Calgary - Getting Ready For The Road
Trip Start
Sep 13, 2006
1
2
31
Trip End
Mar 27, 2007
Calgary,
Alberta,
Canada
Saturday, September 16, 2006
I had been delighted to see Jamie, who had hosted me on my previous visit to the city, when he picked me up at the airport on Wednesday morning last (13th September). What pleased me considerably less was the weather prevailing at the time. It was cold and raining heavily. The sky was as black as Armageddon. It was not what I had expected for the beginning of a Canadian fall.
Jamie & Sarah
After the football game was over I went to Jamie's place where I met his partner, Alex (as in Alexandra), and their Golden Labrador puppy, Sarah, who promptly shat on the floor. Then it was off to Swan's bar in Inglewood for the 'hockey draft' - the sharing out of season tickets for the Calgary Flames ice-hockey team. Hockey is Canada's national game so this meant serious business. In the event the draft passed off in a very civilised manner, without the raised voices or threats of violence I'd been hoping for. Some of the dozen or so people present I'd met on my previous trip. These were real outdoors types who'd think nothing of sailing to the Arctic or going on a hunting expedition in deep mid-winter. I asked for advice about my trip and inevitably the subject of bears came up. One of the guys told how he had been stalked by a grizzly a few weeks previously. He then offered to take me to the mountains before I left town.
Alex
The weather on Thursday continued in much the same vein - bloody awful. I wandered around the downtown area, checked out the public library and browsed in some adventure sports stores. Looking at camping equipment only increased my sense of impending doom. Two years previously I'd walked around the streets of Calgary wide-eyed. Everything was exiting and new: the high-rise city centre; blocks with street numbers; big cars, pick-up trucks and SUVs; huge shopping malls linked by covered walkways that bridged the streets; cops with cowboys hats; bars where you paid for beer after you drank it; and, above all, the way people talked. Then, I had felt like I was walking through TV land. Now, I just felt cold, wet and miserable in an alien environment. The city's modernity and functionality gmade it seem bleak and lacking in character, as if its soul was trapped behind a welter of concrete and mirrored glass. The people however, I discovered to be exceptionally courteous and welcoming. I found myself engaged in conversations with complete strangers in cafes, bars, shops and even on the bus. This was unnerving at first - a total contrast with the frostiness of London. It seemed that everybody's great-grandfather came from Cork and, annoyingly, that summer had been just wonderful until it ended the day before I arrived.
The rain finally stopped on Saturday, to my great relief. A cold wind blew in off the Rocky Mountains, obscured by cloud to the west. I cycled a few miles alondside the river. It was good to be in the saddle again. On Sunday the sun appeared and the weather remained good for the next few days - warm during the day, cold at night. Suddenly the idea of cycling across the mountins with a tent did not seem like a suicide mission after all. I even felt grateful for the initial reality check. Like a footballer's girlfriend I went around town flashing the plastic - camping and cycling stuff in the main although I did buy myself a nice pair of shoes too. One night I slept out in Jamie's yard to test the lightweight tent and sub-zero sleeping bag I had bought. I felt a bit like Tutenkhamun (without the gold) in his sarcophagus but at least it was warm.
I start my mornings here with breakfast at the local truckstop. The seating uphostelry has a Route 66 theme - motels and Hollywood - and the waitresses sport dodgy perms and pink Guantanamo Bay style jump-suits. The clientele consists mainly of truck drivers with checkered shirts and cheesy baseball caps. Country music pumps out 24/7 and, just in case you forget what country you're in, Maple Leaf pennants hanging from the ceiling encircle the dining area. But the food is good and the price is right.
Calgary Skyline
The Bow River runs through the centre of Calgary for several miles. Paths run through the woods on either side of the river and they make for a pleasant place to walk, jog or cycle on a sunny day. Wildlife is abundant and I've seen black squirrels, birds of prey, ducks, geese, and jumping trout. Downtown too is infinitely more pleasant in the sunshine. The streets and plazas are flooded with light reflected by the mirrored glass of the high-rise office blocks. By night, flourescent light from the same blocks illuminates the skyline, burning an immense amount of electricity in the process. From across the river it makes for an impressive sight.
At Jamie & Alex's Place
The Albertan economy is buoyant right now, largely down to oil revenues. Many of the high rise buildings in Calgary are headquarters of oil companies (think Dallas without the shoulder pads). There's a lot of money around and people are flooding into the city from all over Canada and beyond - east Asia in particular. Many businesses have 'Help Wanted' signs in their windows. The suburbs are expanding at a furious rate and the housing market is booming. Vehicles are big, houses are big and asses are big (not strictly true but I do want to talk about bums). Depite all the oil wealth large numbers of homeless people are to be seen roaming the downtown streets. Even to someone who's used to negociating the tramps around Waterloo station of a Friday evening the scale of the problem here seems huge. The provincial government in Alberta has a reputation for being right-wing on social issues and it could be (although I have absolutely no evidence to back-up my theory) that they are waiting for a big snowstorm to blow in off the prairie and sort out the 'bum problem' for another few months.
A snowstorm in the Kananaskis Valley on Thursday scuppered my plans to go hiking and fishing in the mountains with Frederick, a teacher at a local junior high school, and his Grade 8 students. I had feared that the plan sounded too good to be true in any case. A group of students, bear-infested country and bad weather - what could possibly go wrong? Many teachers in London would have relished such an opportunity. In the event, Frederick allowed his liberal sensibilites to get the better of him and postphoned the trip until the following week, with the result that a large number of kids turned up to their first lesson carrying fishing rods.
Legless At Swan's Bar
I've now been in Calgary for ten days or so and it's time to hit the road. The weather forecast for the next few days is good and I think I've got all the stuff I need to see me across the mountains. It just remains to thank my hosts, saddle my iron horse and ride south on the road they call the Cowboy Trail. Yee-haw!
