Sunday May 31, 1998 - Little Qualicum Falls

Leaving Horseshoe Bay on the ferry to Nanaimo

Little Qualicum Falls, BC — sunny and warm

This time I made it out the door at 10 am, the truck already packed and ready to go. However I arrived at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal just as the 10.30 ferry to Nanaimo was leaving so I had to wait for the 12.30 ferry. I was the second car aboard. Crossing the Georgia Strait I saw porpoises. On arrival at Nanaimo I hit the highway and drove to Parksville, where I turned off for the Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park to set up camp for the night.

I was travelling with my 16 year old dog Yohan, a Border Collie-Nova Scotia Duck Toller cross, in my 1991 red Chevy S10 truck. I bought the truck in 1994 because I really wanted a truck, and in 1996 I bought a canopy for the back of the truck so that I could use if for camping. My first test run was the following year, 1997, to drive from New Westminster where I lived to Toronto where my eldest son was getting married in October. Yohan came with, and he was a good road trip companion. Part of the impetus for my 1998 trip was to go out for one last trip with him and to go to his birthplace near Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Not that he would have cared but it appealed to my romantic side. The other impetus was that I had turned 50 the month before and I felt I needed to do something to mark the occasion. I convinced my employer to give me a 4-month sabbatical to do it.

Nanaimo ferry terminal

I constructed a bed in the back of the truck from wood that previously was used to build a bunk bed set for my sons when they were little. The bed was just high enough off the floor to be able to store Rubbermaid plastic containers that I kept my camping gear and food in, there was also space for a small battery-operated bedside lamp, a suitcase of clothing and a bunch of stuff that I thought I would use to entertain myself on the trip: some painting paraphenalia, some books and my banjo. As it turned out I never touched most of that stuff, I never sat around wanting to entertain myself. Yohan sat on top of stuff I stored behind the bench seat of the truck cab in a space large enough for him to lie down if he wanted.

Little Qualicum Falls was beautiful, as are most BC provincial park campsites. At a neighbouring campsite I met Bill O, a former QA engineer for the government in electronics. He retired at age 53 and was writing a fantasy novel. We talked for a long time, in particular about trout tickling, something I had never heard of. He could put his hand in the water and make movements that attracted trout fish to investigate, and then was able to stroke their sides which apparently they quite like. This is trout
tickling.

I didn't get to bed until quite late and did not sleep well due to the heat and mosquitoes. I had made screens for windows and for the back hatch of the truck canopy, but there were still cracks that the mosquitoes could get through. This was a constant battle on my road trip, to try to get those cracks blocked sufficiently to keep the bugs out. I was only partially successful and hot summer nights were a trial.

CAPS OFF

truck in the garage undergoing major repairs. all my friends are urging me to get rid of it and i am coming round to that conclusion but i spent last night going thru all my photos of the truck and realize i am now in serious mourning. since yohan is gone sadly the truck is my biggest relationship going and giving that up is not easy. i really must get a life...

i bought this truck in 1994, it is a 1991 4-cyl automatic chevy s10 with an extended cab and bench seat in the front. in 1996 i added a canopy, a cover for the truck bed so that i could turn it into a camper for long trips.

my first long trip was in 1997, i travelled in october from vancouver to toronto and back for my eldest son's wedding. i remember that i spent my first night in the back of the truck in the crows nest pass in the rockies, the temperature went below freezing and my water had ice on it in the morning but i survived nicely in my sleeping bag under the canopy in the back of my truck. i still had yohan then, he survived nicely too. breakfast was a cold affair, cold cereal eaten with gloved hands on the side of the highway.

my next big trip was a four month odyssey travelling from vancouver to inuvik to newfoundland and red bay labrador, and back to vancouver in the summer of '98. i managed to visit every province and territory except nunavut, i'm not sure there is or was a road to nunavut. yohan accompanied me on that trip too but met with a serious accident in dawson city (of yukon gold rush fame) in which he was run over by a camperized van. he survived but i very nearly didn't, it was a very traumatic episode. when he was in the dog hospital i spent a night contemplating his death and wondering what to do next. by morning i knew the whole trip was cancelled if he wasn't coming. he survived and we continued our trip, but the writing was on the wall and i had the grim task of putting him down a couple of months after we got home. i still miss him.

1986, yohan in his prime:


1997, yohan in the news (if you click on it you might be able to read the text):


1997, somewhere in saskatchewan, our first road trip:


since then i've done a few more trips on my own without yohan, including a trip to atlin bc in 2000, the furthest north town in bc. you have to go up the alaska highway into the yukon and then turn back into bc to get there. i went to tennessee in 2006 to spend the summer at the farm.

i wish i had been keeping a blog all that time because i have rather lost track of all the trips i made, i know i went to toronto and nova scotia once or twice during that time and probably about half my trips were made through canada or the us. the first time i travelled in the us i was afraid, i had heard so many horror stories about travelling the us that i thought it was unsafe. but after the first trip i put most of those fears to rest and very much enjoyed the change of scenery and many different routes you could take. in canada there is only one route, the trans-canada, and after you've done that a few times it gets old.

so i've had the truck for fifteen years, it's a part of my life, a part of me. turning that page is really really hard and i am not sure i can do it. the mechanic who is working on my truck disapproves, he believes it is a solid truck, he calls it an iron workhorse, and it could be kept going forever. my friends say that is not true, it will just get more and more expensive and unreliable, and with the kind of long distance driving i like to do, it is just not up to the task anymore. i have no expertise in the matter, i don't know who is right, i just know that it really hurts to give it up.

1997, fall in the kawarthas (ontario):


2000, heading north to the yukon:


2004, on the enchanted highway in north dakota:


2006, at the farm in tennessee:


2006, visiting toronto:


2008, winter in toronto:


2009, summer in nova scotia: