We are going north to go south!

The first stop in our south-bound journey, ironically enough, happened to be Emsdale, ON. There, our new friends Mark and Rachel and their dog Scout greeted us with warmth of their wood stove and a few shots of vodka and a pickle. Good stuff!!!
We went on a three day, two night canoe trip with them. It was great. Experienced campers themselves, Mark and Rachel picked a great lake to camp on - miles away from any dwelling, smack on in the middle of a crown land patch. This is the view from the campsite in the morning, temperature around -6 C. We were all very excited to build a sweat lodge and have a sweat on the first night we were there. It was a cold night, maybe -6C and it was so nice inside a warm wickiup with several hot rocks inside a small stone stove. Learning a few tricks from the night before we have all decided to repeat the procedure the next day! In this warm, well insulated shelter with no drafts, sitting on a nice mat of cedar branches , pouring hot tea made with pine, sweet fern and cedar twigs on a dozen of glowing red stones we have discovered something else!!! Of course jumping in the lake that was nearby was an obvious thing to do! Oh, it was a good sweat, thank you guys for making it happen! The framework behind us is the sweatlodge.
After we parted with Mark and Rachel, we stopped in North Bay for the weekend, at Jeremy and Lucy's place. Here, we rested well, went to the waterfront and hiked in the nearby forest. The sunset was magestic that evening!
We saw a year-old buck there, it was so big and so close to us! Jeremy and Lucy, thank you so much for hosting us on these cold nights!!!

Setting out of Brampton

We are packing our bags once again - this time we're heading north to Sault Ste Marie (that road again!) where we cross over to the States and then we hope to go to Oregon, California, Utah and Arizona.
There is frost on the ground already, so we packed a few extra warm clothes - but there won't be any bugs, that's a huge plus!
Wish us luck!

Colours of Thompson

As we were slowly and painfully making our way through Alberta, we have received an invitation from our friends up in Thompson, MB, to visit. Why not? said we and decided to make the little detour and hang out in the self-proclaimed "Hub of the North". The road from the prairies to the northern wilderness was smooth. In Alberta, we met a fellow hitch-hiker, a prospector, as his business-card states, who was on his way to the East coast. We rode in two vehicles with him, and camped two nights together! A highly unlikely coincidence on the road, you know. This is him, playing his guitar to oncoming traffic:

We read a lot on our way to Thompson:

When we arrived, the table was set, and a most delicious roast was waiting for us in the oven: vegetarianism aside, we could not decline such a treat! Tolik and Lusine had a whole schedule worked out for our visit: on the first day, we took the grand tour of Thompson and had a huge pike for lunch. Our friends own a pair of elegant fishing rods, which they put to a good use - their freezer is literally stuffed with fillets of pike and wall eye. Next, we went for a two-night walk-in-the-woods to see the tallest falls in all of Manitoba - a lot of true northern beauty!




For the last day, our hosts saved the best: a tour of the mining operations around the town. First, we went to pound out some tunes out of the rock. The holes are filled with water to different levels. Some of them sound pretty cool!

The holes are test drills of this beastly machine

I tried to run it, but it wouldn't work, estie!



We also visited a closed-down mine which boasts a tallest tower in North America (too bad that it only operated for a WEEK),

a pit that turned into a lake,

a working nickel mine, the main employer in town,

a nearby tailings pond
(notice the intense indigo - no photo editing here! Just a high concentration of copper arsenic)and some other equally impressive features.





Tomorrow we sail off - a day before Tolik's birthday! It was a great pleasure for us to stay at their place. Thank you for all your hospitality, amazing food and good times, we'll see you at your next location, wherever that may be!

Nelson

As a great finale to our tour of the province, we came to Nelson. The town is unlike any other, the atmosphere is very relaxed, but something is in the air. We arrived just in time for the oneday street festival, with artisans lining the main street and dancing gypsies. Having decided that Nelson is not our type of town, we went out to a hitching spot, heading south. Had a bath is the nearby creek and were feeling good. Then a white Subaru pulled over. The couple, Meg and Ryan, were friendly and we had a good chat. They dropped us off at their turn-off to Ymir (pronounced why-murr). After about 20 minutes, we see the same car stopped, and Megan waives us over. We are invited to stay at their place and have a beer or two, if we want. We sure do!!!
Our new friends have two great friendly bull terriers, and we all go for a walk with the dogs to the near-by river. When they heard that we were not impressed by Nelson, they could not believe, and they changed our opinion about it in the next few days that we stayed with them.
The next day Meg and Ryan took us to a few trails around town, one that climbs the hill, overlooking Nelson, and the other to the old growth forest, where we saw a lot of ancient trees, and the one in particular was HUGE, it took a while to walk around it.
Megan and Ryan are amazing people, really intelligent and with a great sense of humour. We found that we had a lot of similiar views on life. Thank you once again, guys, we are really happy that we met you!
The whole time we were in the area, taking out a camera and taking pictures just did not seem like the thing to do, so we apologize for the lack of photo material, we'll try to represent in the future, we promise!
The road seems to be taking us east now, but how far or for how long is not clear.

Clearwater

A quick update from a complimentary internet station at a gas bar in Clearwater.
After a long time spent thinking and pondering the decision was made not to go further north than Hyder - not an easy call, but a note is made to make a full-scale dedicated journey to the North at a later point.
On the positive side, we had the longest hitching day/distance covered in the last 24 hours: Stewart - Clearwater: 1186 km, in 5 rides.

View Larger Map'>http://
View Larger Map
The last and the longest ride was with a bearded frenchman with whom we conversed in french half the time, he took us from Houston all the way through the night and dropped us at Clearwater at 6 in the morning.
In comparison, it took us three days to get to Stewart from Smithers.
We are tired, hungry and buzzed out from the hideous amounts of the nastiest roadside coffee we had to consume to stay awake.
All in all, feeling great, as we embark on a search of a family to whom we have a letter from Wayne at Round Lake. Longing for breakfast, showers, laundry, you know, the usual stuff.

Peace!

Stewart

Fuck yeah! is what we say!

Our way to Stewart was a long and tiresome one - we waited for a day and a half on the side of the road near Kitwanga! The longest wait ever. This is how a junction of highways 16 and 37 looks at 11 pm on a Saturday. But an 18-wheeler pulled over, and it was a beautiful and comfortable ride. Stewart met us with drizzle and clouds were hanging low. We went into a campground and asked if we could do some work for the night`s stay. The groundskeeper was so blown away by the offer that he let us stay there for free! As there was still time left in the day, we went on a trail that goes around town, and we saw some beautiful landscapes and big spruce trees. (this one is 8`DBH (diameter at breast height)).
The next day we hitched to Hyder, AK, to see the world renowned Fish creek, where brown bears come to catch salmon in August. Apparently, our timing was triply perfect: first, we came in the prime season for bear watching without even realizing it; second, a big grizzly showed up within minutes of our arrival to the site and third, the weather was kind and we were able to see the tremendous Salmon glacier, where we went after.This is how many beautiful wildlife photographs are made at Fish creek:The gentleman in an orange hat and his wife (out of the picture:) were our first ride in an RV.
We are heading out of Stewart now, and it is still to be decided wheather we go north or south from here!

We go on

The time has come to bid farewell to the Hamelins and their beautiful land and head north, towards Stewart, BC and Hyder, Alaska. We heard those lands are beautiful. There are a lot of grizzly bears feeding on salmon right now up there and we hope to catch a glimpse of the action, from a respectful distance, of course.
The last few days at the homestead were filled with excitement, fun and good food. The flash-light tag was a lot of fun!
Yesterday on the main street of Smithers we bumped into an acquaintance of ours from five years ago - Amel Maria!
We're back on the road!

Smithers

For a week and a half now, we're staying at a resort - yes, you've read correctly - a resort! The place is great - a family run lake-side homestead with 5 cabins for rent. There are canoes, sail-boats and a swimming dock! The peak on the horizon is Hudson Bay Mountain.We're staying in a cabin of our own - an 8 by 8 kid's play shed, with a three foot door and four small windows. The hut is just big enough for our tent, and we're very happy in our little cabane. It sits in the middle of a poplar bush.
We have meals with the family - Wayne and Nina, and their children: Emma, Laura, Robert and Mark. They are an awesome bunch to hang out with!
In return, we are helping Wayne with a greenhouse he's building an impressive structure, destined to provide the family with basket fulls of tomatoes in the near future. Anastasia did some work in the garden, transplanting little beet and carrot plants and she also made this beautiful wind chime to bring some new energy to the garden.
Last weekend, we went to Smithers to meet Jannine - Anastasia's friend from her tree-planting days.
We went up to the local glacier - a pleasant day hike.
Good times all around!

Prince Rupert

It's ironic that we had to go this far north to enjoy some of the most conventional comfort for almost a week. Our hosts, Al and Rachael, are among the friendliest and hospitable people we've ever met: they gave us free range in their kitchen, Rachael drove us around town, and they are simply great souls.

Their back deck faces almost directly West,

and the view is breathtaking any time of the day.

They have a hot tub (with bubbles!) out on the deck, and we were in it twice!

Al and Rachael are leaving on a cross-country bike trip in two days, and their bike is going to touch both oceans:

There are a lot of totem poles around town:

Smithers is next, where we'll stay on Rachael's sister's organic farm, sounds like it'll be good times!

P.S. Consider this: We came to know Al and Rachael through Bret, Tara's brother, whom we met in Winnipeg Beach this summer, and we met Tara last year when Eugene and George hitch-hiked through Winnipeg. A long-reaching chain of friends, eh?

Ferry

Because the ferry to Prince Rupert runs only every other day we had to stay in Port Hardy for a day and catch it 5-30 Saturday morning. In Port we found a nice municipal park where we ate our supper and then went into the bushes in search for a place to sleep - nice, dry and comfortable riverbed was there for us!!!

Next day we've met Steve, local farmer who kindly offered to take us to the beach and showed quite a variety of marine life. Besides mussels of different kind, sea urchins and stars there was one we had never seen before - Louis Moon Snail - huge thing , with 15 cm shell and the foot twice as big. Its mainly diet are mussels that she surrounds with its leg and sucks it out of the shell through a small tube. Quite amazing to observe!

There was not so much to do in Port itself and the local hikes are too far to go on the logging roads. So we have decided to spend the day in the library, reading about local aboriginal art and culture and marking places on the map where we would like to go. Lots of pencil on the map now!!!

With lots of impressions and good feelings we left Vancouver Island. Fifteen hour boat ride was amazing , truly beautiful landscapes, whales, abandoned canneries and over 2000m peaks of the coastal BC.

Comox Valley to Port Hardy

After a long 7 hour wait on the side of the road that reminded us a lot about north-western Ontario (brrr) we have finally got to Port Hardy, a very small town on the northern tip of Vancouver Island.
It is so picturesque here-calm ocean bay, distant islands on the horizon covered with fog and beautiful mountain peaks bathing in the evening sun. I promise to post some photos...
Tomorrow we are hoping to catch a 5 am ferry to Prince Rupert the journey that would take us 15 hours to get there.The other amazing thing is that the weather is staying quite unusual for the local climate. It has been very sunny and dry for the last couple of weeks we've been on the island compared to the rain and fog that on the west coast adds up to three meters of precipitation a year!! We are lucky to be able to watch beautiful purple sunsets almost every day!