Canada - British Columbia

Lion's bridge: the sea to sky highway begins

Glen’s Pontiac just about makes it into Squamish at 2am. His poor car had clocked up over 3000 miles and the last 50 had been dangerously loud, shaky and scary. Squamish is halfway between Vancouver and Whistler and lies along the famous Sea-to-Sky-Highway. So called because, looking out one window you see islands, water inlets, even whales; and out the other window the majestic towering Coastal Range mountains.

Glen's Pontiac

Glen invited a Tsunami survivor for dinner. Bruce had been playing his didgeridoo on a cliff off the coast of Costa Rica early one morning, when suddenly a thirty meter wave swallowed him up. If you have ever wondered what it takes to JUST survive a natural disaster, then here is your answer. He spent three months in a local hospital and was told he would never walk again. This man is a living testament to the human spirit, and is currently hobbling about on crutches.

Bruce, Glen and me

Whistler sees a winter of a millions skiers and a summer of a million bikers.
We arrived between seasons, so were only able to stroll around the resort imaging what the place would look like covered in snow.

Lake outside Whistler

More important than this tourist Mecca though, was the Skookumchuck hot springs, two hours north of Whistler, mostly off the beaten track along the rapid river with only the odd graveyard to furnish the 44km dirt road.

Skookumchuck Hot Springs

Glen being sac-religious

We soaked our travel weary bodies in the piping hot water. We had after all just driven across the whole of Canada. The stars were brighter than ever and it was just possible, with the help of a couple beers, to make out the northern lights.

Northern Lights

Our signs were written out for the Okanagan valley, where we’d heard we could find illicit work picking apples. Five hours away we were mildly disappointed to hear our first lift was only going 20 minutes down the road. Mike soon learnt that he’d picked up a couple of drifters low on funds. One thing leads to another, and an hour later Simon and I find ourselves equipped with hammers and masks, joyfully going about our operation. That’s operation “repair and restore” a mobile home in the middle of the mountains – back in bear country.

Worker who hasn't got a clue

Neither Simon nor I had the smallest of inklings about home improvement. We were taken in as labourers but before long the foreman and his sidekick got us doing absolutely everything. They spent five minutes explaining how to do the most complex things, like installing R20 fiber glass insulation, covering it in plastic, then boarding it up. Creating an entire ceiling in other words.

Even less of a clue

Rob the owner of the mobile unit came back after three days, saw what was happening, fired the foreman and kept Simon and I on as he was so impressed with what we had done.

Rick gets fired

Him and his wife Sheila own champion dogs, and had just returned from a competition where their Springer Spaniel had just won best in show. Their dog was worth more than a million dollars.

Million dollar dog

Robert - the Boss

With no kids, they immediately took me and Simon in as their surrogate sons. In the 2 weeks we ended up staying, we earned well over a thousand dollars, and Rob easily spent as much on us. Food (three meals a day), clothes and the odd treat like getting hold of a copy of Rambo for us. “First Blood” had been filmed in the nearby town of Hope. We went to a few of the locations wearing our Rambo trousers he had bought us.

Thousand dollars worth of food

Stuffing our fat faces

“First Blood” had been filmed in the nearby town of Hope. We went to a few of the locations wearing our Rambo trousers he had bought us.

Rambo

Our relief from a hard week of 12 hour shifts was to hitch to nearby pub: the Goldrush.Here we played pool, and got into fights with the local guys for “talking to their girls”.

About to be in deep deep trouble

I sent one guy flying across the car park; only it was witnessed by three police officers. They arrested me and thought: What the hell, we’ll arrest your friend as well!

So we both spent the night in the cell, I could hear Simon screaming, probably for a snack or a phone call or something.

The next morning they gave us our things back in prison bags, luckily there was no charge.

Just got out of Jail

Everyone we had met had told us that no trip to British Columbia was complete without taking a short ferry over to the island. Vancouver Island: follows

Beautiful British Colombia