Seven Days in Canada - Road Trip Notes 2015

July 9, 2015 

North Dakota between Minot and the Canadian border was rolling, green and blustery. Oil and grain operations exist side by side, and, and with typical North Dakota fury, strong winds whipped up "potholes", as small bodies of water are called here. Shale oil and gas extraction continue into Saskatchewan. A Canadian guy working the border told me, with pride, that "North Dakota uses fracking and we don't!" Not quite the case, it turns out. Fracking is as common and controversial in Canada as it is in the USA.

A fracking site. (Screen grab.)

When we entered Canada from North Dakota the morning of June 11 we were among few tourists heading into Saskatchewan. The stern customs officer confiscated a dozen eggs due to a virulent bird-flu outbreak in Minnesota, from whence we'd come, and questioned us in detail about whether we were carrying firearms. We are not among the 30 percent of Americans, according to Gallup, who say they own a gun, and we passed into the country without hassle.

Conversely, when we returned to the USA via a small border crossing in Grand Forks, B.C., the customs people were keen on all things pharmaceutical. We speculated that some Canadians, living with strict gun control, might be itching for an AK-47 or two. And that US citizens with dozens of over-priced prescriptions prefer to buy them where they cost half of what Big Pharma gets away with in the USA. Oh yeah, Canada has price controls for prescription drugs. What a concept!

Saskatchewan and Alberta, along the Trans Canada Highway, are mostly flat and featureless. Our strategy was to get to the great national parks, Banff and Jasper, ASAP and with as little pain as possible. The distance between the border at Portal, ND, and Canmore, Alberta, our starting point for park exploration, was 670 miles. Google maps said we should figure on driving for 10 hours and 25 minutes.

Google maps doesn't know that we rarely drive more than five hours at a crack. Why should we? We're retired! We took two days.

Also, full disclosure, on this trip we slept in our Four-Wheel pop-up camper 10 nights, in motels 8 nights, and with friends or family, 11 nights. On long driving days we usually motel it, especially if the weather is threatening as it was our first two days in Canada. By the time we reached Swift Current, SA, a late- afternoon downpour was underway as we bolted with our small travel bags into a hotel.

You don't need a Four-Wheel Camper to enjoy Canada. We never once on this 30-day trip used it for its intended off-road purposes. Perhaps on a longer trip we would have. But it was cool to hang out with the tents in campgrounds because our truck with its pop-up camper often requires less space than a car hauling a family with two tents. Plus we're accustomed to the tent-camping lifestyle having practiced it for several decades. We feel at home with tent pitchers and campfire makers and people who brush their teeth in the woods and are not opposed to hiding behind a bush for "number one."

Compared to a tent, our deluxe-on-the-inside tiny camper is the Taj Mahal and we are rich. Compared with behemoth RVs, which we are occasionally forced to park amidst, we are paupers to be pitied. If they don't run their generators at night, we won't crank up our sound system. Or hide behind a bush.

PK is dishing up a dinner I prepped mostly at home and froze, reheated in a super-good nonstick pan. The Four-wheel Camper has a two-burner stove, ample refrigerator with freezer, queen-sized bed, furnace, radio and iPod plug-in, and plenty of storage. However, there's no room to dance.

On this two-day drive, and on other "let's just get there" days on this month-long road trip, we were entertained and often enthralled by three books on CD: The Round House by Louise Erdrich, 5 stars; The Tiger, a True Story of Vengeance and Survival, 5-stars; Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult, 3.5 stars.

Good books make the miles fly, and we both enjoy being whisked into worlds created by spoken words. Nothing wrong with  Lone Wolf, by the way. Like every Picoult book I've read,  the end of each chapter makes you have to start the next, and so on, the very definition of "page turner." It's just that the other two books were deeper and more thought provoking, and with Erdrich especially, beautifully crafted. Although John Vaillant,  author of The Tiger, a True Story of Vengeance and Survival, provided a riveting narrative about a little-known part of eastern Russia where tigers and people still co-exist, sometimes with bad results on both sides. The book provides fascinating history about this little-known part of Russia, but takes place in modern times. Highly recommended.

Back to the road. Along with listening to recorded books, PK and I amused ourselves by creating a list of things we learned or saw on this trip, May 24 to June 23, 2015, especially regarding Canada.

The best time to visit Banff and Jasper and British Columbia may be when we were there, early to mid-June, before summer vacation begins. Crowds were sparse, for the most part, at popular attractions. (A couple exceptions will be described in a coming post.)
Many campgrounds in Banff and Jasper were closed, but we had no problem getting sites. However, at our last Canadian campsite Thursday, June 18, the camp host informed us that starting the next day - when school let out - every site was reserved until school resumed the second week in September.

Forget the cell phone, unless you have someone you really need to keep in touch with.  We tried getting one of our phones online via two cell service providers. The first failed completely and refunded our money. After four days and several frustrating hours with the second provider, the phone got service. Why bother with a cell phone? We didn't need to make calls. I used it in a campground once to create a wifi hotspot. However, son Chris Korbulic was on a massive first descent on an island off Papua, New Guinea, and we were desperate, as parents tend to be, to hear what the hell was going on. We did get a few calming updates via the phone— he lived another day!—but wifi is widely available and we could have managed. But mostly, I'm afraid we're addicted to a pleasant voice telling us that in a quarter mile we should turn left onto highway such and such, and that, a right turn onto a specific road is coming up, and we've reached our destination when we've reached it.

August 2016 update: During our recent road trip to Vancouver Island, we paid Verizon $2 a day for service. Great deal. Verizon also provides this service for Mexico.

We learned that it is actually possible to navigate with printed maps! 

Many campgrounds in B.C. and in Banff/Jasper have dishwashing sinks outside the restrooms, often with hot water. Such a great idea.

Rental RVs are a huge trend. It seemed that every third of fourth RV was a Canadream, or a CruiseCanada, and occasionally, CruiseAmerica. Smart way to travel, it seems.

There we are on the right next to a couple of nearly identical rental RVs. 

Grizzly bears are abundant in Banff and Jasper and warnings are common. However. They are not the fear-inducing alarm-bell ringing warnings we saw and heard in the USA's Glacier National Park when we visited in August 2010. True, a couple people had been killed by grizzlies near Yellowstone in 2010. But still. PK and I bought bear spray in Glacier ($34 each!) and turned around after about a half hour of hiking through an area we were pretty sure was rich in roaring bears just like the one in photos. Hungry for the neck. Going for the gut. Agonizing death.

Bear -scare photo in Glacier National Park, USA. Note: In
Yellowstone Park, where we spent a couple days early in the trip,
you can RENT bear spray canisters.

The spirit of the Canadian national park's grizzly bear warnings are more along the lines of protecting the bears from stupid people. In other words, Look, folks. If you provoke or surprise the bears, or tempt them with careless camping, you put them in danger because a bear that attacks people is doomed. Those are not the words used, of course, but that's what they mean. Also, in Banff (and maybe Jasper) it is illegal to hike/backpack in bear country with fewer than four people. Don't be stupid is the underlying message.

The few "rest areas" we used along the Trans Canada Highway in Alberta were filthy urine-soaked stinking messes. No flush toilets. Wet floors. No sinks. One just east of Calgary, I could not bring myself to use. Other areas we visited in Canada offered restrooms in the true sense of the word.

Just west of Calgary, Alberta, and not far from our destination the second night out of North Dakota,  we got a hint of magnificent things to come. We stayed that night in Canmore, a lovely tourist town just outside of Banff, and the next morning, we launched into the best of the Canadian Rockies. Blog with more photos, fewer words, coming soon.

One thing can be said for sure about these two Canadian national parks; the postcard shots are everywhere and the scenery stretches over days on the road. On hiking trails, it could go on for months. Maybe a lifetime.

Vacation weight gain? Zucchini etc to the rescue

Today's take from our two zucchini plants, which have suddenly roared into high production. I grated most of a medium zucchini then nuked the "noodles" for a minute and a half.

PK and I returned last week from a month away. We biked. We hiked. We danced to the Rolling Stones. We ate too much, or at least I ate too much. We sat on our butts for nearly 5,000 miles of travel to the Midwest and back, via Canada. Great trip. But. Butt. 

I gained five pounds. PK doesn't seem any fatter. Still a skinny SOB. But me? The enlarged rolls around the middle are insidious, hideous, entirely ridicuilious. (re-dick-u-ill- e-us). And also bilious.

I've developed a self-defeating habit for one who is privileged to travel. I relax my low-carbish diet on vacations as I relax everything else. Sometimes that's OK,  such as when we're dependent upon others for sustenance or when the sustenance supplied is not commensurate with what my overfed body expects. Hence when we returned from Africa in 2013, I had lost a few pounds.

But on this trip we were self-medicated with food and well treated by all the hosts who went out of their way to please us. Great stuff! Sandwiches every day, potato salad, pasta salad, desserts! And now ..... overstuffed, as witness the pants that won't zip. 

After this morning's weigh-in and a scary look at my belly during down dog at yoga, I determined to rev up a carb-correction plan that includes substituting zucchini, cauliflower, green beans and other veggies for rice, pasta, potatoes, bread and other delicious items that make a person gain weight not just because they're caloric, but also because refined carbs produce blood sugar spikes that lead to appetite spikes that lead to driving spikes into the heart. (Spikes in heart—for desperate cases only.)

Zucchini is going bonkers in the garden and so.....

ZUCCHINI NOODLES

Two servings. Select a fresh medium or medium-large zucchini, preferably one in which seeds have not yet formed. Seeds make for weak noodles.

Grate into longish strands using a box grater or a food processor. 

Microwave in a covered glass bowl on high for a minute. Check after a minute to see if the noodles need another 30 seconds or so. They should be hot and limp, but not slimy or falling apart. You want them to hold together for whatever sauce you'll douse them with. They're great with a bit of crunch left.

The short story here: it is easy to make zucchini "noodles" using a box grater, or a food processor or a mandolin.

Microwaved zucchini noodles should be well drained before dressing with sauces. 

My virtuous lunch comprising reheated marinara meat sauce topped with zuke noodles, shredded Parmesan, and fresh basil.

Easy as falling off a .... Cliff?!

I wrote the article below in June 1979 while working for a weekly newspaper in Rogue River, OR, and was also learning to row whitewater. PK was a kayaker and we were on the front end of decades of river running. Even then, I obviously had all the river-running types correctly pegged. (Read on rafters, drift boaters, and so on.)

I ran across this old clipping recently and marveled at how prophetic! I had no idea that years later our own son would become a chief officer in the international club of crazy kayakers.

The 1979 newspaper piece:

There are five or so classifications of local boaters. 

Drift boaters get up before dawn, love rainy days, eat kipper snacks, and can fish for 48 uninterrupted hours. 

Muscle boaters have oiled bodies with fabulous tans. They wear stretch knit bathing suits Their crafts sparkle with chrome and their 600-HP motors pull water skiers at breakneck speed. They drink beer from cans and always have a barbecue to attend. 

Rafters laugh at the river. They wear pillow-sized life jackets and smile beneath sunburned noses. They like to sit around the campfire at night drinking Jack Daniels and swapping tales about who almost got pitched over the side. 

The orange torpedo captains carry books rating rapids on a scale of one to 20. They wear sneakers full of holes and their legs are tan in front and white in back. They are moderately nuts. 

Kayakers are the real crazies. While other boaters enjoy sitting around a friendly campfire roasting marshmallows, kayakers are at the edge of the circle chewing raw meat or in the woods digging for roots and grubs.  

In the morning while others are snug in warm sleeping bags, kayakers run naked, scaling dangerous cliffs and challenging local wildlife to feats of strength. 

The kayaker in the photos is typical of the breed. He is Rick Schlumpberger of Rogue River Outfitters, plunging off a cliff on the Illinois River in his kayak. Before this unretouched photo was taken, Schlumpberger had eaten a 17-pound raw steelhead and had taken a five-mile upstream swim. MK

If anybody knows Rick S., please pass this along. I think he'd get a kick out of it. Maybe he's still chewing raw meat outside of campfire circles?

Chris, "falling off a cliff" on Toketee Falls on the North Umpqua River
 just a couple hours from home.  2011.

A little family river history

PK built himself a fiberglass kayak in 1977 while I was pregnant with our first child. Quinn. Fiberglass construction and pregnant women do not mix owing to noxious glue fumes, which in this case, slammed through the kitchen window as kayak fabrication was being conducted beneath it.

But fiberglass was the only way to go kayaking in the 70s, which PK was hellbent on doing.

Hmm. Wonder where our son Chris got the kayaking bug?

The important thing was that if I didn't want to stay home while PK was on the river, I needed to row. (I was not tempted to kayak.) When our baby boy, Quinn, was about two I learned to navigate whitewater and thus became captain of what was known as the daycare raft. Chris was born when Quinn was nine, prolonging my daycare raft duties.

No complaints. I loved sharing the outdoors and the river with our boys (and their friends). Both went on innumerable day-trips with PK and me on the Rogue, as well as dozens of  3-day family trips on the Rogue's Wild and Scenic section. Those were some of our best days ever.

They grew to love it, although Quinn took a bit longer and was in his late 20s before he was declared "boatman of the year" when he rowed the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on a 28-day private trip during which his father rowed, Chris kayaked, and I hiked to  the bottom of the canyon to camp with the group for a couple days.

Chris is a now professional kayaker. As I write this, he's just back from a recent expedition to Papua New Guinea, and he and his father are on a day trip on the home river. Makes me smile.

Passing it on. Quinn  Korbulic giving his son Noah his first rowing lesson on the Rogue.

PK rowing the Salmon River with me in front. He missed that bus-sized hole. 

Chris, then 15, earned the right to row his first rapid, a class 4 on the Snake River, by winning a bet with PK, who's having a white-knuckle ride. The bet: if PK throws a rock into the air, and Chris hits the rock with another before the first rock hits the ground, Chris takes the oars. We wouldn't let Chris kayak this river, which he wanted to do, because he would have been the only one in a kayak. Instead, he took on a big rapid with the raft. 

Kayaker Chris at 15.

In case you're wondering, where are the photos of me rowing? Well, I have a few in printed form but have yet to digitize.  My favorite is of going through Blossom Bar on the Rogue (Class 4) with friend Linda Shonk holding onto Chris, who was then about five or six. One of these days......

Related posts

Bears on the River
Loving the Rogue and why I mostly gave it up
Nomad kayaking son....Will I survive?

How'd that work out? Leaving the garden from late May to late June?

Email subscribers - to view this post on the website, where it is more pleasing even despite sad garden photos, click here.

Weeds flourish alongside beets that are protected from birds with wire screen. Damn the birds. Find your own food! (But not our blueberries, please.)

We just got home after a month away. We had a great time traveling to an early-June family reunion in Minnesota, with lots of side trips, then home through Canada's national parks. Fabulous!

However, it wasn't that much fun to see the garden upon our return. If you're used to seeing garden lushness on this blog, you may notice and enjoy the contrast with earlier posts.

We'd planted what we believe to be a modest patch in late April/early May and enlisted a gardener friend to keep it alive in our absence. She stopped by every other day or so whilst juggling her three other jobs and managing a complicated personal life. PK had set up "automatic watering" for much, but not all, of the smallest—but still too ambitious—garden we've had in years.

While we were traipsing about, southern Oregon temps soared into the 90s for days on end. Our automatic watering system turned out to be uneven. Let's just say that we have a lot of work to do!

Is it a good idea to leave your garden as plants are just getting started in late spring and early summer? No. It is not a good idea. It is really stupid. If we want to continue gardening and also traveling, we'll need to figure out a schedule kinder to our garden or just give it up for awhile.

Leeks survived sparse watering, onions did OK, and the rest of the garden limped along in absence of the daily attention required in early season. It will all come around with TLC.

The mostly-perennial bed got adequate water and managed to beat out the weeds. 

Two butternut squash plants will likely fill this space once they get enough water. They're sad now.

Oh the poor basil! These guys should be bush-sized. Tomorrow the plants will be weeded, deeply watered, fertilized and maybe even chanted over. Groooooommmmm. I am craving Caprese salad!

Let's just say this is a super lush patch of pig weed where we'd planted poppies, or so we thought. I'll be yanking those suckers out tomorrow and hunting for something colorful to fill the space.

Our blueberries are in full production and our wonderful garden keeper picked and froze many bags for us. I harvested some tonight for tomorrow's breakfast. Birds ruin about half the crop every year, including this one. We still get a lot of berries. We still like birds.

I can't complain about early summer zucchini, sweet yellow peppers,  a Walla Walla onion, and a few cherry and Early Girl tomatoes, some of which we ate for our welcome-home dinner. I'm sure the garden is glad we're back, but not the deer that had taken up residence under a huge holly bush convenient to our landscaping, which it has apparently been enjoying. Ok, garden, abundant water, fertilizer and TLC coming your way tomorrow!

Posts, so far, about our recent travels.

Cutting back on gardening to travel. Really?

Road tripping in the Four Wheel Camper'

Biking 100 miles in two days makes for a sore rear end.

Yellowstone Park, and getting along on the road.

Rolling Stones concert in Minneapolis, June 3, 2015

Changing Times in North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park

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We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune." Theodore Roosevelt

A lone buffalo forages before the snows begin in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, South Unit, October 2008. On our recent visit, the grass was lush and the buffs were shedding their winter coats. Bison herds had been decimated by the time Roosevelt visited the ND Badlands in 1883. After he became President in 1901, Roosevelt used his authority to protect wildlife and public lands by creating the U.S. Forest Service and establishing 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, 150 National Forests, 5 National Parks, and enabling the1906 American Antiquities Act which he used to proclaim 18 National Monuments. During his presidency,Theodore Roosevelt protected approximately 230,000,000 acres of public land. (National Park Service). 

The first thing PK and I did when entering North Dakota in late May was to stop  at the western-most Visitors' Center on I-94 seeking info about the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We'd visited the South Unit eight years ago and loved it. Now we wanted to explore the rest of the park.

PK and I were surprised and delighted at TR National Park's rugged beauty in 2008. Ancient wagon tracks tell a story about the past, and we imagined Teddy Roosevelt charging around here on horseback, becoming inspired  to protect public lands and the wild creatures that inhabit them. 

Really? "The young woman at he Visitor's Center said. "I can't recommend it."
Why? we asked, even though we know that the state's extensive oil extraction is heaviest in the state's northwest corner. Surely it wasn't impacting the park?! (Duh.)

She went on to describe how constant oil industry traffic has made the road from I-94 to the North Unit the "deadliest in North Dakota" and how oil operations near the park compromise the wilderness experience for park visitors.

There is concern that drilling could even occur in the park. (5-minute video.)

When I explained that I grew up in North Dakota and was curious about what's happening up there, she said,  "It would just make you sad."

It makes her sad for sure. She spoke about farms being dissected by oil company easements that greatly enrich some, but not all, of the locals; how oil companies, working in sparsely populated areas have hired quickly and carelessly from the "outside", introducing a criminal element into previously "safe" communities. How drugs and prostitution have blighted the area and  how many North Dakotans have been corrupted by the sudden influx of big money, creating distrust and discord in some small traditional farming communities that have suddenly outgrown all their infrastructure, and where some have become millionaires while others can no longer afford rent.

"This isn't who we are," she said, shaking her head.

She, and many others warned us about driving through the northwestern part of the state on our return to Oregon. Heavy truck traffic on two-lane roads and roads in poor condition were often mentioned. We ended up NOT driving through the  heart of oil operations in North Dakota under which the Bakken Formation lies, but skirted it. Wikipedia explains that the formation underlies the Williston Basin and occupies about 200,000 square miles in parts of Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Oil wells and grain storage units exist side by side along I-94
in the southwestern part of North Dakota.

Meanwhile, back at the South Unit, PK and I enjoyed a short
but lovely ride on the park's 36-mile loop drive during which
we saw buffalo herds and wild horses and hardly any people.

The Little Missouri River cuts through the park where Theodore Roosevelt
once roamed. This overview was accessed via a short trail.

Just a mile or so from the park,  I-94 cuts across the state's southern end, carrying loads of tourists going elsewhere. I suggest they stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park  and see what  first inspired the Conservation President to preserve the public parks and lands we value so much. 

Oil on the move. Everywhere.

We visited Minot, North Dakota, the northern city where I grew up and graduated from high school, during our return to Oregon, a journey we're still on, now in Saskatchewan headed for Canadian national parks. 

More about Minot and North Dakota's true wonders coming soon. 

Earlier posts about this road trip:

Road tripping in the Four Wheel Camper'

Biking 100 miles in two days makes for a sore rear end.

Yellowstone Park, and getting along on the road.

Rolling Stones concert in Minneapolis, June 3, 2015