Surviving the Trans-Canada
Entering Kenora in my car, the sun having set a couple of hours ago, I let my guard down. It had been a long day of driving, all the way from Sault Ste-Marie, on the heels of the previous day’s drive from Montreal. I had a buoyant feeling of anticipation at this stage, thinking that all I had to do was find my generic hotel, check in, go to my room, watch an hour of television and drift off to sleep in an odourless bed.
But it was premature to relax. A deer darted out in front. The occurrence seemed impossible. I had thought deers only leapt out in front of vehicles in the middle of the wilderness. My foot stomped the brake instinctively and I swerved to the left, coming close to the incoming traffic. She was a white-tailed deer. She was looking beyond the car to the other side of the road and could not fathom the reason for the discordant brake squealing and tire skidding. She turned away, loping back into the darkness.
I woke up well before dawn. This would be the most difficult day, I had told myself. I wanted to get all the way from Kenora to Edmonton. I didn’t bother with breakfast or coffee. There would be time for that at the first rest-stop of the morning, Winnipeg. I drove through slumbering Kenora. After the last of the street-lights had melted away, another deer walked out into the road. It looked identical to the previous one. I had ample time to brake, and even more time to watch the deer’s gentle footsteps back toward the darkness. For the following three hours, until the sun came up and brought a reassuring silver glow to the winter sky, I drove in an apprehensive mood, not listening to the radio or to any of the albums I had downloaded to my phone. I listened to the car engine and to my thoughts and hoped for no more surprises.
I was forty-five and had lived the majority of my life in Canada — Edmonton for eighteen years and then Montreal for thirteen. I was headed back to Edmonton. My wife had found a good job there and my employer was going to let me work remotely. Friends had helped out with every detail of the move: packing the seven-foot by seven-foot container, helping carry the sofa downstairs, and disassembling our heavy bed-frame.
By nine o’clock that night I had sat on the front balcony enjoying the unseasonably warm weather at a two-metre distance from a good friend, my erstwhile climbing partner. (We hadn’t been climbing since covid.) We drank beer and planned future visits. He would come to Edmonton and we’d drive out for climbs in the Rockies and I would return occasionally to Montreal to refamiliarize myself with the old hang-outs. We discussed road-trip strategies, the importance of naps, the dangers of wildlife. The steeples of Saint-Charles’ Church rose up behind the nearest apartment buildings. I had only ever been inside the church twice: one time to descend into the basement to vote in a federal election and the other time to show my daughter the main floor with its huge stained-glass windows. I never saw happier looking people in my life than the members of the Black congregation that lingered after the service to chat with the priest that day.
In Manitoba, unlike northern Ontario, the snow was threadbare on the ground. A fox skittered beside the highway. A few hours on, I saw a coyote with a similar gait. I crossed into Saskatchewan and turned on the radio. There was an hours-long program about the 2013 Grey Cup semi-final between the Calgary Stampeders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I listened intermittently while using Bluetooth to call a friend in Edmonton, but the reception was patchy and the conversation juddered to a halt many times.
Approaching Lloydminster, I saw the steam-breathing machinery of the Husky oil upgrader. I stopped for a pee at the side of the highway. The snow cover had turned heavier. Looking north, there was a vast expanse of white flatness that stopped at a line of small trees. How snug and safe my car seemed; how much more I appreciated it in contrast to the bitter coldness and the menace of the empty night. Behind me, on the highway, semi-trailers continued to hurtle through a light snow flurry.
I had spent the first fourteen years of my life in Wales and England, where the countryside and wildlife cannot, on their own, kill anyone. In the sitcom Peep Show, as the two lead buffoons are wandering around lost at night, Mark says to Jeremy, “This isn’t the Matterhorn, Jeremy, it’s the Quantocks, nobody dies in the Quantocks.”
Fuelled by a final burger and coffee from an A&W in Lloydminster, I drove the final stretch of highway, passing through Elk Island Provincial Park. Yet more yellow signs, illuminated by my headlights, warned of deer and moose. I entered Edmonton on the Yellowhead, north of the river, with a generous view of Refinery Row and the industrial clouds belching up to meet a perfect black sky.
Suddenly I realized I was in the wrong lane to make an exit to 66th Street. I didn’t want to sail past and delay my arrival by even ten more minutes. I jerked the steering wheel, crossed two wide lanes, and made it to the off-ramp without hitting concrete or other vehicles. I was conscious of my Quebec plate, Je me souviens, caught in the beams of other motorists. “Crazy Quebecker,” I imagined them thinking.
I arrived at our temporary new home, just off 118th Avenue. My wife had flown out from Montreal earlier that same day with our daughter and cat. Because of covid, there were no longer direct flights to Edmonton and so they had gone the long way through Toronto. I had missed our daughter’s bedtime. My wife and I cuddled together on the couch and my eyes eventually turned back to the street, where the snow was fresh and heavy. I wanted to appreciate everything about Edmonton, and to not feel constrained by it as I had when leaving it. My small brush with danger during the journey made it feel like a home I had finally earned.
