The Canadian Adventure

Part 1 - 11th September 1996

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This is the first episode in a short series entitled "The Canadian Adventure", and subtitled "It's as weird as I thought - Shauny's adventures in Muffin Land". If you're expecting structure, incisive wit and canny observation you'd better stick to Clive James, but I'll do my best to capture the other-worldly oddity of North America.

We'll start with the flight. I was quite lucky to get a window seat next to a woman who was quite chatty and didn't have any unfortunate characteristics beyond wearing a home-made brown sweater. She was off to travel around BC, with no work permit and an idea that voluntary work might be a good way of earning enough food to stay alive. She thought I was very brave moving over here, but it's easy to be brave when you've a four star hotel, a rental car and a job waiting for you. She wasn't even sure where she was going to sleep when she arrived. Tip for future visitors: drink lots of fluid on the ‘plane. I'd had six shots of alcohol in the first hour of flight and was dehydrated for the rest of the trip.

Vancouver airport is quite an experience. It was only opened in June this year and is a feast of "First Nations" (i.e. Red Indian) culture. Thrill at the thirty foot indoor waterfall, marvel at the stonking great totem poles in the lobby, rejoice in the efficiency with which your 20th chattels are returned to you. I was hailing a cab 20 minutes after landing. More totem poles wait for you in the car park. My plan to get one for the living room seems unnecessary - I had seen so many in the first hour in the country that I reckon they must come as standard.

The hotel is comfy. I've got a kitchen and sitting (for which read "dumping") area as well as a bedroom and bathroom. The truly wonderful Darlene McCaw (relocation lady) had thoughtfully filled the fridge with food. I'll have to marry her or something.

Next day I picked up the rental (don't say "hire") car, a Ford Contour automatic, which is a Mondeo apart from slightly different front and back ends. It took a good hour to get used to having a window pillar right in front of my left shoulder and I'm instinctively looking the wrong way for the rear view mirror, but otherwise driving is easy over here. At traffic lights you can turn right even if the lights are red - this is unnerving at first but is a rule the UK should adopt (for left turns). The yanks don't seem to have got the concept of central locking though - the key only opens one door, and you have a separate switch to lock/unlock all the others. This makes it a doddle to lock your keys inside the car too: there is no mechanism preventing you from locking the driver's door. The air-con is welcome though.

On the first day it rained. And the second and third. Still, I was in a new country and wasn't going to let something like that put me off so I duly set off to explore the town. I did Stanley Park (complete with totem poles - quelle surprise), ate chocolate cake on the sun-veranda overlooking the harbour, then drove up the side of Cypress Mountain. I didn't see any Black Bears, but the black squirrels were quite prolific. I anticipate good views as soon as the clouds clear. At the top of the mountain road the clouds are below you, and a few loiter in between the trees. A strange sight.

I'll save television for a message all of its own. Suffice it to say that it is pretty dire, but I found the all-evening Star Trek channel last night so there are high spots.

Sunday - rafting on the Thompson River. I was somewhat surprised to find that this was 250 miles away, but no-one else seemed concerned so I made out that I was quite accustomed to driving that sort of distance just to get to the Post Office. It was still raining when we started out, but after 150 miles we broached a mountain pass and the sun exploded onto the scene, where it stayed for the rest of the day. The rafting itself was as good as it was in Ontario, although the river was quite different - very wide and fast with much fewer rocks. The first half of the 40km trip was quite gentle, with plenty of time for the guide to point out Osprey nests, genuine wagon trails from last century, long horned sheep, local legend sites. After a break for wasp sandwiches the river transformed into frothing turgidity, big standing waves and near death experiences. The volume and speed of the water made the rowing easier than before, despite the distance involved. And the scenery (sorry if I harp on about this) was breathtaking - the river wound down between mini-mountains, about 1000 feet high, and I half expected Champion the Wonder Horse to come leaping over a rock at any moment. Very wild west looking.

My fellow rafters (all British MDA people and a few spouses) seem to get on well, and are a sociable bunch. After the rafting we all stopped off at a pancake restaurant for some grub. It's much better to meet people in a social situation - you very soon get to see what they're really like, whereas in work you might not even meet them all for the first week.

Supermarkets. My biggest challenge so far. Surprised? I was. You'd think that after ten years of Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s I'd be quite safe but no! Not supermarkets Canada style. After an hour and a half of wandering up and down the aisles of Safeway I had half a watermelon, some outrageously expensive cheese (that they claimed was imported mature cheddar, but which turned out to be nothing more grand than the prepacked stuff you get in the UK bargain buckets), and a few assorted bags of crispy things. Everything seems prepacked, processed, decorated, ready-to-eat, just add chemicals and microwave. Bread very unimpressive, although the fruit is spectacular - nectarines and apples the size of grapefruit. And there's no alcohol of any sort to be found! I went down to Steveston (allegedly an quaint old part of Richmond, i.e. about 70 years) last night and bought some wine in a Beer and Wine Store. These are open late but sell no spirits. Liquor Stores sell sprits and are owned by the government, but are almost never open, and make you feel like "A bottle of Malt Whisky please" comes out as "The latest edition of Whips and Chains please". Very strange.

I now have a bank account. They cost a fortune in monthly bank charges. Forget free banking, this is the land of you-want-it-you-pay-for-it. The local version of the AA, for example, generously offers three tows a year, providing they don't exceed 5km! That barely gets you to the next tree. I could push a car that far.

Richard Hall and I went out to a pub in Kitsilano on Saturday night, and ran into some of the other English guys drinking Guinness (albeit from cans). "Guinness" is in the Microsoft Word dictionary you’ll be thrilled to know... Bars are quite rare since its hard for them to get a license if they don't serve food. You also get waitress service, and on this particular evening, live music. The beer comes in half litres when they here an English accent, 250ml otherwise! And they don't close until late - it must be an English thing that I've got used to, but when I get home from a pub in England it’s rarely later than 11.30pm. But here it might be 1am and my entire body clock is thrown. I'll just have to adjust I guess.

Beer is expensive here, and so an alternative is to brew-your-own. You go to the shop and pick your flavour (many well known brands available), they put it in a bucket, you add the supplied pack of yeast and then you come back in four weeks and put it into the supplied bottles. All sounds a bit silly, but it does get you off paying extra high beer tax.

On the subject of which, tax is all-pervasive here. All marked prices exclude tax. Nearly everything incurs 8% Provincial tax. Some things also incur 7% General Sales tax. Some things incur GST if you buy one, but not if you buy six. Even the locals are confused. Even if you buy a second hand car privately, you have to pay 7% tax when you change the registration into your name.

Yesterday I was momentarily startled by a mountain range. The sun came out after three days of rain, probably because I was starting work. Driving home I happened to glance North and there they were! A mountain range where previously had only been clouds. The north shore mountains (Cypress, Seymour, Grouse) are the closest skiing places to town and are only a half hour or so drive from here.

I think I'll break there for now. Richard and I are going to try the Mad Cow restaurant in Richmond tonight. All questions on Canadian culture will be gladly answered!