Now that the trip is finishing its second week, I thought it would be good to talk a little bit about my horse car, Sam.

Sam as a new car, June 2010

Sam has been a trouper on the journey so far.  About 10% of the total miles for the trip have been covered, and he has done it with aplomb.  He just keeps going and going.

One of the major expenses for the trip is gasoline.  Sam’s EPA rating for highway mileage is about 25 MPG, but thus far on the trip he has far surpassed that.  With the AC going pretty much all the time, and at 70+ MPH speeds on cruise control, he has been averaging about 28 MPG.

He laughs at hills.  He blows by other cars when passing.  He handles well, even with the 150 pounds of cargo box and hockey gear sitting on his hitch.

Sam on the Icefields Parkway in Jasper NP

The only problem so far occurred just outside of Dawson Creek, BC when a mean ol’ Nissan kicked up a rock that put a star in Sam’s windshield.  Given the nature of the chip, I knew that it would evolve into a large crack if not promptly treated, so I stopped at the first store that I knew would both be open on a holiday (Canada Day) and stock the necessary salve: Walmart.

I got the repair kit, found some shade in the parking lot in the shadow of an RV, and set to work.  Things might have gone better if the syringe hadn’t had a crack in it, if the RV had stayed parked, or if the adhesive donut applicator thing hadn’t failed under pressure (spewing resin all over the place), but I think the repair was mostly successful.  The chip is still visible, but the star pattern is mostly gone.  Sam will be getting a new windshield soon anyway due to a crack that’s mostly concealed by my Minnesota State Parks sticker, but I’m trying to delay that as long as possible due to the hassle of finding a replacement on the road.

Sam has surgery after taking a rock to the forehead

What Sam needs now is a good bath.  He looks like a good Subaru — that is, muddy — but I don’t think the numerous bugs are good for his paint.  I’ve sprayed him down a few times along the way, but I really need to spend an hour or so to give him a long soaking and maybe a new coat of wax.  Wouldn’t hurt to vacuum his interior, too.

So yes, on the car front, everything has been great.  I’ll do my best not to make you hit a moose, Sam!

What better place to be on Canada Day than in Canada?  After all, on Canada Day, everybody is a little bit Canadian.

Cheap Canadian flags are MADE IN CANADA, eh?

I began Canada Day in Jasper, Alberta. It was incredibly similar to being in the States on the Fourth of July, except everybody was waving around Canadian flags instead of the stars and stripes.

Canadians like Canada, eh?

Canada Day celebrates the creation of Canada back in 1867.  That was not the date of Canadian independence, which came gradually over the years.  Canada was still somewhat subordinate to the UK until 1982, when an act of the British parliament which granted Canada the right to change its own constitution.  Not that there’s anything wrong with celebrating the beginning rather than the end of the change; nobody in the States celebrates June 21, which is the anniversary of the 1788 ratification of the United States Constitution.

Jasper kicked off Canada Day with a pancake breakfast.  Pancakes are always extra delicious when enjoyed outside on a beautiful morning with big mountains sitting all around the horizon.

Pancake breakfast in Jasper, AB, eh?

From standing in line, I got the impression that there were at least a few townsfolk present, but many of the patrons seemed to be visitors.   It was hard to tell them apart.  I do know that I enjoyed my flapjacks over conversation with a family from Edmonton and a couple from Santa Cruz, California.

Pouring pancakes, eh?

I’m not sure why, but I found the celebration of Canada Day by all of the Canadians to be incredibly amusing.  It was almost like a kid (Canada) trying to emulate an adult (America) – and I mean that in the nicest way possible.  Maybe it was just my perspective.  I’m sure that foreigners find America’s Independence day festivities equally ridiculous.  Is there really much difference between a little kid riding around on a tricycle decked out in the stars and stripes versus one with a bunch of maple leaves?

For my part, I walked around in my red raincoat, which was made in Canada.  I figured it would be less alarming than walking around in my red goalie mask (which was also made in Canada).

It was time to hit the road after breakfast.  My destination was Ft. St. John, British Columbia, about 370 miles from Jasper.

Along the way, I happened upon the remote town of Grand Cache, Alberta.  Grand Cache is the sort of place that is the “next gas” and “last gas” for 100 miles in any direction. It is the center of activity for a large swath of land.  They had a Canada Day celebration, too, complete with street hockey and cake.  I was too early for hockey, so I partook in Canada birthday cake instead.

Canada Cake. The little kid to the back-left knows what's up, eh?

Canada Day was fun.  If I time things right, I might be back in Canada in October for Canadian Thanksgiving.

The grizzly was chewing on what appeared to be grass as she looked me in the eye.  To her left and right, her cubs alternated between feeding on the vegetation (maybe berries?) and rolling around.  I stood my ground, awestruck at the scene before me.

Hi there Mrs. Bear

It was my first time seeing a grizzly bear in the wild, let alone a mother with her cubs.

Don't get between mama grizzly and the cubs

Then again, I’m leaving out a couple important details, the two most pertinent being that I was 80 meters away from the bears and that an electric fence separated us.  It was hardly a wilderness encounter.  Instead, I was on the perimeter road of the tent camping area at Lake Louise Campground in Banff NP, Alberta, Canada.  The crowd that had gathered on the road was the thing that had tipped me off to grab my cameras.

I felt sorry for the people trying to snap photos with cell phones

Even though the setting was a bit artificial, it was a great sight.  The bears were truly wild.  The fence was not bear-proof – it’s a deterrent more than a barrier – so there was still an element of danger.  And anyway, I’d rather see the grizzlies in a setting like that than in my backcountry campsite.

Mama bear again

The only disappointments about the experience had to do with the photography.  First, the light wasn’t very good.  Second, it seems that my AF often decided to lock on to the grass in front of the bears rather than the bears themselves, so a number of frames turned out unusable.  Third, and most significant, was I decided to run my 1.4x TC on my 70-200/2.8, which significantly impaired that otherwise tack-sharp lens. (In case you’re thinking “Wait… don’t you have a program that’s supposed to fix blurriness?” well… yes, but the blurs here were focus blurs, not motion blurs.)

Bear cub stands on its hind legs

So, yeah.  The photos were a bit underwhelming, but my first big-mammal experience of the trip  was a reasonable success.

When I was planning this trip, I decided to start by heading north from Minnesota because, as written on the route page, “Which place is more likely to have hockey in early July: Calgary or New Orleans?”  The flaw in that logic was that I didn’t actually check to see how much hockey Calgary would have in the middle of summer.  It turned out to be more scarce that expected, and that led me to stay in the Stampede City a day longer than I had planned.

I had put out a number of feelers in advance of my arrival.  Posts and replies on Craigslist, Kijiji (which is more popular around here than Craigslist), and hockey message boards came up dry.  So did calls to the local rinks operated by the city.  They had weekday lunchtime shinny, yes, but I arrived on Friday afternoon and had planned to leave on Sunday.

I wasn’t getting anywhere, so I got the list of all of the rinks in Calgary from Rinktime and started going through them one by one.  Near the end of the list, I struck gold: the privately operated Trico Centre had evening shinny on Saturday.  I gave them a call to confirm that the shinny would be happening, and then I relaxed, knowing that I would be able to check another province off the list.  Or so I thought.

Saturday evening arrived, and I made the 10-minute drive from my hotel to the rink.  With great enthusiasm, I announced my arrival to the (very attractive) young ladies working the front desk.

“Ok, that will be $5.25” one of the women said.

“Well, you see, I’m a goalie,” I replied.

“Oh, okay.  That’s free then.  Just check your name on the reservation sheet.”

Reservation sheet?  Uh-oh.  “Wait — I thought there were no reservations?”

“Except for goalies.  Goalies phone ahead in the morning.  The spots usually fill up right away.”

D’oh.

I hadn’t made a goalie reservation, and the window to execute my backup plan (a private lesson at The Goalie Shop) had closed about half an hour earlier.  I was a goalie without ice.

I stuck around for a little while to see if the registered goalies would show up.  They did, and I didn’t have the heart to ask them to give up their spots for me.

What to do, what to do.  I knew that there would be shinny around noon the next day in Edmonton, but that would mean a six-hour round trip to get there and back, or going there and skipping Banff, neither of which were appealing.

At that point, I did the only thing I could do.  I pulled the Minnesota card.

Literally.

I said to the women at the desk, “Ok, here’s the situation.  I’m doing something that is going to sound either crazy or awesome, depending on your perspective.  I’m doing a road trip to every state and every province, playing hockey as a goalie in each of them.  Alberta is next on my list, and I really need to find a game here either today or tomorrow.  Seriously.  I’m really from Minnesota” at which point I pulled out my driver’s license and held it up for them to see.  “Is there anything that can be done?”

There was a brief pause, and then one of the girls said, “Well… it’s against the rules, but…”

And that’s how I found myself with a reserved spot to play goalie during Sunday’s shinny game.

The next day came, and I knew I was going to be in for a challenge the moment I walked into the changing room.  The half-dozen guys already there all looked about 20 years old and knew each other.  In fact, they played on the same rec league team.  That sort of situation usually indicates that they grew up playing hockey, which in turn portends a rather higher level of skill that I possess.  My fears were further reinforced by the topic of their discussion, the salient point being that their team played in the “A” tier, which is as high as the tiers go.

Things went about as expected.  I managed to get a photo of me in net:

...at least that's what it felt like. (Cheese photo credit: Arz)

The good news is that the guys were good sports about the situation, even when I fanned on a puck coming from the other end of the ice and watched helplessly as it casually went into the net.  I had fun.

The next hockey will be in Alaska in a few weeks, so I’ll have plenty of time for my ego to recover.

After a pleasant couple of days in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in which I had my first experience with AirBnB (thanks Valerie and Terry!), I continued on to Calgary.

Three buildings in the distance, west of Saskatoon

I’m not sure how many museums I plan to stop at along the trip, but the two I have visited so far have been enjoyable.

The first was the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, which looked at life and farm equipment for early settlers in Saskatchewan.  They had  a nice collection of old tractors, some of which were positively gigantic.

The second was the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta.  Drumheller is situated in the badlands of eastern Alberta, and it happens to be the location of a number of major fossil finds.  No wonder, then, that it is also the location of a major paleontology museum.

Alberta badlands. Note the golfers in the distance.

The town seems to be well aware of its dependence on dinosaur tourism.  Small fiberglass dinos are on many streets, and occasionally larger sculptures peek above the rooftops.

One of the world's most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimens. At the Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller, AB

Dinos in Space! (Children's art at the Royal Tyrrell Museum)

When I reached Calgary, the hustle and bustle was a shock to my system.  It had been nearly a week since I had last been in a major metro area (sorry Winnipeg and Saskatoon).  The sprawl, aggressive driving, and mountains in the distance reminded me of Los Angeles.  Or maybe Phoenix.  Or perhaps any number of other southwester American cities.

A traffic jam in Calgary! Oh, the novelty of it all.

Some more hockey tonight, and then it’s off to Banff tomorrow.  It will be a month until I’m again in a city as large as Calgary.