I’ve been putting creek in brackets because they are named creeks, which a lot of the time they are. However, when it rains on the surrounding mountains, you have tens of square kilometers funneling water through the “creek”. We got to the creek and we were like “uh oh”. This thing isn’t a creek anymore. The water was past our knees, and when you’re crossing moving water at this height and speed, it’s actually dangerous. If you lift your foot up too high you’re foot gets carried to far, you stumble and then you’re gone. On top of this, you have 20 kg on your back throwing off your balance. The key is to undo the straps on your backpack so that if you do fall in, you don’t have an anchor pulling you down. The water was frigid, and if you fell in, you’d be a Yukon Popsicle in no time.
Since I had crossed the first “creek” first, Seb was due for this one. I had some para-cord in my backpack, and we improvised a safety harness, or at least something to hold on to, to hold your balance. Seb crossed first and this creek was wide, and cold, and you know what? A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video even more, so here is the entire “creek” crossing which took over 20 minutes.
In hindsight, wrapping the paracord around our hands wasn’t the smartest idea, but things are always different in the bush.
After the crossing, we were cold, wet, and needed a break, only 4 km in. Luckily, it was time for lunch. We left our gear on the ground, and walked 50 m away from our backpacks with our bear canisters. We opened them up and Seb had some bread (he had made in Ottawa) and we had a jar of peanut butter. We laughed at the absurdity of eating peanut butter in bear country. An oily, and smelly paste which bears would love. We rolled on the ground laughing, at the idea of a survival situation where you’d have to “sacrifice” your friend. You just smear peanut butter all over him and let the bears figure out the rest. Well it was funny at the time.
We were so famished by 15:00 that we were spooning peanut butter, with extreme prejudice. We had only brought 500g of peanut butter, and we had spooned half of that a few hours in! Better leave some for later.
This was also the first crossing of many “fans”. Imagine spring time in the mountains. All the snow is melting, and with it, thousands of liters of water is coming down the mountain, which in turn dislodges thousands of rocks. These rocks get brought down the mountain, and what you have is just a field of big rocks. Walking on this is painful. Every step you take, (with your 20 kg pack) is unsure and your foot slips; there were numerous times my ankle did one of those “pops”, as if I was wearing high heels.
A Fan in all directions
Next, the trail took us through a dense bush. Immediately we went from 100m visibility where I could use my laser in a pinch, to the bush, where we were effectively helpless. On top of this, the trail went right by a berry bush, the same ones the bears feast on. Great. At this point the key is to make noise and at least let the bear know you’re coming.
Seb and I didn’t have much to talk about at the moment, so it was a yelling match of:
“HEY SEB, GLAD WE’RE IN THE YUKON. SURE THING BOJAN”
Good talk.
Once we exhausted that, we start humming loudly, sort of like you’d do when you were a child, and you had to go to the basement alone to get something for your mom, but it was dark and cold down there.
I definitely felt my heart rate spike during this part of the walk, as the bush is dense. A bear could be literally a few steps away from you and you wouldn’t have the foggiest idea he was there. We finished up with the dense bush, and ran straight into another fan. Up and over the fan, and a bit of grasslands.
We continued talking, laughing, and then looked down.
Bear track.
Well, in one way it’s thrilling. Oh gee, a real live bear in the area! And in another way, it’s terrifying. Oh gee, a real live bear in the area. My hand is relatively big, can cover 9-10 notes on a keyboard, but this bear was large. With claws, which were also large. And he was heading in the direction we had to go as well.
Soon we found some bear scat. Also large. On this topic, a side note on preparation. In the past 8 months, I have received variations of one question a lot, “What if Moonroof breaks down in the Yukon?” (it did), or “what if you encounter a bear?” (we were close). In short, what if something goes horribly wrong on your trip? All these questions have an unspoken part, saying “well perhaps you shouldn’t go, with Moonroof, or at all”, or “perhaps you shouldn’t go to bear country”. Those questions didn’t really compute for me.
The way I personally do things is as follows. We all have our passions, which differ greatly. Some like camping, some like shopping. Some like science, some like arts. And whatever you love, that’s wonderful, but do it with 100% of your effort. If you have even a tiny bit of doubt in what you’re doing, you don’t truly love it. And not once during this trip, even in the most dire of Moonroof or bear-related incidents, did I say “Well, did I really need this?” You decide you love something, and you give it your all. To be clear, you prepare, absolutely; I had tools to fix Moonroof, and I had prepared as much as I could for bears, but never did I say, maybe we shouldn’t go camping in the Yukon. On that topic, we looked at the bear scat, and were glad it wasn’t warm.
Finally, the route took us to some soft ground. A marsh. Delightful. We had decided we’re going to do the full 23 km the first day and get to base camp, and it was getting dark. The ground was getting soggy; we could double back, lose some time, and perhaps keep our feet dry. We’d get to camp later, or get stuck on the last part of the trail which was a mountain, where there would be nowhere to camp. In these situations, you usually end up with a mix of determination and arrogance vs safety. We’re trying to make it to camp on the first day, by pushing ourselves faster than we should have. Maybe not the best idea, but we “really wanted to”. The other approach would be “slow and steady wins the race”. We didn’t discuss it, but we both pushed on through the marsh, which was now a small pond.
We had covered some 21 km; ok great, 2 km more to base camp. However, we had forgotten to look at the topo map. It indicated the last 2 km were elevation changes of 100-150m. Wonderful. We had just had a brisk pace for 6 hours; Seb was in better shape than I, and had a lighter pack. I’m known for packing heavy, but I had a bigger pack, and had brought some necessities which were heavy. Had I done this camping trip a month ago, I’d have been great, but in the past month I’ve been to the gym twice, and sat in a car for 8000 km. I couldn’t go as fast as I’d have liked to, but you decide you’re doing something, and give it your all.
Our feet were now wet and frozen, but we had climbing to do. We climbed the ridge, and even had enough enthusiasm to stop for pictures.
The Trail
Seb is ok with heights
I’m not
It was now getting late, about 20:30 and finally we could see the ridge. We were coming down the mountain, and there was guy already there, sitting by a fire. Boy were we happy to see a fire. We got into camp and were spent. We said hello to the guy, introduced ourselves. His name was “Marcus”, and he was from Germany. Oh it’s just a coincidence, until his friend comes out of the bushes, also from Germany.
We sat down and started drying our feet and munching on some food while chatting to Marcus and his friend. The stories you hear are quite remarkable. Marcus had come to the Yukon just to enjoy the scenery. Along the way he had picked up a hitchhiker, and they decided they’d do this camping trip together, and here they were.
Marcus wasn’t very expressive, but we asked him about Observation Mountain. Marcus just said “challenging”, and “full day”. We asked how steep? He just points his hand at the sky, at some obscene angle, which resembled something between intraversable and totally vertical. When an inexpressive person is using strong words and hand signals, you get worried.
It was nice chatting with them, but it was getting dark, and we had to setup the tent and get back to cook some food. We munched down some beans, cliff bars, and were still so hungry, we were ready to eat the wrappers, but decided to call it a night.
We put on every layer of clothes we had, got into our sleeping bags, and passed out.
We left Drumheller at 13:00 and headed north towards Edmonton. The road was pretty uneventful, with the prairies still dominating the scenery. It was great to have Seb to talk to, and for him to take over the role of turning on the GPS, the GoPro, and handling music. Obviously all things that I did while safely pulled over prior to his arrival.
The route would take us through Edmonton, Grand Prairie AB, Dawson Creek BC, Fort Nelson BC, and finally Whitehorse Yukon.
As I write this my trip odometer reads 9760 km (6100 miles). At an average speed of 110 km/h I’ve spent 88 hours in the car since August 1. I’ve had a few dicey calls, with people falling asleep at the wheel, or not checking their blind-spots, and going right at me. But the most difficult thing to swallow is the people hogging the left lane. To anyone who drives a car, or who is being driven in the car, don’t let someone mindlessly drive in the left lane with people behind you. In more progressive countries such as Germany you get a fine for cruising in the left lane. No left lane hogging!
We drove up to Edmonton and figured we might as well grab lunch, and I needed to pick up a last minute rain fly for my backpack. The forecast in Whitehorse was showing rain, so I jumped into a MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop). We kept driving with nothing exciting happening until we started reaching Grand Prairie AB. The roads were wide open, and my right foot was having fun passing people in the left lane. And for those guys that fell asleep in the left lane, I passed them on the right.
Seb and I were talking, and catching up, and listening to some tunes. And as we were talking I heard this subtle, wub wub wub wub sound. I turned off the radio, “Seb, you hear that?”. “No….. Yea….. what is that?” Wub wub wub wub wub wub. Turn left sharply, nothing. Turn right sharply, wub wub wub wub wub. It sounded like bad dubstep music.
We were coming into Grand Prairie AB, so we decided to take a few minutes outside the car to try and figure out where the sound is coming from. I’m in the car, Seb’s outside, nothing. Seb’s pushing the car, nothing. We both push the car nothing. I had foreseen such a possibility so I had 2 jacks, and 2 jack stands. With this, in theory, I could get one side on jack stands, and use the 2 jacks to get the whole car off the ground. Since the car has all-wheel drive, we needed to get all 4 wheels off the ground before we did any tests. Even though we were still technically in the prairies, we couldn’t find a sufficiently flat surface, so the jack that came with the car started bending from the uneven surface. Really just a mess. It was getting late, we weren’t entirely sure what was wrong with the car, so we grabbed a hotel. I drove to Canadian tire and the guy told me there’s a mechanic in the next morning. It would be a Sunday, but surely he knows.
We buy some pizza and I spend the rest of the night pondering what it could be.
How I got My Car Season 9
For those that are aware of the previous car problems please read on, for those looking for some background info please see here:Link
We get to Canadian Tire at 9 a.m when they open. I ask if there’s a mechanic in, we just need to lift the car up on a jack, turn it on, and see where the sound is coming from. He says there’s only a technician in today, who only does “tire stuff”. Great, I can do “tire” stuff as well, but I needed this info just so I could make a decision if:
1) We’re staying in Grand Prairie Alberta, waiting until Monday for a mechanic to be open and get spare parts. We lose a day of travel, which meant one day less in the Yukon, which was my least favorite option.
2) Is whatever’s making a sound bad enough to keep us here, or can we drive on it?
3) Will parts not be available and we need to rent a car, go to Whitehorse and leave Moonroof in Grand Prairie, and we fix it on the way back.
I walked through the store, and pondered my options, and then smiled. I go back to the service counter and in the most blatant and obvious way possible, asked the guy to think outside of the box.
Me: “So I’ve decided I need…..a ….tire rotation… *wink*, so could the technician do a “tire rotation” (I did the air quotes in real life), and while the car’s up on jacks, he gives the tire a spin to see where the sound is coming from”
Him:”Unfortunately the technician can’t start the car due to legal concerns. If the car falls off the…”
Me: ” OK I understand I had to try :)”.
Him: “But I can book you for a tire rotation later on in the morning? I have a spot open at around 11….”
He was clearly thick as a plank, and I mentally face palmed as I walked away. I need someone to lift my car up for all of 30 seconds, just so I can hear where the sound is coming from. As with many things in life, if you wan’t it done right, you do it yourself. I went to the auto section of Canadian Tire, bought a real jack, and two more jack stands.
We find a flat spot in the Canadian tire parking lot, and we try to get all 4 sides off the ground. The way the geometry worked out though, none of our now 3 jacks, could get all sides of the car high enough, so we had to find a random pallet to jack the car up from.
The car floating
Wouldn’t of been possible without the pallett
Finally we had the car off the ground, now we had one lucky guy who got to go under the car, while the driver gets the speed of the car up to 100 km/h. (the sound was most pronounced at that speed) I got the car going, while Seb was on the outside. First he said rear left, then rear right, then front, then I’m like you know what? Seb, I’m going to get underneath the car, I know you can’t drive manual, but figure it out, get er up to 100.
Seb learned how to drive manual that day, as I was under a 1600 kg car on jackstands that cost 30$. What’s the worst that could happen? Well the worst was that the sound was just travelling through the chasis of the car. The sound seemed to come from everywhere. We even stopped a random guy in the parking lot, and asked, where do you think the sound is coming from? He pointed to one wheel, me to another, and Seb was still having fun with the clutch in the car.
I narrowed it down to the front left wheel. Going wub wub wub wub wub. This was most likely a wheel bearing. (a wheel bearing is the part which allows the wheel to spin with minimal friction, while attaching it to the axle, and the car)
The first thing that hit me was this was the wheel bearing I put in 8 months ago, with my own two hands in Ottawa (correctly, I might add). I consulted with my car buddies in Ottawa and the conclusion was wheel bearing. Best case scenario, I can drive for another 5 years and nothing happens.Worst case scenario I pull out of the parking lot and the wheel literally falls off. I didn’t want to lose a day over a silly wheel bearing, so I made the decision, we’ll make the last 1500 km to Whitehorse on a bad wheel bearing.
The scenery was now getting much more scenic. We could finally see mountains in the distance, however it was a through a thick haze. Turns out there were enormous forest fires in the area, and we could actually smell the smoke in the car.
We were in the Rockies and we had our altitude changing rapidly! Finally no more prairies. We had lost cellphone signal hours ago, and the constant wub wub wub sound reminded me, if I lose my wheel here, on the Alaskan Highway, it’ll be a really crappy time. We just drove on, stopping at very scenic lookouts.
Alaska Highway, Yukon
We reached the end of the day, and by coincidence we were at Summit Lake. This is the highest point of the Alaskan Highway, at 1300 m. It’s really remarkable but they setup an RV park right on the lake. There were dozens of campers and people enjoying their evening in some of the most gorgeous scenery I’ve seen. As usual the pictures don’t really do it justice, but there is Summit Lake, sourounded by enormous mountains, and the Alaskan Highway right beside all this. It was quite something.
Summit Lake, BC
We spent the first of many nights in the tent. We started off a bit optimistically, because the temperature dropped to 8C, and the wind coming off the lake was frigid. We didn’t think of using the car as a wind-shield, but we’d be sure to do that again if the situation arose.
We woke up the next morning and packed up our tent, we had enough sleep by 7. We continued our drive and were running low on gas. (in these situations, “low” is whenever you hit half, because you can’t make it back the way you came).
Now back in the planning stages I forsaw this as an issue. My car requires 91 octane gas. (that’s the really expensive one when you’re at the gas station), and of course, in the middle of nowhere some stations don’t have 91 octane. The reason again is technical. Moonroof has a turbo. The turbo makes the car go fast by compressing air and putting it into the cylinders. When the spark plug ignites the air, and fuel, you get all that extra energy from the high pressure air, and in turn more horsepower. One dangerous thing is again, those misfires. If you compress air and fuel together too much, they can detonate by themselves, and you get a misfire, or also known as premature detonation (don’t you hate when that happens?). However if the misfire happens when your engine is running at full tilt, the engine can’t compensate for the misfire, and you get a great big paper weight again. The higher octane rating of fuel prevents those premature detonations from happening. In short I really needed 91 octane otherwise the engine could go, poof.
We stopped at Muncho Lake. They didn’t have 91 octane gas, but they did have warm breakfast. Sold. We go in, and this is an absolutely beautiful lodge, built in the middle of nowhere, on Muncho Lake. This is supposed to be a Banff competitor, but more rustic. The entire resort, is run on diesel generators, internet is through satellite, and all food is trucked in. The cost is obviously enormous to do this, and a bag of flour costs 60% more by the time it arrives here. Our all you can eat breakfast was 16$, but what a breakfast it was.
Rooms are actually quite affordable, at about 200$ a night, but one of their more impressive options is their “get away package”. For a very affordable price, you and your friends are flown out by bush plane onto a remote lake. There, a cabin, canoe, food, supplies, and fuel are waiting for you. You are completely isolated for 3 nights, 4 days somewhere in Northern BC. The story of how it was constructed was remarkable but it was a bush pilot and his wife, that came from Germany that started the whole thing. (the fact that they’re German is important for the next post) There is much more to this place but you can read up on it here: http://www.northernrockieslodge.com/default.htm
Wildlife
We continued driving, and then it began. There was just a casual sign that read, “Bison Crossing”. Seb and I laughed, not sure of what to expect. Words can’t really describe it so I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Along the length of the Alaskan Highway, we saw bears, caribou, deer, bison, and goats. In fact we saw more animals than we saw people. And it was beautiful. This was my first time seeing a bear and bison so I was really excited. Luckily the bison walk in the middle of the road (all 20-30 of them) so people regularly have to stop, and take pictures. There was one particular bison, who was the largest. He stood dead smack in the middle of the road, easily weighed as much as my car, and just stared at us. He clearly was not impressed with us, but after a minute he decided to get off the road.
Caribou
Caribou
A late night Bison crossing
The bison that just didn’t care
He started caring here, I thought the car would be in trouble
Younger Caribou
Goats
A Brown Bear
A Brown Bear
The Alaskan Highway
The Alaskan Highway is the highway that stretches from Dawson Creek BC to Delta Junction Alaska. Some 2200 km of highway, going through pristine, gorgeous, British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaskan back country. During the 1920s, the Americans needed this road put in in order to supply the Alaskan state. However the road would be mainly through Canadian land, and the Canadians saw no value to the few thousand people living in the Yukon.
During the WW2 those priorities changed. The Japanese were in the Pacific, and for the US to not have road access to one of their states would be a grave tactical mistake. This would also put Canada in a bad situation with the possibility of having the Japanese on their doorstep.
On Feb. 6 1942 the U.S congress approved the building of the highway, to begin March 8. Canada moved quickly and approved the building of the highway. The U.S would foot the bill of the entire project, but after the war would hand back the road and all outposts back to Canadian possession. By bringing in all machinery by rail as close as possible, and beginning construction from 4 different points along the line, the “highway” was completed by October of the same year. It was not a highway in the traditional sense, with many parts of the road containing steep inclines, dirt, and switchbacks, still making it extremely treacherous to traverse.
The scenery was just forest and mountains. Untouched wilderness for some 1500 km. It’s difficult to explain, but something strange happens to you when you’re in the bush for so long. You stop thinking about your investments, the city, cellphones, laptops, how the Blue Jays are doing, you just go back to basics of nature, and you completely lose yourself. Well I did anyway.
Even looking at this from our current day perspective, there were 100’s of US Army Core men who were in the thickest of Canadian wilderness, digging and clearing untouched forest. This was an enormous undertaking and for it to have been finished in under 8 months is remarkable! Along the whole highway there are “Mile Markers” where historic events happened, or for settlements that were installed during construction. It’s too bad I couldn’t spend more time in the area, learning about the history, but who knows, maybe I’ll drive it again…
(The) Yukon
I picked up a magazine at a local store, and one of the magazines discussed the issue of, “The Yukon”, vs “Yukon”. I sat there and thought, I’m never ever in my life going to say: “I went to The Ontario”, or “The Manitoba”. But with the beauty and raw nature I was seeing, The Yukon just seemed natural. I love The Yukon, vs, I love Yukon, just sounds more majestic, and it is.
We were having a great time, checking out the scenery, and this is how we crossed the border into The Yukon:
Entrance into the Yukon
And here are a few more shots of the surrounding scenery:
Muncho Lake
Muncho Lake
After 3 days, and 2200 km of driving we had finally arrived in Whitehorse! The real adventure hadn’t even started yet, but that’s for another time…
Well the past week has been extremely eventful. I took a week off from work, so we had lots of time to explore the North. So much has happened and I’ve had no time to sit down at the computer.
I picked up Seb from the Calgary airport at 4 p.m. Gave him a hug, said how was the flight, and he just said “food”. Turns out there are no meals from Ottawa->Calgary so we had to get him on the fast track. We also needed to load up on “camping” food for our trip up to Whitehorse. Our original plan was to go to Yellowknife, however for the past few weeks it was being plagued with forest fires in the surrounding area. We didn’t want to get “stuck” up there if the roads were closed, so we chose Whitehorse instead; surprisingly, the same distance, only 2200 km from Calgary.
After chowing down on some fast food, we decided to get some “last minute” supplies for camping in the North. What we really needed was some bear spray, and some water filtration. We found a great outdoors store, and of course 30 minutes in, our shopping cart was full, of everything but those two items.
We were tracking the weather, and seeing nightly temps of 0C already. I’ve slept outside when it’s -25C and it’s not really comfortable, doable, but not really fun. 0C, is really no different. You need some extra clothing, unless you want to haul a big sleeping bag. Luckily this store had really nice shirts and pants, multi tools, compasses, camping pots and pans, and a host of other oh-gee-neat-whiz things. Two engineers in a proverbial candy shop.
We finally got to the section with bear spray. The day before my dad had sent me an article of two girls who had gone running in the forest near Whitehorse. They encountered a bear, and pulled out their bear spray, that had been sitting in there drawer for a few years. Turns out the clip broke, and the spray didn’t work. So my dad asked me to get an extra one. (Link to Bear Story) You actually have to sign a waiver, show them your drivers licence, and they enter all this information in the computer. 40$ per can, which is well, a bit steep, but considering this is going to be literally your only defense against a 500 kg grizzly, it’s worth it. Well, almost your only defense. (more on that later)
We finally managed to stop buying extra things, but some of the highlights that we picked up were compasses, some extra pots and pans, and a water filtration system. Luckily ever since I’ve been 8 I’ve always liked knives, so I had plenty of those in stock for the trip.
Other goodies included my Canon 6D and 24-105mm lens, bear canisters, sleeping pads, water bottles, air horn (to “scare” away bears), warm clothes, paracord, and the green tarp on which everything is layed out.
When I was in Ottawa a few months ago planning this I was thinking, well if I see a bear at close range, my only options are really the bear bangers (mini fireworks to scare off the bear), or the bear spray. If that fails then you’re left with one of your knives and really hope for the best, although realistically it is over at that point.
However I was thinking wouldn’t there be something better, for say 20m or more, to keep the bear away. I have been building my own lasers for the past few years. These are small, hand held lasers, which have power outputs of 2.4W, and more. I’ve built them in various colors, however the blue diodes can output the most power. Now your typical red laser pointer, that you use to antagonize your cat is 5mW (miliwatts). Anything more than 5mW can cause eye damage, as your eye doesn’t have a chance to blink to prevent damage. My blue laser that I brought on my trip is 2000mW. Or 400 times more powerful than your average laser. Using this, any “eye” within 200-300m can be damaged permanently, or blinded, with just half a second of flashing. Obviously I wouldn’t want to use this on anyone or anything, and you have to be very careful when you are using these, but in a life or death situation, this was my “other” bear repellent.
Before we left for the north we really wanted to see the Royal Tyrrell Musem. This is THE world’s dinosaur museum. It’s an hour and a half outside of Calgary, so we drove there on Friday evening.
We grabbed an absolutely atrocious hotel room. 140$, no breakfast, and Wifi doesn’t work “on our side of the hotel”. The room smelled horribly, but we were too excited to care, because we had to pack! We had food, a tent, and all our gear to compress into our bags.
This is how we started.
This is how we finished.
The Car
On August 1 when I left for this trip, I got a check engine light while idling with Moonroof. I smiled, hooked up my laptop, and it turns out that I got a “Misfire on Cylinder 3 & 4”. The car idles rough, however all other driving characterisics are fine; after all, I wouldn’t be spending much time idling. I cleared the code and would keep an eye on it.
Turns out just as I picked up Seb, I got the code again. The causes of a misfire, in a nutshell, is the explosion inside the cylinder doesn’t happen when it’s supposed to. If you have the crank rod going down, and you have the explosion occur mid stroke, and it tries to push it up, the entire engine can just jam, and you just have an enormous, expensive, paper weight. The causes can be from the mass air flow (MAF) sensor being dirty to gaskets in the engine being worn out. The MAF sensor tells the entire engine how much air is coming in, and the computer adjusts the amount of fuel for that given state. If the sensor is dirty, the engine gives the wrong amount of fuel, and you have misfires. I sprayed down the sensor and let it sit over night. It resolved the problem slightly, however I am still idling roughly, so am troubleshooting that as I go. Not that big a deal.
Spraying down the MAF
Installing the MAF
Royal Tyrrell Museum
The museum is located in Drumheller, AB, in the middle of the badlands. The badlands are a beautiful formation of rocks, that have been carved out by an enormous river. Think of it as a smaller version of the grand canyon. Since there is a deep hole, it makes it very easy to dig, and have easy access to dinosaur bones. The sourounding area is known as dinosaur valley as 1000’s of bones have been found here.
The Badlands in Alberta, and Moonroof
The museum is enormous and is renown due to its diversity, and highly preserved specimens. You can easily spend 2 full days there, learning about each dinosaur’s bio mechanics, what it ate, and how it interacted with the environment. There are also special tours where you can go dig for your own dinosaur bones, and watch how scientists preserve new specimens coming in.
Whenever I visit a museum I try and let go of “our world”, and really try and place myself in the time frame of the topic at hand.
These dinosaurs walked, swam, crawled, and flew, 230,000,000 years ago. I’ll let that sink in, 230 million years ago. In this time frame the continents resembled nothing of what they are today, and the only mammals walking the planet were our ancestors, resembling small mice or shrews. To top this off, the dinosaurs were ‘the’ dominant species on this planet for 130 million years after this.
To put this into perspective, modern humans, most closely resembling us, evolved some 200,000 years ago. This means that dinosaurs had almost 600 times longer to evolve into their respective forms than we have been evolving. Also, had a giant asteroid not hit the Earth, it is entirely likely that those mammals would not have evolved, and the dominant species on this planet would have been reptiles. Neat.
One of my favorite Star Trek Voyager episodes was where we find evidence that dinosaurs became technologically advanced and some of them colonized other parts of the Galaxy. As we traverse the galaxy we find their long lost cousins, so cool. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Distant_Origin_(episode)
I’m not sure why, but I have always loved this Triceratops dinosaur. Just looks mean!
The famous T-Rex, those teeth are the size of a smaller forearm, and a max sprinting speed faster than Usain Bolt, good luck.
We ran through the museum in 4 hours because we had 2200 km of driving to do. This was just a quick update of the happenings, but the next post will solely be about the drive up to Whitehorse!
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