by Neil Peart
The road led me south again the following morning, through patches of fog in the cool, clear sunrise under stippled pink and purple clouds. Once again, traffic grew heavier further south, and the rest of the day seemed to be dominated by getting through, around, and past other vehicles.
Once I went speeding past an old couple, and smiled as I imagined their conversation: him grumbling about me, and her telling him not to be such an old grouch. Then suddenly I was in tears, thinking, “I’ll never get to be a grumpy old grandpa!”
Two-thirds of the way down the island, I turned west to head across to the Pacific side, and I stopped at a rare stand of old-growth cedars called Cathedral Grove. Standing in the muffled gloom under the mighty columns justified the name well enough, for it did feel like a pagan temple to the sanctity and mystery of Nature. But it was sobering to reflect that, as with the dwindling redwoods and sequoias in California, or the white pines in Ontario, the remaining groves were now rare enough that they each had a name. It was admirable that these remnants had been preserved, of course, but it was depressing to reflect on what they actually represented: all the millions of trees that once shaded the surrounding lands, and most of the continent, and were now gone forever. The ghost forests.
One other remnant of old-growth forest surrounded a set of inlets on the Pacific coast called Clayoquot Sound, the scene of one of Canada’s fiercest struggles between environmentalists and the lumber companies. I seemed to recall the protesters had won at least a qualified victory, but once again I was appalled to see what a rear-guard action they — we — were fighting. Not to slow down the destruction to a more controllable pace, but simply to protect the very last specimens of a disappearing forest long enough for it to be appreciated. And missed. On a rock face along the roadside a witty graffiti artist had painted, “TELEPHONE POLES — LAST OF THE OLD GROWTH.”
The Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, a busy little tourist town on the Pacific shore, made a welcome contrast to the Seagate Hotel in Port Hardy. Perched above the waves breaking gently on the beaches of sand and stones, where a foghorn played its two-note tuba part from a thick cloud-bank on the western horizon, the rooms were comfortable and luxurious, and the restaurant was truly superb.
Danny had told me about a mutual friend who had been asking about me, Gay Burgiel, a longtime cycling companion who had also been one of my correspondents in my former life of letter writing (and much else that was “former”). Over dinner I decided to start on a letter to her, the way I used to do sometimes during solitary meals, and see if it would work for me.
Gay and I had first met on a cycling tour of northeast China in 1985, along with Bob and Rosie Boysen, a couple of her fellow members of the New Jersey cycling club, the Western Jersey Wheelmen. In subsequent years I had joined them on their own self-guided bicycle trips, which I christened “BoysenTours,” over the Alps a couple of times, across the Pyrenees, and, about 12 years previously, over the Canadian Rockies from Calgary to Vancouver on a route similar to that which I was about to travel in the opposite direction.
Sept. 16, ’98
Wickaninnish Inn
Tofino, B.C.
Dear Gay,
It’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me I know, but . . . I’ve had a bad year (I’m given to understatement lately). It’s been even longer since I’ve had a “dinner guest” like this, but I thought I’d give it a try. Lately my life has consisted of trying things I used to like, and seeing if they’re still any good. Starting over, in so many ways, and on such shaky footing. Everything I ever believed has been blown out of the water, even my simple karmic morality of “you do good and you get good.” Sadly (very sadly), ’taint so.
Anyway, before I get myself (and you) all tied up in abstractions, I’ll try my old pattern in these kind of “catch-up” letters: I’ll start from now and work backwards, at least as far back as I dare in a public restaurant . . .
“Now” is dinner at the Pointe, in the above-named inn, with its hemi-duodecagonal (I think that’s “half of 12”?) view out to Clayoquot Sound, a Japanese watercolor of islands, clouds, and sea. I am most of the way through an extraordinary dinner of oysters, chowder (though far above conventional dishes with that name), and sea bass, with all sorts of delicious little goodies alongside (wild rice, asparagus, crab, salsa, etc), and a dessert I can only describe as “A Symphony in Plum:” sorbet, mousse, confit, accompanied by coffee and Port. You know I’ve had some good meals in my former life, and this ranks with the best of them. Nice view too.
Sept. 17
Ferry dock, Nanaimo
After a great sleep to the gentle music of the waves outside my room, I set off early this morning across Vancouver Island (what I call an “entertaining” road, with lots of twists and turns of every description), back through the small area of old-growth forest called Cathedral Grove, breakfast in Port Alberni, and to the ferry dock near Nanaimo.
I set off on August 20th, two months after Jackie’s death, and one year and 10 days after Selena’s, on what I soon came to think of as “The Healing Road” (I’m hoping so, at least). At the time there was no way of knowing if travelling would “work” for me, especially alone, but it has proved to be the best remedy so far. After returning from Barbados, where we had gone for what proved to be a fairly quick, and fairly merciful decline for Jackie (a broken heart works even faster than what the doctors called cancer), I spent a few weeks in Toronto taking care of necessary business and putting that house up for sale, then I went “home” to Quebec.
I spent a month there, which wasn’t too bad (despite being surrounded by countless happy family memories), but I knew staying there alone through the fall and winter would not be good. No matter where I go, I have a sense of this very palpable “deep dark hole” right beside me, and there have been times when I’ve had an almost physical sense of pulling myself back from it. Certainly this is a dangerous time for me, and if I were to fall into a dark bitterness, a bottle of whisky, or a bag of white powder, who would blame me? Early on in this double nightmare, I remember thinking, “How does anyone survive something like this? And if they do, what comes out the other end?”
Well, I don’t know, but I am going to find out, for I am armored by one small reflex in my nature: “Something will come up.”
Travelling has given me small moments of Truth and Beauty (highways, landscapes, wildlife) and even a few fugitive moments of enjoying life again. There are still tears, and dark moods, and that omnipresent “deep dark hole,” but it’s always better to be moving.
And now, ferry time approaches . . .
Later that same day . . . Hope, B.C.
Memories of our stay here on the BoysenTours trip in . . . what? ’86? ’87? Anyway, I went from a sunny picnic bench at the ferry dock to a cloudy, then rainy two-hour crossing. Putting on my foul weather gear, I rode off into heavy rain, and heavy traffic. Combined with navigating unfamiliar and fairly complicated roads, that makes for demanding motorcycling. I was thinking today that bicycling wouldn’t work nearly as well on “The Healing Road,” for motorcycling is so much more demanding mentally that it helps to keep my thoughts occupied with decision-making, physical execution (not aerobic, but still plenty of work on those “interesting” roads), scanning, defending (as on a bicycle, assume you’re invisible), navigating, machine-monitoring, and maybe a little sightseeing at the same time.
You and the other Wheelpeople will perhaps be encouraged to know that I got into bicycling in a big way in Barbados. To make a brief getaway from the constant vigil over Jackie, I would leave her in the care of her sister, Deb, and go riding every second morning on the grueling and sweltering roads of northern Barbados, eventually covering pretty well every road, lane, and cowpath within two hours of the house we rented. That and birdwatching became my major diversions during two-and-a-half months there, and, combined with a lot of reading, helped to preserve some percentage of my sanity (a quantity yet to be determined!). I also managed to identify all
but two of the island’s 24 native bird species.
Tonight I settled on a Best Western here in the aptly named (for me) Hope, after a tour of the town’s offerings. As a perfect contrast to last night, I dined at the “Home” restaurant, turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, cauliflower, and a chocolate milkshake. All this trip I’ve tried to alternate nights of comparative luxury with nights in humbler places: Mom-and-Pop motels and diners. Generally I’ve resisted reservations, except for the boat from Alaska to Prince Rupert, which was hard to get even six weeks in advance, and last night’s inn, which Danny and Janette recommended when I visited them last week. Tonight I tried to book the Chateau Lake Louise for a couple of nights from now, for I’ve always wanted to stay there, but no luck. I’ve booked the Banff Springs Hotel instead, which looks similar, but lacks that view.
After dinner, I took a walk to look for where we all stayed the previous time [on the BoysenTours ride from Calgary to Vancouver], and though it’s now a Quality Inn, I recognized it right off, and the restaurant where that unbearable person [an “entertainer”] was making such a lame racket; a Chinese place now. Wasn’t it here where you and Stan went in search of freewheel parts? Anyway, it seems a nice little town, and changed only in details in 11 or 12 years.
[Then follows a recap of my travels, leading to this conclusion:] 14,500 kilometres (9,062 miles) in four weeks, including five “idle” days in Vancouver with the Lindley-Pearts.
Sept. 18
Nelson, B.C.
This morning I spotted the place where all of us bicyclists stopped for lunch near Hedley that time: a big old farmhouse kind of place with a back deck, and, I recall, a very slow waitress. Earlier I took a ride up to Cascade Lookout, in Manning Park, where Bob, Henry, and I did the “optional” eight-mile-long, 2,000-foot-high climb, while the sensible people (like you) reclined on the sloping lawn of the lodge.
From Princeton, I took a different route, staying near the U.S. border through Osoyoos (“Canada’s Only Desert,” and a pretty town on a big lake), Trail (site of the Winter Olympics some years ago, but basically a mining town), and Castlegar (another one for the name, often seen on Canada’s Weather Network). Around there it started to rain hard once more, so I opted for another Best Western in Nelson (a pleasant little town, with lots of “outdoorsy” shops). After a shower and hanging things up to dry, the rain had stopped, and a walkabout led me here to the Heritage Inn, and the General Store restaurant. Good Caesar salad so far, steak to come.
On this trip I’ve been carrying my little tent and a sleeping bag, just for insurance, and even though I haven’t used them yet, I just love having them, for I never have to worry about finding a room. Same with my little gallon container of gas; I’ve only used it once so far, and I love not worrying about it. Up in the Yukon and Alaska it was way too cold to think about camping, but I’m hoping to do some once I work my way down to the Mojave, for I think that would have to be fabulous. I didn’t bother with cooking supplies, for you can always get food, but I’m hoping to meet up with my erstwhile riding companion Brutus for a couple of weeks next month, and we could just take some sandwiches and a bottle of wine and go camp in the desert, and that would be fine.
My long-term sort-of plan (now that I’m daring to have one) is to zigzag my way south, staying west of the Mississippi, and maybe end up in Mexico and Belize. If I can stay on the road until after Christmas (that formerly happy family season), that would be best. Then I might store my bike somewhere down there and fly back to Quebec for January and February (primo snow season for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing), and after that I could either rejoin my faithful steed and head north, or continue south to South America. From Day One of this Homeric Odyssey (monsters on every side!) I decided to keep it all flexible, with lots of opportunity to change or even bail out if I felt like it. The operative theme is “Whatever Works.” No putting demands on myself, no commitments, and no goals. Except survival.
Please pass my regards (and/or this letter) to Bob, Rosie, and Henry, and I want you all to know that I’m slowly picking up the pieces of my shattered life. We just have to wait and see what the puzzle reveals!
For now, I’m okay as long as I keep moving . . .
With heartfelt affection, NEP
Among the few, tiny, yet radiant sparks of hope in my “something will come up” file, those vague imaginings which kept me going down that highway, was a glimmer of fantasy in the back of my mind that I might stumble across my own personal Eden. In my past travels in the world, whenever I came across a place that charmed me I had always been drawn to fantasize about settling down there for awhile: a village in the Bavarian Alps, an island in the Caribbean, the narrow streets of the Île de la Cité in Paris, a tented camp in the Serengeti Plain. Lately, that fantasy had been especially compelling for me, a secret wish of discovering a place of beauty and peace where I could hide away forever.
I had heard stories of people who had suddenly found the place where they wanted to spend the rest of their lives, a home of their choosing rather than the accidental background of their upbringing, and I hoped that such an epiphany might happen to me someday, somewhere. Just considering the four wildly disparate examples given above — Alpine village, tropical island, European city, and African savanna — I didn’t really imagine that there could be a single place that would satisfy all those desires, but I could still hope, and carry that additional perspective with me when I surveyed a new place.
On this journey, the area around Nelson was the first time I entertained those kind of thoughts. Nelson itself had a hip kind of small-town atmosphere, and it was surrounded by the forested mountains that were the most frequent reflection of my “soulscape.” For some people that inner Shangri-La was represented by an ocean shore, for some a desert mesa, for some a bustling city, but for me it was a wooded lake in the mountains — like the house by the lake in the Laurentians, not coincidentally, which I had been away from for a month now, and was already missing whenever I allowed my thoughts to return there. But that didn’t satisfy my current fantasy; I was idly looking for a new soulscape, one not haunted by the Ghosts of Christmas Past.
Under a heavy overcast, the highway leading north from Nelson ran along the shore of a long arm of Kootenay Lake, and I pictured myself out there rowing for mile after mile under the lowering clouds, my restless spirit soothed by leaning into the oars in a steady, strong rhythm of forgetfulness, then returning to my solitary cabin among the misty evergreens to drowse over a book by the fire.
However, I soon put these fantasies aside, as the road demanded my complete attention. Those lowering clouds began to weep, and after an hour of smooth winding pavement BC 31 led me through 100 kilometres of gradually worsening dirt and gravel, and ultimately dwindled to a one-lane logging road of mud twisting high above long, narrow Trout Lake, surrounded by mountains scarred with the mange of clear-cut logging. As I slowly negotiated the tight, narrow switchbacks, carefully choosing where to place my wheels among the puddles, rocks, ruts, and gravel berms, the rain continued to pour down, and I saw perhaps two other vehicles in that whole distance. I had set out with a vague notion of stopping somewhere for breakfast, but there was nothing along that road, and eventually I gave up on the idea, driven on by the rain, my slow progress along a perilous track of unknown length, and eventually, a feeling of withdrawing into a shell, which made me reluctant to stop anywhere at all.
A ferry carried me and a surprising number of cars and RVs, who had arrived at the same place by a more civilized route (I could tell because they were so clean, while my bike and I were mud-spattered and disreputable looking), across Upper Arrow Lake. Riding north to Revelstoke for fuel, I turned onto the rainy, busy Trans-Canada Highway, cautiously guarding my distance from the spray-trailing trucks and sloppily driven RVs. As I climbed toward the invisible summit of Rogers Pass I felt the cold penetrating my leathers and rainsuit, and I turned on the heated vest and grips, grimly contemplated the road ahead, and pondered
a song title, “Clouds Hanging on My Handlebars.” (Not that I was thinking about songwriting, but I must have retained that built-in reflex to the rhythm of lyrical words.)
In past years, I had crossed Rogers Pass by car and by bicycle. Now it was by motorcycle, and I had yet to see the fabled view of the white summits around it. It looked beautiful in pictures, though. A few elk at the roadside were the only scenic attractions that day.
The charms of Banff were also obscured, though not by clouds and rain. In contrast to Nelson, this once-picturesque small town in the Rockies had been completely devoured by tourism, the streets lined with tacky souvenir shops and packed with cars, RVs, and countless tour buses.
The Banff Springs Hotel had an imposing castle-like presence, and indoors, a venerable, even palatial atmosphere on the grand scale, but it felt as impersonal and factory-like as had the bus-tour hotels in Alaska. The lure of “scenic wilderness” had been packaged beyond an inch of its life, until the experience was not only tarnished, but completely hollow.
Walking into the Alberta Dining Room in the hotel, I was first taken aback at its vastness, and then by the throngs of bus-tour groups, with numbered flags on their large round tables, and I noticed that most of them seemed to be Japanese. A trio of guitar, piano, and drums was playing on a low stage, and I laughed out loud when I recognized the song they were plunking out: “Sukiyaki,” a hit from the early ’60s that I had always presumed to be a parody of Japanese music. However, it got a round of apparently genuine applause, and as the band went on to perform renditions of tunes by the Gipsy Kings, Duke Ellington, and Billy Joel, every third song or so was a completely unfamiliar bit of cheesy fluff — apparently Japanese pop hits, judging by the spirited clapping that followed.
