Friday 6th – Saturday 7th April 2012
Just after midnight walked for half hour to get to the Grey Mountain road where nancy said was the best place to view the Northern Lights. As we got there a China man and a Korean were leaving having seen nothing over 2 hours (though showed us photos from last night which were great). We stayed for an hour and a half sipping Barrys Tea from a flask, looking at a great big Moon, but sod all Northern Lights. Walked back to Hostel for 2am, sleeping in the very cold, outdoor cabin.
First thing in morning had a coffee and basic breakfast while Nancy was getting some strange back massage from an annoying guests, right in the middle of the kitchen. Sat on the laptops till 11am trying to work out our extra nights accommodation (after leaving the farm early). Nancy talked us into going to the Queen Charlotte Islands off Prince Rupert, and so had to change round bookings and make some ferry reservations. Now having to stay over in Prince George as the connecting bus to Rupert wad the next morning.
Said goodbyes to Nancy, who was very kind to us and helped us out a lot. Though we were leaving the Yukon after not having seen the Northern Lights, which was a disappointment, though tall one held out hope for the bus ride out.
Caught the 2am bus after sitting in Tim Hortons hoping Mary and Rolland would not appear. Whitehorse seemed particularly rough this morning, deserted except for a lot of local native groups of men just hanging about outside arcades and bars. The bus driver was ‘Derek’ with his bags of sweets and pop, and his big robotic salute to lorry drivers. We did not sit near the front this time as there was this weird, squat, short haired woman who sat screwing her face up and chatting nonsense to everyone. When the driver got on he recognised her and asked “so your back on the circuit then?”. She spent one of the stop overs washing her hair in a rest room and came on towel drying it and obsessively combing it infront of the whole bus. The other weirdo was this huge, bald First Nations (native) guy who in the bus depo was watched over by a big security man who apparently had to keep an eye on him until he was out of WhiteHorse.
The trip out in the afternoon hours meant we saw the scenery in more daylight. Saw a small herd of Carbiou and some Bison by the roads. Stopped in Watson Lake at 7pm where we took photos of the large sign post forest and brought some chips from a man who was held up precariously by crutches. Got in to Fort Nelson around 2am (new bus driver), Small one was very sleepy and dishevelled, and tall one had to stop him getting back on the bus as he was completely missing the Northern Lights which were swarming over head. Stopped in the middle of the highstreet there until 2.45am, watching these impressive greens and occasional purples colours morph and fade in and out in the sky above. Sometimes fading to nothing, then coming back ten minutes later. While watching this all the other passengers sat in the bus or inside the depot bored and un-interested. The same with the locals of Fort Nelson who just staggered past nosily and drunk.
Brief change of bus at Dawson Creek at 9am, then a direct bus to Prince George. An uneventful and not too interesting journey, no great scenary, though we did notice there was less snow now. Arrived in Prince George around 4pm – a practical town but very dismal. Headed up the 14 or so blocks to the hostel (the only one in town). There was no response to the doorbell but was called into ‘Eric’s Spa Shop’ next door, where we were told to wait with an overweight Pug dog and over permed cashier until some cleaner came down from the hostel. We were then taken upstairs and shown two halves of the building, one was a dive (broken toilet, peeling paint, hand written post it notes labelling the doors with numbers) and the other half which was a pristine lounge, kitchen, working large showers and deluxe private rooms. Of course we were in the dive half. The woman had no clue about the hostelworld booking and wanted to charge us standard rate when we’d paid a deposit online. So downstairs back into the Spa shop as she said the permed cashier would know, though we had to wait while she spoke to a customer about her PH readings for her Spa (which took 20 minutes), only for the cashier to tell us she had no idea about hostel world. It was not sorted until an hour later when the owner (presumably Eric) came home. He was a large, white bearded Biker guy, who kept on insisting that we should join him for ‘Movie Night’ in the lounge. We had an early night after 26 hours on a bus. Though we did venture out to have a burger and milkshake deal down the road, and we did not bother to tip the waitress.... even though she was making a ridiculous effort for us.
Thursday 5th April 2012
An eventful day in all....
Was in the greenhouse for 9am to start work, waited and waited. Small one went to the house to knock but all he could hear was arguing so came back. Rolland and Mary came in around 9.15am and continued to argue. Small and Tal made scarce and started bringing in bags of pete moss just to get out the way. The paid worker ‘Toni’ showed up (the one whose marriage fell apart and he took the kids), she walked in on the argument and went and stood in the far greenhouse with the door closed and cried her eyes out until Rolland left.
The upshot was that by 10am the arguing had finished, Rolland told Mary she had to go to town right away to pick up some more fertilizer as we could not make any new soil mix without it, she then left us some work to do. This included bringing 68 of the 170 hanging baskets we filled with plants yesterday back in, as we had done too many. We were also told to make a shade net for the runs of plants in one greenhouse (which took half an hour) and if she wasn’t back when we were done we were NOT to help Toni, who was potting up the new delivery of plants (using the one wheelbarrow of soil left from yesterday). Mary took another hour messing around in the house before she even left for town (about 11am), and said maybe she’d get us a McDonalds for lunch. Well, tall and small were done by about 11.30am, and had nothing to do – they potted about helping Toni but then she’d run out of work. Then the son Joseph came in (he’s obviously not bothering to work for them anymore) he said his mum just phoned and told him what to give us for our lunch. We were then given a pack of sliced beef which was frozen – that was it, no other sandwich filling, and no way to defrost the beef. This was about 12.20pm and we told Toni we’d take our lunch (there was no work for us anyway).
Back in our cabin we were fuming and worked out our escape plan. We tried to phone the Beez Kneez hostel in town to see if they had space, but no one answered. By about 1pm we thought screw it lets just go, packed up and headed up the 2-3km farm road to the Takhini Hot Springs Road. We didn’t see Toni on the way up, and it was a hard trek with the bags on the half thawed snowy/icy/muddy road. Made it to the main road without Rolland or Mary driving back in. We walked west up the road (Away from Whitehorse) so we wouldn’t have them passing us as they drove home. Within 2 minutes a car drove past and we stuck out our thumb to hitch hike. The man pulled over and said he was fine to take us into Whitehorse.
Turned out to be a great bit of luck, he ran the only other Organic Farm down the Takhini River Road (Mary had pointed him out to us the day we did the Yukon Reserve). He takes wwoofers himself later in the year and asked us if Mary and Rolland were still crazy? We gave a non-specific answer, but he obviously picked up a vibe and told us how he gets a lot of wwoofers come to him off their farm who tell him how Rolland and Mary go at it constantly feuding. He said he doesn’t mind Mary, but thinks Rolland is a nutcase. We then told him we’d just walked out that morning, and he was quite sympathetic and said we weren’t the first to walk out on them by far. We chatted all the way in and wished he’d been available when we booked Rivendell. He told us how his son is working on 2 careers, one is in a slaughter house (and is currently doing an exam in Edmonton where he is judge to slaughter a cow and prepare it in 90 minutes) his other career is in Vaudeville and is currently in some silly theatre group in B.C.
Got to Whitehorse town centre and he gave us a tour of the town, dropped us at Greyhound so we could check the bus times out and finally dropped us at the Beez Knees Hostel – a thankful good bye to him. Unfortunately we then noticed a ‘Booked Out Tonight’ sign on the front door of the hostel. We knocked anyway and Nancy came down (still in her pyjamas at 2.30pm), she took sympathy at our story and put us up in one of her outdoor cabins which were still n a state as they are closed for another month. She only charged us $25 each for the night, but wanted us to ‘hostel sit’ from 3pm-5pm while she got her haircut. We are sat here now, and have answered the phone and the door for her, all very bizarre. We checked out new bus times to leave tomorrow, and booked our extra 4 nights accommodation down the line in Prince George and Rupert. There was talk in the hostel of the Northern Lights tonight, and on the website the rating has now gone up to a 4 which is pretty good – so we stand a good chance of seeing the lights properly on our final night. Everything seems to be going our way since we walked out. We also sent an e-mail to Rolland and Mary at Rivendell Farm explaining why we left, it went as follows:
Hi Mary and Rolland,
Just an email from us to let you know why we left today.
There have been a few things over the weeks, but the last thing today was being handed a pack of frozen beef slices for our lunch. This was after yesterday when we worked 9-5pm and was just given a tin of beans and a block of cheese.
We felt these were not substantial enough meals when we are only working in exchange for food and board. The main meals were always of very good quality though we found the portion sizes were often not large enough for either of us (one taco is not a dinner, and 3 pizza slices on their own is not a dinner).
We can appreciated that the running of the farm can be stressful at times and there can be a lot at stake, but the frequent arguments held infront of us made us feel very uncomfortable. Poor Toni this morning looked very upset hidden in the greenhouse.
Not working for any wages also means we want to feel like we are doing some worth while work and making a difference, but so often in the last few weeks we have worked hard all day at a task and only to be told the next day it must all be put back as it was wrong. Which although it's not our business this is still very disheartening for us.
Last small thing was that we felt showering only every two days when we were getting mucky and sweaty from working in the greenhouse was unhygienic. A short daily shower (at least on working days) should have been included in the food and board that we work for.
We did not plan on ending on a down note with you guys, we know your both good people and have appreciated all the good stuff you have provided - and are still very thankful for your generosity in lending us your car for our Dawson trip. We enjoyed the work and loved staying in the cabin. I'm afraid we just got fed up after all of the above got too much for us. We have only exited a few days early, and so hope that this will not upset the running of the farm.
You have a lovely place and we wish you both well for the future.
Regards,
Mike & Conor
Just an email from us to let you know why we left today.
There have been a few things over the weeks, but the last thing today was being handed a pack of frozen beef slices for our lunch. This was after yesterday when we worked 9-5pm and was just given a tin of beans and a block of cheese.
We felt these were not substantial enough meals when we are only working in exchange for food and board. The main meals were always of very good quality though we found the portion sizes were often not large enough for either of us (one taco is not a dinner, and 3 pizza slices on their own is not a dinner).
We can appreciated that the running of the farm can be stressful at times and there can be a lot at stake, but the frequent arguments held infront of us made us feel very uncomfortable. Poor Toni this morning looked very upset hidden in the greenhouse.
Not working for any wages also means we want to feel like we are doing some worth while work and making a difference, but so often in the last few weeks we have worked hard all day at a task and only to be told the next day it must all be put back as it was wrong. Which although it's not our business this is still very disheartening for us.
Last small thing was that we felt showering only every two days when we were getting mucky and sweaty from working in the greenhouse was unhygienic. A short daily shower (at least on working days) should have been included in the food and board that we work for.
We did not plan on ending on a down note with you guys, we know your both good people and have appreciated all the good stuff you have provided - and are still very thankful for your generosity in lending us your car for our Dawson trip. We enjoyed the work and loved staying in the cabin. I'm afraid we just got fed up after all of the above got too much for us. We have only exited a few days early, and so hope that this will not upset the running of the farm.
You have a lovely place and we wish you both well for the future.
Regards,
Mike & Conor
Rolland was the first to respond, with the brief but concise email:
“May your karma not catch you unawares, Sorry we are not up to your quality!! No Thanks, Rolland”
*******
Found out on Thursday evening that my cousin Joe had passed away on Tuesday morning the 3rd April 2012 . For me Edinburgh will never be the same again. I can't put into words how much I am going to miss you. I love you Joe, RIP. xxx
*******
Thursday 4th April 2012
An eventful day in all....
Was in the greenhouse for 9am to start work, waited and waited. Small one went to the house to knock but all he could hear was arguing so came back. Rolland and Mary came in around 9.15am and continued to argue. Small and Tal made scarce and started bringing in bags of pete moss just to get out the way. The paid worker ‘Toni’ showed up (the one whose marriage fell apart and he took the kids), she walked in on the argument and went and stood in the far greenhouse with the door closed and cried her eyes out until Rolland left.
The upshot was that by 10am the arguing had finished, Rolland told Mary she had to go to town right away to pick up some more fertilizer as we could not make any new soil mix without it, she then left us some work to do. This included bringing 68 of the 170 hanging baskets we filled with plants yesterday back in, as we had done too many. We were also told to make a shade net for the runs of plants in one greenhouse (which took half an hour) and if she wasn’t back when we were done we were NOT to help Toni, who was potting up the new delivery of plants (using the one wheelbarrow of soil left from yesterday). Mary took another hour messing around in the house before she even left for town (about 11am), and said maybe she’d get us a McDonalds for lunch. Well, tall and small were done by about 11.30am, and had nothing to do – they potted about helping Toni but then she’d run out of work. Then the son Joseph came in (he’s obviously not bothering to work for them anymore) he said his mum just phoned and told him what to give us for our lunch. We were then given a pack of sliced beef which was frozen – that was it, no other sandwich filling, and no way to defrost the beef. This was about 12.20pm and we told Toni we’d take our lunch (there was no work for us anyway).
Back in our cabin we were fuming and worked out our escape plan. We tried to phone the Beez Kneez hostel in town to see if they had space, but no one answered. By about 1pm we thought screw it lets just go, packed up and headed up the 2-3km farm road to the Takhini Hot Springs Road. We didn’t see Toni on the way up, and it was a hard trek with the bags on the half thawed snowy/icy/muddy road. Made it to the main road without Rolland or Mary driving back in. We walked west up the road (Away from Whitehorse) so we wouldn’t have them passing us as they drove home. Within 2 minutes a car drove past and we stuck out our thumb to hitch hike. The man pulled over and said he was fine to take us into Whitehorse.
Turned out to be a great bit of luck, he ran the only other Organic Farm down the Takhini River Road (Mary had pointed him out to us the day we did the Yukon Reserve). He takes wwoofers himself later in the year and asked us if Mary and Rolland were still crazy? We gave a non-specific answer, but he obviously picked up a vibe and told us how he gets a lot of wwoofers come to him off their farm who tell him how Rolland and Mary go at it constantly feuding. He said he doesn’t mind Mary, but thinks Rolland is a nutcase. We then told him we’d just walked out that morning, and he was quite sympathetic and said we weren’t the first to walk out on them by far. We chatted all the way in and wished he’d been available when we booked Rivendell. He told us how his son is working on 2 careers, one is in a slaughter house (and is currently doing an exam in Edmonton where he is judge to slaughter a cow and prepare it in 90 minutes) his other career is in Vaudeville and is currently in some silly theatre group in B.C.
Got to Whitehorse town centre and he gave us a tour of the town, dropped us at Greyhound so we could check the bus times out and finally dropped us at the Beez Knees Hostel – a thankful good bye to him. Unfortunately we then noticed a ‘Booked Out Tonight’ sign on the front door of the hostel. We knocked anyway and Nancy came down (still in her pyjamas at 2.30pm), she took sympathy at our story and put us up in one of her outdoor cabins which were still n a state as they are closed for another month. She only charged us $25 each for the night, but wanted us to ‘hostel sit’ from 3pm-5pm while she got her haircut. We are sat here now, and have answered the phone and the door for her, all very bizarre. We checked out new bus times to leave tomorrow, and booked our extra 4 nights accommodation down the line in Prince George and Rupert. There was talk in the hostel of the Northern Lights tonight, and on the website the rating has now gone up to a 4 which is pretty good – so we stand a good chance of seeing the lights properly on our final night. Everything seems to be going our way since we walked out. We also sent an e-mail to Rolland and Mary at Rivendell Farm explaining why we left, it went as follows:
Hi Mary and Rolland,
Just an email from us to let you know why we left today.
There have been a few things over the weeks, but the last thing today was being handed a pack of frozen beef slices for our lunch. This was after yesterday when we worked 9-5pm and was just given a tin of beans and a block of cheese.
We felt these were not substantial enough meals when we are only working in exchange for food and board. The main meals were always of very good quality though we found the portion sizes were often not large enough for either of us (one taco is not a dinner, and 3 pizza slices on their own is not a dinner).
We can appreciated that the running of the farm can be stressful at times and there can be a lot at stake, but the frequent arguments held infront of us made us feel very uncomfortable. Poor Toni this morning looked very upset hidden in the greenhouse.
Not working for any wages also means we want to feel like we are doing some worth while work and making a difference, but so often in the last few weeks we have worked hard all day at a task and only to be told the next day it must all be put back as it was wrong. Which although it's not our business this is still very disheartening for us.
Last small thing was that we felt showering only every two days when we were getting mucky and sweaty from working in the greenhouse was unhygienic. A short daily shower (at least on working days) should have been included in the food and board that we work for.
We did not plan on ending on a down note with you guys, we know your both good people and have appreciated all the good stuff you have provided - and are still very thankful for your generosity in lending us your car for our Dawson trip. We enjoyed the work and loved staying in the cabin. I'm afraid we just got fed up after all of the above got too much for us. We have only exited a few days early, and so hope that this will not upset the running of the farm.
You have a lovely place and we wish you both well for the future.
Regards,
Mike & Conor
Just an email from us to let you know why we left today.
There have been a few things over the weeks, but the last thing today was being handed a pack of frozen beef slices for our lunch. This was after yesterday when we worked 9-5pm and was just given a tin of beans and a block of cheese.
We felt these were not substantial enough meals when we are only working in exchange for food and board. The main meals were always of very good quality though we found the portion sizes were often not large enough for either of us (one taco is not a dinner, and 3 pizza slices on their own is not a dinner).
We can appreciated that the running of the farm can be stressful at times and there can be a lot at stake, but the frequent arguments held infront of us made us feel very uncomfortable. Poor Toni this morning looked very upset hidden in the greenhouse.
Not working for any wages also means we want to feel like we are doing some worth while work and making a difference, but so often in the last few weeks we have worked hard all day at a task and only to be told the next day it must all be put back as it was wrong. Which although it's not our business this is still very disheartening for us.
Last small thing was that we felt showering only every two days when we were getting mucky and sweaty from working in the greenhouse was unhygienic. A short daily shower (at least on working days) should have been included in the food and board that we work for.
We did not plan on ending on a down note with you guys, we know your both good people and have appreciated all the good stuff you have provided - and are still very thankful for your generosity in lending us your car for our Dawson trip. We enjoyed the work and loved staying in the cabin. I'm afraid we just got fed up after all of the above got too much for us. We have only exited a few days early, and so hope that this will not upset the running of the farm.
You have a lovely place and we wish you both well for the future.
Regards,
Mike & Conor
Rolland was the first to respond, with the brief but concise email:
“May your karma not catch you unawares, Sorry we are not up to your quality!! No Thanks, Rolland”
Wednesday 3rd April 2012
A huge miserable day. Stuck in that poxy green house from 9am until 5pm, no coffee breaks, just a measly lunch. Spent the morning emptying the 300 hanging baskets the other end of the greenhouse into a sack, to save that ‘ruined’ soil as a filler for large pots later on. Had to remix and refill all 300 hanging baskets. Mary had merrily skipped out to town at 10am, and was not back until 2pm – how it took so long to pick up a dozen boxes of plants no one knows. As she wasn’t here to make us lunch she brought it into the greenhouse for us, and gave tall one a tin of beans and a small block of cheese.... that was our lunch. Small one was ready to walk out there and then. We had no saucepan and so had to heat the beans just in the open can. Still no plates to eat off o had to spoon the beans onto the cold cheese on sandwich.
Afternoon Mary got back and we had to fill the hanging baskets with Petunias. This went on and on and on, and tall and small were both sweaty dirty messes from all the stuffy greenhouses and the wet soil. No water or drinks were offered by Mary, and finally when we finished at 5pm (we’re only supposed to work till 3pm – as we’re not working for money just food and board), there was a passing thankyou, no reference to the extra hours worked. Tall one made a remark that it was a long one today, to which she started in with how she really appreciates it. We asked what time for dinner, and she said she only had to reheat the leftovers from yesterday, so would be not trouble.... bitch.
Hot cross buns for dessert, nothing interesting at dinner. Last Seinfeld episode. Bed.
Tuesday 2nd April 2012
Started the day off with a fox. On his way back from the outhouse around 7.45am tall one spied a red fox trotting away through the wood up the hill. Small one came out and glimpsed the back of it as it disappeared. Tall one made some noises like a rabbit and hey-presto it came back and sat looking at us sat under a bush. Took a few good photos of it, before it headed off again.
Started work with Mary, today filling up some plastic hanging baskets, did this until around 2pm. After that had to load up the truck and run some ratty old furniture over to their small cabin (they usually rent out but the evicted their paying tenant) ready for the 2 Mexican workers arriving Saturday. It was actually quite a nice little 2 bed house, huge windows overlooking the hills and valley below, and a decking out the back. We did this until 4pm, at one point Rolland came home and asked where was Mary – we told him at the rental house and he sped off and came back with her meekly sat in the van next to him. We headed back out to the rental house with our last run of furniture in the pickup, and when we pulled in we could actually hear him shouting the otherside of the trees.... We did wonder what has the poor bitch done wrong now?
We soon found out. Mary came down and asked us to meet Rolland in the greenhouse. Apparently the mix we hade made of peat moss, white stuff, soil, water, bat poo and something else was all wrong, and the 300 hanging baskets we had filled may have to be thrown. Rolland showed us the mix we had made two days ago and the mix today and how the consistency was different. We told him we had stuck to the exact same recipe and quantities and reeled them off – but the only difference was that the mixing machine was on longer – as Mary had told us to fill each basket from the outlet at the bottom while it mixed, opposed to the usual method of emptying the machine into a couple of wheelbarrows. This meant the mix got over condensed and mixed down into a paste opposed to the light fluffy mix wanted. Oh well, not our fault. He said he’d take a look at it to see if he could salvage it for tomorrow.
In for dinner and apparently we almost killed Rolland with our gift of a giant cinnamon bun. Apparently he had an allergic reaction to the yeast and struggled to breath with his stomach inflated like a balloon. He survived however, with the id of some kind of tablets.... damn those pharmacists. It was a pork roast with potatoes which were leftover from yesterday. She shied away from offering us seconds (removing our plates before we could try).
Monday 2nd April 2012
Stopped in Braeburn to buy a $9 cinnamon bun (as big as a football) from a huge white bearded Biker - which Mary had asked for. There was some dense patches of fog on the way home, and we ended up filling up petrol at a total costs of $150. Which wasn’t too bad for driving 1100 km return, plus a few detours which brought it nearer to 1200km.
Headed into Whitehorse before we dropped the car back at the farm. Brought a gift for Mary and Rolland (a chocolate cat), and some sweets/snacks for our last week at the farm and our 2 night bus trip down to Prince Rupert next week. Had a McDonalds Lunch and used wifi again. Tall one found a seat for the laptops while small one ordered. Small one was so tired and delirious from all the sleepless driving, that he just sat down next to the first guy with a laptop he saw and said “here we go”. Once he saw the face was not tall one’s he said “Maybe not” and got back up again. He was still tried when we turned off the highway into Takhini Hot Springs Road, as he turned in onto the left hand side of the road, and Tall one had to point out that “your on the wrong side of the road”. Finally back to the farm for 2pm, a brief hello to Mary and asleep for the afternoon.
In for dinner (Pork Chop) at 705pm. Mary got on again about 911 conspiracies, how no one actually saw any plane wreckage or the plane itself hit... blur blur blur, snore snore snore. Bed early after some Seinfeld. Much needed sleep........
Sunday 1st April 2012
Well, April Fools Day on us when we thought we had 2 days off to drive up to Dawson in a rental car for $60 (+$30 insurance) for 24 hours....
Mary and Rolland drove us in to town, talking the whole way (about such things as the progress of Men’s swimwear?) with the exception of Mary starting to point out a house and tell us there was a great tragedy there – to be interrupted abruptly by Rolland and be told that people die everyday don’t talk about it....
Got to the car rental place and Rolland came in with us like a concerned father. Everything going through fine until we came across this surcharge of 20 cents for every single kilometre you use over 200km.... Well we borrowed a calculator off the quite un-friendly woman behind the desk and worked out it would cost an extra $180 for the allowance.... We said no thank you and left.
We tried Budget rentals who said they had no cars, and on the way home Mary and Rolland very nicely turned around and told us we could borrow their automatic van to drive up there, as long as we filled the tank with petrol before returning it. We were quite speechless, as knowing their tightness with showers and dinners were quite surprised.
So, we thankfully borrowed the van and pretty soon Small one was driving tall one the 515km north up the Klondike Highway to Dawson City. It was like the good old Australian times, except for a lot of snow and ice instead of sand and heat.
It was a varied drive, a lot of boring patches were the remains of fires from the 50’s, 60’s and even 90’s had left very little large trees. There were still some impressive valleys, snow topped ranges and the five finger rapids in the Yukon River to see, along with a flock of ravens fighting over some discarded chips by the side of the road. Think we saw more ravens than cars, we literally only saw half a dozen cars and trucks. We were told EVERYTHING from fuel to groceries were very expensive in Dawson, but found the petrol cost only 1.50 cents compared to Whitehorse at 1.35. After leaving Whitehorse about 10am, arrived round 400pm.
First stop was to drive to the top of the quite steep (2900 metre high) lookout on the “Midnight Dome”. This was an icy cold lookout over the impressive Yukon and Klondike rivers, and where they both met and Dawson City was built (population now is only around 1800, and everything closes up for winter). Headed into town and found it a very pretty place, very colourful wild west, wooden fronted buildings. The City/town has some kind of historical statues that means any new buildings must confirm to the old fashioned exterior designs. Lot of these buildings are actually just ugly sheet metal warehouses, but with prim and pretty wooden fronts put on.
Found Rolland and Mary’s loud mouthed Aussie friends to deliver the groceries. When they dropped us off we asked for the address and they told us they didn’t actually know it – but drew on a map roughly where the house was in the town?? Thankfully tall one found it and rang the bell. By now it was 5pm and they still needed to see the town and the sights before it got dark and everything closed (it was Sunday plus seasonal hours) and did not want to waste hours stuck with Mary’s friends chatting and drinking lattes. Well, they came down and answered the door (both looked like middle aged stoners), the Aussies woman screeching down “na na come in for a beeer!”. Tall one politely made excuses and ran off, after they strangely told him not to go up the Midnight Dome lookout (already visited) as it was completely shut off.
Grabbed some food for the way back and a souvenir magnet, all shops then ceased trading at 6pm. Found the Downtowner Hotel and ate in their Jack London grill some takeaway sandwiches and chips (only $10 each – so not expensive at al – nor were the groceries?). Walked up the Yukon River where it was so frozen that young guys were having some car rally races around a man made track on the ice. Followed the river to where the Klondike River met it and walked out onto the ice ourselves. Then back into town up the Writers Block on 8th, to see the cabins of famous Yukon writers Jack London, Robert Service and Pierre Berton. All were closed, but you could walk around the outside easy. Back into the seemingly deserted Ghost town, stepping over th hoards of frozen dog turds which shamefully littered the pavements, small one went through a fantastic children’s playground down a spiral slide, and finally ended up in the Downtowner Hotel for a couple of hours to use their wifi.
Was told when we left that it stayed light until 10pm, so at 9pm headed down the 15km Bonanaza Creek road where all the original creeks were panned for gold back in the 1897 gold rush. It was a strange road, again seemed deserted, except for five minutes when the van was chased by two dogs from a camp site. Had some dodgy ice patches and piles to get around, and at the end of the slightly dodgy mining road we just turned around and headed back before it got too dark.
Headed back south down the Klondike Highway to a rest area we past on the way in. Think we saw two quite dark foxes (small one thought Coyotes) running off the road – definitely not a cat or dog anyway. As we drove away from Dawson there was a great pink and red sunset behind us over the town.
We got to the rest area about 1030pm, and small one went straight to sleep in the front seat. We then went through the pattern of waking every 2 hours, then small one would drive for another 1-2 hours (mostly to warm the car up as it was so cold), then find another rest area, sleep for another 1-2hours, then drive again. Did this a few times for a good 200km, until our final nap ended around 8.30am just north of Carmacks, and we headed straight back the rest of the 300km to Whitehorse.
Saturday 31st March 2012
Worked our second long day today, 9am till 5.15pm (that’s us up to date with our hours), had leftover muffins for breakfast, and also on our last chocolate bar from the gas station run (a Crunchie for breakfast ad a Kitkat for dinner).
An interesting morning as the boiler for the greenhouse had stopped during the night, so instead of being 30 degrees it was 0 degrees. Rolland came in roaring at Mary bout this that and the other, she’d been leaving doors open and been putting plants in the wrong pots etc etc (usual tenuous points). He came back in ten minutes later and apologised for shouting at Mary in front of us and Toni. We struggled enough with Toni today who with her high pitched cheaping voice didn’t seem to know what she was doing. We kept having to correct her when she’d been working here a few years now.
Stopped for lunch, a disappointing lunch.... watery alphabet soup, crackers and some raw vegetables with a dip. Tall and small very starving afterwards. Mary also started talking about our Dawson trip and how she had spoken to their friends last night on the phone and told them we didn’t want to stop by, sleep there or have dinner with them and were going to sleep in the car. She tells the story about how the wife on the phone shouts over to the husband (their Aussies not Canadian by the way) “The boys don’t want to stay here ISN’T THAT FUCKING STUPID”. Mary felt the need to shout this part out as well, tall and small sat their in shock and felt like saying we won’t take their groceries up to them either then. Tall and small could not see whose business it was what they did in Dawson, they just wanted to head up and spent time alone (after 2 weeks in this hell hole) and not have to worry about stopping y at a certain time for dinner and have to force some boring conversation with two people who have chosen to be friends with the lunatics at Rivendell Farm. We stuck firm and said “no we defiantly don’t won’t their bed or food, but we’ll drop of the groceries”.
Back to work and potted a lot of plants and listened to a lot of rubbish from Mary who started speaking at length at mental health disorders and the best cure for them (can’t cure that husband of yours can you Mary?). There’s a system in the greenhouse to loosen seedling out of a big tray of 500 by laying it in a green machine, and pulling a lever which brings a line of 500 little pegs up through the bottom the tray and the pops the seedlings all loose at once. Well, the last tray we did today Mary and Toni struggled with for ages and said that will have to do, half an hour later Rolland was in saying that that tray wasn’t done properly do it again! Mary’s response was well i didn’t do that one.... Obviously blaming small one (the only person not in the room) to avoid a beating.... Finally finished up at 5.20pm after Mary had actually made a ‘hot’ cup of coffee for us around 3.30pm. They had also let us both shower tonight as we weren’t there tomorrow and would be un-fair for one of us to spend the next two days covered with sweat and soil from the greenhouse.
In for dinner after timing our 5 minutes each in the shower. Tonight was this weird rice with beans and ‘meat’ mix on a plate along with a bowl of crisps. In fairness she did seem exhausted from the day’s work and Rolland’s beatings. The boiler was still not fixed as the fixer was still working on it, so may be called back later tonight to help move plants out of the main greenhouse to the small room to stop them from freezing. Whilst we ate our beans and rice Rolland was in and out checking things with the repair man, on coming back in he called out to Mary who responded with the fateful “what is it Rolland?”. This (as per our first day 2 weeks ago) had the expected response from Rolland of “WHAT’S THAT! WHAT’S THAT! WHAT DID YOU CAL ME!”. Mary was immediately all apologetic and rushed out into the hall and seemed to try and steady him before he blew a gasket in front of us over his wife using his first name....???
Friday 30th March 2012
Small one awoke up still in the mind set that he wanted to walk out on this under-fed under-showered job – adamant that after our trip to Dawson City this Sunday-Monday we would just keep on driving and not come back. Tall one tried to put his mind at ease, but did point out that fair enough, you are sat their buttering toast with a teaspoon, using a Stephen Hawing book as a plate whilst I am using a large yoghurt container for a cereal bowl as they have provided us with nothing....
Started work, this was to be our ‘long’ day, though they all felt like that. Had son Joseph working with us, who is a nice enough spoilt brat. As per usual Mary had us do something and then five minutes later Rolland came in started screaming why did you do that Mary???!! Telling her to not waste air on speaking. We asked Joseph if he works for them often, and he said “No, because I want to avoid getting involved in that” indicating his parents still arguing. Though he speaks to Mary like a dog as well, even though he promised to work a full day he talked her into driving him the 20km into town to see his ‘emo’ girlfriend.
Spent the whole day transplanting new plant/seedling arrivals into bigger pots. Mary had said her workers shouldn’t be sitting down when they work, but these were trays of 500 plants and so one continuous job from one position. Tall and small sat down anyway, and she made a point (plucked completely out of nowhere) how in her advert for workers she asks that they are able to stand for the whole day and can cope with repetitive jobs. Tall and Small felt like saying if you want us to stand feed us more than 1 Taco for dinner...
Had some nice mushroom soap and a cheese toastie for lunch (bigger than last nights dinner – not that we are bitter). Working till 5pm to make up for the less 2 hours yesterday, and at least Rolland came in and brought us 2 coffees from the local North Bean coffee shop. Finished at 5pm both very sweaty and very grubby (from the greenhouse now at 30 degrees and all the wet soil we dig around in with our hands), but yet still only one of us is aloud to shower per day.... The cabin fever is well and truly back, at this rate tall and small will be back after sundown to piss on all their flowers.
Well at dinner they must have felt a vibe from yesterdays ‘taco’ dinner. As we had two chicken breasts wrapped in bacon each, and they only had 1 each. We were also given heated muffins and butter for pudding. Rolland and Mary then said they were going to the Hot Springs and would we like to go? We could not stomach the thought of seeing Mary in a swim suit and so declined.
Thursday 29th March 2012
Up and shattered for 8.30am and into the greenhouse for 9am. Mary was with us along with enthusiastic son Joseph. The four of us were to start potting up the delivery today. Mary stared by telling us both she had a proposal.... gulp..... which was that Rolland was driving to “Haines Junction” (150km away) today and would we like to do a half day and go with him. We said fine, and so worked until 11.30am, with small one having to show Joseph how to make up the soil mix, and Joseph making excuses why he couldn’t help and could only watch. 12pm left with Rolland, with Tall one sat in front listening bleary eyed to the conversation on politics and how he was all for equality saying he had as mch rights as a pauper and a king (we thought that’s funny you talk to your wife like she’s a dog – though we guess he’s not too far wrong with that one) , whilst small one sat reluctantly in the back seat pretending to be asleep. There was at least some fantastic scenery driving west along the Alaska Highway to get there.
Arrived at Haines Junction (we had been hoping for a town with a McDonalds at least, for the free internet), it was a tiny flea pit of a place, with just a petrol station, few council buildings, one takeaway food, and then everything else was closed (General Store and Visitor Centre both closed). Rolland left us in the ‘town’ for 3 hours whilst he went to do his construction supervision. Everything was shut so we just potted about looking at some quite fantastic (though clouded in) white mountain ranges around the town. Went on part of a walking trail surrounded by bear warning signs. Stopped into the library and college campus to use their free wifi, which was strangely situated above a liquor store (two of the only things still open), a curious pairing as upstairs you go to learn and downstairs you go to forget!!
Small one went to draw out $1,000 in cash at a very very small TD bank, and the teller asked him, “now was that $1,000 in $50 notes or 1,000 $50 notes?”. Small one said he just wanted $1,000 as 1,000 $50 notes would be $50,000.... Tall one waited outside reading the very small community noticeboard which weirdly had pinned up a list of everyone in the town who owed the Government Property Tax, listing their name, address and amount owing.
Headed into the small takeaway place for a “Floater” (fizzy orange pop and ice-cream) and some chips. Sat there for an hour getting cold waiting for Rolland. Finally showed up and had the fun journey back where small one pretended to be asleep whilst tall one had to listen to theories such as “if i was to put my cat on a lead and walk it ten miles at my pace IT WOULD DIE”... oh right, he was apparently explaining how men are able to kill ANY animal as they are the only being able to out run/endure constant running – and so can run any animal to death, claiming that humans can also sleep as they run??
Before taking us back to the farm he pulled into the woods behind the Gas Station at the end of Takhini Hotsprings Road. He showed us lots and lots of very small wood cabins set back in the forest and said that a man built this little community of cabins and rents them out for $500 a month.... none have running water, some have electric and they only have outhouses. It was quite interesting. Anyway, back to farm shattered, and apparently we have tacos tonight.
...well we went in for dinner at 7.15pm, and it was tacos.... well I say tacos, it was actually just a taco. Literally, she had only cooked enough to have one taco each. Tall and small would have usually had at least 2-3, if not 4-5 tacos.... it was ridiculous. This was on top of the talks of small mining towns and how they knew 911 was coming as 2 years before it happened the mining town started up another burner which makes some material that can be used to make bombs..... please leave us alone. Then she mentioned how we needed to sort out the big cooler of food we were expected to deliver to their friends up in Dawson in exchange for the dinner and accommodation we didn’t want. Small one went to bend fuming, whilst tall one had to talk him out of walking out on the farm.
Wednesday 28th March 2012
Alarm set for 1am to see the Northern Lights, running out of chances now...
Got up very tired and from Cabin window seemed to be a big bright green smear across the sky. Drove the farm truck up the road to the pylon (where they recommended was best viewing), got out the truck and looked up.... nothing. It had all clouded over in the 10 minutes it took to get up there. Drove down to the hot springs and back again to check there and warm up the car, then stopped until 2am. Saw a couple of brief smears up in the sky, then headed back to cabin. Once back on the farm and walking back past the sheds, looked up to see the view of 2 very bright green beams shooting up into sky. Camera would not take any photos that would show it, but went back to bed having had the best view from the cabin after being told we had to drive out the farm to this pylon.
Woke up shattered at 8am for work. Was told to start clearing that great big snow pile outside the first greenhouse door (the pile we cleared off the roof a week ago and were told it would be cleared right away otherwise it would freeze and be a nightmare). So, here we were with shovels and wheelbarrows clearing this 5 foot pile. Stopped for coffee, and the kitten was going loopy looking for the reflective dot to chase from yesterday, but there was no sun to play with. Mary started telling us all about Ireland and Britain, and talk (as usual) a load of uneducated rubbish. Tall one corrected her when she started speaking about a dog breed used for fox hunting, and she didn’t like to be corrected or have anyone else talking and so changed the subject quickly.
Rolland came back from town with a van full of new flowers to pot. He was furious Mary had had us clearing the wrong snow pile, so we had to start clearing the other 5 foot pile, whilst listening to him inside the greenhouse shouting at her for not getting the inside of the greenhouse ready like he’d asked. We also had the son Joseph helping us, who really really did not like working and so did very little, despite Mary and Rolland claiming he was an expert snow shoveler. We were starting to see why he spent so little time here on the farm.
Broke our backs clearing the second great big snow pile, then in for lunch which was tomato soup with.... turkey sandwiches. Had some talk about how biting your finger nails after a full moon was bad, you had to bite them after a new moon. Then Mary got on about how George Bush should have been killed in 911 and small one announced let’s get back to work. Started unloading the flowers, and had some more condescending lessons from Mary about how to pot plants. Made very good head way on the plants, with the only fuck ups being made by her or her son. Finished around 3.30pm and they drove us to the North Bean coffee shop for the wifi fix. Brought them both a coffee, though did not get credit for it as after they left and tall one paid the cashier said fair enough she won’t write it in their ‘to pay’ book then. The coffee shop was pretty quiet and the woman with the half brown half blue iris made the four coffees with one small jug, so had to heat milk four times to make four of the same drinks (whats wrong with one big milk jug??). Walked back via the pylons and small one went for his shower to be told by Mary that if we could currently smell coconuts in the wind that it was because this wind was coming from Hawaii. We are sure she just makes up any old bollocks to see how much we will believe.
At dinner Mary told us she had phoned her Australian friends in Dawson City and they said they would put us up for Sunday night when we planned to drive a rental car up (we had planned to sleep in the car), but in return we would have to do the washing up and take them some groceries from Whitehorse. Tall and Small groaned, they really didn’t want to be stuck in yet another persons house, having yet another awkward family dinner with strangers making boring conversation, they just wanted to be left alone and do their own thing. So now after politely telling Mary that that was great, are trying to think of a good excuse to not go anywhere near their friends in Dawson.
Tuesday 27th March 2012
Our day off and heading to the Reserve when it opens at 1pm. Spent morning reading, even small one was in a book for a change. Small one found out that he’d been using a bottle of ‘hair conditioner’ for hand cream when he found what the actual bottle of hand cream looked like!!!!
In for lunch midday, to our shock it was Turkey sandwiches again. Rolland had started joining us for lunches, so we now had twice as much ‘fun’ at lunch as before. Topic today was how the government have a conspiracy on keeping weapons of mass destruction on planes all the time, those planes over our heads now are apparently full of bombs, bombs which could blow up the whole world.... “that’s great Rolland can you pass the cranberry?”. Tall and small then wanted to head off as small one could face no more.... but Mary offered to drive them and so they were there ten minutes before opening times, so Mary took them for an informative drive down Takhni River road. We didn’t get back to the reserve for another 20 minutes. At least she renewed her annual famly membership, and so we got in for free, despite the cashier looking at the two of us wondering exactly what family we were. Whilst Mary was haggling over the fee small one tried boiling their kettle for a complimentary hot chocolate, unfortunately their electric kept getting tripped as the female cashier had a pie in the microwave as well.
Mary left after explaining to us how antlers worked and the different types there were. Small and tall rejoiced in the open reserve at the peace and quiet they had longed for. It was a nice blue sky day, and there were even ‘sundogs’ over and under the sun (little half rainbows). Saw some Elk, Bison, Mule Deer, Mountain Goats, Moose (well one from very far away), Lynx and Artic Foxes, and some Musk Ox. Over head a few distant planes past us by and small one pointed out how that they must be carrying bombs as per Rolland’s theory?
It was a 5km loop walk round the reserve and headed out a good 2 hours later. Small one had thought he’d seen a Coke machine by the Reserve entrance, but found it to be out of order. After walking the last 5km expecting a can of pop he now wanted to hitchhike to the petrol station 10-12km away.... One car came by but did not stop, so tall one convinced him just to walk back to the farm. Once there he asked Mary and Rolland to borrow the van, they grudgingly greed and so Small one was off again to the petrol station in their automatic van. Once at the shop he filled up on 6 cans of pop, 6 chocolate bars, 2 big bags of crisps, bottle of chocolate milk and a handful of other sweets coming to a massive $35.... He asked the cashier what there opening times were and she told him that on ‘school nights’ they opened until 9pm. He must have looked like a school kid with all his candy bar hoard.
Back to the farm and tall one could not shower as their son Joseph had decided to go in at his scheduled time. They then waited until 6.45pm for dinner time, and hoped to God that it was not turkey related again.... as having the last four meals all turkey was too much as it was, without a fifth as well.
...So.... we went in for dinner, and sat down to..... Turkey with pasta???!! She said it was Turkey sandwiches for tomorrows lunch as well (which would make it 6 meals in a row), then mentioned Turkey pie for tomorrow night. Well, Rolland has to eat this turkey schlock as well and told her she could freeze the rest and we would have pork chops tomorrow.... so thankfully he’s not as crazy as we first thought.
After dinner unloaded two trucks of plastic trays, then tall one showered (5 minutes), whilst small one had an interesting conversation with Rolland about going bald. Rolland told him he stopped his baldness and that small one could stop his too, just go speak to Mary and Fred (the Indian fella who was back) inside. Small one reluctantly went back in and so was informed that to stop going bald you must only cut your hair on a new moon (within those 4 days) and it will grow back thick and fast, then only cut it on a new moon ever after. Rolland swore by it, so small one is taking it into consideration....
Monday 26th March 2012
Back to work, but only for 1 day. Tomorrow we have off as still no plants, no work. So this week will be Tuesday off, work Wed-Sat then Sunday-Monday off (on which tall and small are arranging a car rental to drive the 550km each way up to Dawson City). Work today was bit more snow clearing around another shed, laying down some palettes where tall one trod a load of wet mud into their laundry room last week, then into the greenhouse to pot up some more trays ready for the delivery on Wednesday. Had some lunch, which surprise surprise was turkey sandwiches. Whilst we ate the turkey Mary went into detail about her conspiracy theory on 911, whilst tall one used the reflection of the sun on his watch to drive the kitten literally mental by shining it on the walls and floors and make it run in circles. Work was called short at lunch and apparently we ‘owe’ another 2 hours later in the week. Spent the rest of the afternoon watching endless Seinfeld. Went in for dinner around 7pm and surprise surprise it was Turkey again... reheated with yesterdays stuffing, veg and some new potatoes. Over dinner we heard all about conspiracy theories on Princess Diana.
Sunday 25th March 2012
Like yesterday small one awoke, had breakfast then slept until 12pm. Tall one made good on his book, then at 12pm they headed in for lunch. They had guests again, sounded Australian.... we never met them as Mary came out and said to wait on the doorstep while she went and grabbed us two sandwiches and a pot of ham and pea soup. Finally, we thought that MUST be the end of the big ham she cooked us 7 days ago?? It had been looming offensively in the background every night at dinner like some blackened football... each meal or lunch having something ham related thrown in. She promised us tonight would be Turkey, which meant that it would be turkey lunches all week?
Tall and small then walked to the North Bean Cafe, which took a good 45 minutes. It was heaving with the weekend customers, full of coffee snobs looking down their noses as we edged past them to find seats. After small one’s wifi fix headed down to the hot springs. Had to pay $1 each to borrow flip flops, then headed into the pool. It wasn’t anywhere near as warm as the Banff hot springs, but was still okay, won’t come again as it was over $12 each in the end. Mostly seemed to be fathers with their young children here. Lots of men with vast hairy backs, and small girls with swimming goggles who no doubt had a worse view of the hairy men underwater. Left thoroughly wrinkled and a good hours walk back to the cabin, starving.
Dinner just after 7pm, and it was quite a dinner. A huge turkey roast, mashed potatoes (with the skin on ) and loads of stuffing (which small one would not stop raving about the “good fucking stuffing”). We were told Turkey sandwiches for the rest of the week as well. Then dessert for a change, which was raspberries from their garden (Defrosted) with whipped cream. This time is was Mary’s turn to get the big hair. Tall one sat opposite her could see it sat in her bowl, she hadn’t seen it. Even when she had paused holding spoon in mid air with the hair hanging off like a piece of spaghetti she didn’t see it. Conversation back to politics, complaining quite avidly about how politicians dying should not be in office. Finally got out and headed for the cabin.
Saturday 24th March 2012
Reading back the blog from their first week wwoofing at Rivendell farm, tall and small one must be suffering from cabin fever.... they’re ready to kill this nice friendly middle aged couple who have let them into their home in exchange for some light snow shovelling duties. From this morning on, they will try and not complain and wait out the cabin fever in the cabin fever in the Yukon wilderness until they venture south for the summer.
I was their weekend off, and the first week was complete. Woke up around 9am and had some breakfast. Small one went back to sleep whilst tall one sat reading about the Klondike Gold Rush from 1896-1899. At 12pm went in to the house and were given pre-made ham and mustard sandwhiches by Mary and the keys for their automatic van to drive themselves to the laundry. Stopped off for a coffee at the North Bean Coffee shop (mostly to jump onto their wifi quickly), then to the garage for their laundry. Sat inside watching the last few episodes of Seinfeld season 6 on small one’s tablet, whilst some quite rough looking locals came in to fill their water bottles, do their laundry, fill their snow machines with petrol etc etc. Laundry finished by 3pm, back to the farm and had a walk down to their front pick your own fruit farm. It was fenced off but they said we could go in. Snow was knee deep in places, and everything was dead, but you could see all the raspberry bushes she had mentioned, and the giant chess set, the little shop and summer tables all abonded for winter.... not a single piece of wildlife to be seen though.... other than a squirrel and a lot of deer footprints in the snow.
Headed in for dinner around 7pm, they had company though and didn’t answer to our knock. Went back to the cabin for more Seinfeld, only to have Mary knock about 5 minutes later. Headed in for dinner which she said was lasagne, but was actually just a pasta bake. Had some great garlic bread with it though. Sat down with their 2 guests, their sons god parents. Ken and I forget the womans name, they were both Indians or First Nation. He was very thin with long grey plated hair and enormous brown saucer eyes, whilst she was huge and sat complaining of back problems. Neither wanted to speak very much and when they did it was to tell us a story that Mary had already told us – how their friend camping up Mt. Logan with his dog had found a camera crew lost in the blizzard and put them up in his own tent, then when his plane picked him up he took his dog and left and they complained how dare he take the dog and not them. Thankfully dinner didn’t last long as small one offered ot help move their new bed upstairs then we ran off to the cabin to finish Seinfeld.
Friday 23rd March 2012
Starting work to day in the greenhouses... at last! It was -22 and we started by shifting 20 heavy big bags of peat into the main greenhouse to thaw out. We then mixed some soil up in the big mixer and filled the trays of plant pots we had premade a few days ago. Mary had had 7 trays of seedlings picked up in town for us to pot up, as the big order of 21 trays had been delayed till Wednesday next week.
Then a surprise for us, her only regular local worker turned up to start today. Even though there wasn’t enough work to keep us going, she brought in a paid worker, this woman named “Toni” . This was a strange beast, a middle aged plump woman with a colourful beanie who drank a mysterious brown liquid from a jam jar. She had a very nervous way of speaking, it was a strange high pitch murmur. She would stammer and stop and start and peter out during mid sentence, the effect would be this weird “me-me-me-me-me” sound like one of the muppets, with an occasional nervous giggle. Mary told us later that apparently her husband had run off with their 9 children.
So we make up these seedlings, poking a hole in the soil filled pots and transferring them in, then labelling them. It wasn’t too bad, small one concentrated on mixing the soil and filling the pots, whilst tall one was stuck with Toni. Whilst tall one was poking holes into the soil, this strange electronic voice started coming from Toni. He looked up and saw it was one of those novelty fly swats that makes a funny noise or a stupid voice when you use it... and there was Toni this middle aged woman bashing this thing on the table when there was no fly in sight. She had a big grin on her face and was giggling at the “funny” voices it made, looking at tall one for a sign of recognition. Tall one said it was very funny, but this did not deter her, she carried on banging it saying “it makes funny noises it says ‘you missed me.... you missed me try again...’ can you hear it?”. Tall one could hear it. About an hour later Mary came in and started doing the exact same thing laughing her head off, these people in the Yukon wilderness are easily amused.
Toni left at lunch time and we had a “filling?” lunch of soup and crackers again. These Canadians really need to start serving bread rolls with soup. Mary talked to us of strawberry sizes and about her sisters bone operation. We finished off the work by 3.30pm, swept up and covered with dirt retired to the cabin... small one desperately needing a shower, but his turn was tomorrow. At least they now had 2 days off. As much as we have been moaning and taking the piss out of them, it’s not all that bad really.... it’s a good experience anyway.... or at least an experience.
Went in for dinner at 6.30pm. Had the longest most boringest experience of our lives. For starters tonight’s dinner for FIVE people was 2 medium sized pizzas.... that was it, not even a salad. Tall and small would have a pizza each plus sides. Then talk about doing our laundry tomorrow... they have their own machines in the house but don’t want us to use them, so said they will drop us at the petrol station to use there facilities, then we can walk the 10km back lugging our laundry over our shoulders?? We then asked for some breakfast supplies as what she gave us Sunday night had ran out.... she meticulously counted out the grapes, gave us about 7 each in a small bag, then watched with eagle eyes as small one filled the kettle and water flask up, the resentment filling her beady eyes. What was worse was the drivel they spoke for two and a half hours non-stop! Rolland had out google maps and wanted to find each of tall and smalls houses and look around the streets, he then found Rivendell farm and started naming all the mountains and heights for a good 20 minutes, they then both started in on the history of the farm and the history of the farming problems of North America, how bubble bath gave you cancer.... for the last half an hour tall and small did not even say a word, they just sat very bleary eyed nodding politely at the rubbish coming out their mouths. Not that we’re complaining.... Still, was nice to see the two of them getting on (they are the married couple in Father Ted who once we’re gone out the room tell each other to feck off).
Thursday 22nd March 2012
Another day and another cat design sweatshirt for Mary, she’s now changed from a purple jumper with kittens to beige one with kittens. A more clearing more snow tracks this time to a dirt pile and another around a small greenhouse. Had some lunch (again soup), but some nice egg and ham toasted sandwiches (again with the ham she cooked last Sunday). Got stuck for an hour and we thought she’d never shut up talking, it was on and on about legalized hash, and then how to adopt or not adopt a child. Mary has this slightly creepy way of discussing things, with her big Gollum like face and her husky smokers voice she starts her conversation glancing between the two of us dramatically with her big bulbous eyes, leaving big pauses between sentences, and arching her eye brows taking in big breaths at the end of a particularly ‘revealing’ sentence. Tall and small have to prop their heads up with their hands to keep from nodding off.
Another hour of work, but this time she had us back in the greenhouse. Rolland had been shouting at her all afternoon yesterday as she’d had us making up 400 trays of plant pots using the “strong” old trays from 1987.... he didn’t want us to use them, so had to go through all the trays and swap the trays around for newer ones with a small square design instead of the sturdy ones with triangle design....? It was complete pedantic insanity. Small one was furious about wasting our time from their own incompetence. Later small one went in for his shower and Mary was on at him about make sure you “squeegee” the shower when you leave”. He told her he already had been doing that, and she mentioned today was the first time she had used the shower in the week...? She said she noticed how clean it was so presumed we had both been cleaning it after use (we aren’t aloud to use the thing enough to make it dirty...).
In for dinner, of meatballs and spaghetti with salad. A nicer evening tonight, though we were both shattered. They gave us both new pillows, which will help a great deal in the cabin. They confirmed our days off for Saturday and Sunday. Though she did make some comment to Rolland that we owed them 1 more hour as we finished at 2pm today.... we thought that was a bit of cheek as for one- they ran out of work, and two – we finished our jobs early as we worked our arses off to get them done quick. Next time we’ll go as slow as we can. Then end the day with a nice sunset and the usual Seinfeld episodes on small one’s tablet.
Wednesday 21st March 2012
An interesting day. Apparently we were due -27 degrees tonight, so Mary was all go trying to tape up this plastic sheeting over our cabin windows then blow dry out to make it smooth. We were back in the green house making up endless plastic pots into plastic trays. Some lunch of some really nice cheese and some really nice cream of mushroom soup (no hair today). Mary brought big Bob the dog inside to introduce us formally, he left a lot of hair about.
Back to work, and trying to pick axe out some ice by the greenhouse doorstep as it was leaking into the greenhouse lowering the temp. Rolland came home and started roaring away at Mary, you’ve not done this, why isn’t this done, where’s this, this is wrong!! Tall and small kept hammering away with their pick axe on the ice, half expecting to have to use it in self defence if this argument escalated anymore. Rolland stormed off in the pickup, leaving us with Mary. Rolland must be the nicest Psychopath we’ve every met, though we hear Ted Bundy was a charmer too.
Finished up our plastic windows then Mary dropped us off at the Organic Coffee shop on the Takihini Springs Road. We were the only people there, small one brought us all coffees and Mary left us to it. Small one was foaming at the mouth for his internet fix which he’d been deprived off for the last few days. Tall one was just glad to wash his hands for a change as there is nowhere to do it at Rivendell and both their hands were starting to smell like old dog biscuits. Its a lovely coffee shop, some great coffee, probably the best since Melbourne.
The walk back took about 45 minutes, cutting along some ‘scudu’ tracks in the snow following some pylons to get back tot he farm, otherwise their farm road is an extra 2km walk due to the way the road was made to skirt around property. Back at the house and in for some meatloaf and baked potatoes, again great food, but not enough. Mary said it was -27 tonight and she’d dug up an extra quilt for each of us. Small one’s was one of Joseph’s old ones, little kiddie football design. Tall one’s was an old beige quilt covered with dog hair.... it was then they realized this was the dogs bed as the beige quilt that was usually infront of the glass doors by the dining table was missing. Thanks for that Mary. Was again offered no drink, not even water with dinner, makes you wonder what she thinks we are surviving off.... snow?
Tuesday 20th March 2012
Up again for work, this time had a good nights sleep and was actually quite warm. Though got up for breakfast to get the milk left outside in the snow under a bucket, to find that Bob the big dog had found it and chewed the apple juice, urinated on our door step (though it could have been the juice) and stolen the milk container. So no cereal, just bread and nuts. We told Mary Bob had got the milk bottle, and she wasn’t too pleased saying it was an expensive bottle. She said she had bad news, a delivery of plants was delayed so they ma not have much work for us, but they would see. We did a bit of shovelling and sorted out some green and white plants tags in the green house, but when we were done we could not find Mary anywhere. We knocked on the door and shouted up (did not want to go inside as had been told not to unless they were there to see us come in), so potted about looking busy, playing with the giant dog asking it where the milk was. Finally came down and we had some lunch.
Lunch was some raisin toast with cream and bacon inside. Tall one found a hair inside his sandwich on the first bite. Small one had found one yesterday in his tomato soup.... so far they had not found any cigarette ash. While they ate the quite nice lunch (minus the hair that is) Mary told them about Canadian serial killers. Apparently there is one operating on the highway to Prince Rupert, the highway is now called the Highway of Tears as for the last 20 years hitchhikers have turned up dead, and no one has been caught yet. She also went into child killers and hooker killers.... it was a nice lunch. She also talked about the daylight hours of Whitehorse, how in the winter (December) the sun rises at 10.15am and sets around 2.30pm. In the mid summer the sun sets after Midnight (hence the expression the Midnight Sun) and comes up only a few hours later.... we were obviously in the in-between time of year, so were on standard daylight hours as far as we were concerned (sun rise around 8am, and set around 8pm).
Back to work in the green house with a fun job of putting various plastic plant trays into another type of plant tray, then filling up with plant pots and laying them out in twos stacked 5 high. They had to be done in a very specific way, the trays with triangles, not with squares, rectangles or patterns. This we did for about 2 and a half hours. After work we said we wanted to walk to the gas station and back, but Rolland told us it was 10km away, but said he’d drop us there on his way to pick up peat for the greenhouse. In the gas station (the nice old wooden designed one) we grabbed a $1 coffee, some popcorn and a chocolate bar to share and started walking back up the icy road. We got about a third of the way (took about an hour) and Rolland and Mary picked us up again, and took us the rest o the way. Back at the farm and small one was looking forward to his shower (he looked and smelt a state). One of the main downsides here is there is no where to wash your hands. The cabin and greenhouses have no running water, so when we come in for dinner she’s always in the sink and on about water shortages, so we never feel comfortable asking to even wash ours hands before dinner, and there’s nowhere else to wash them. So we always feel dirty (that and a shower only every other day....). The other thing we are not sure on, is there always seems a faint smell of hash about the place.
Headed in for dinner. On the way tall one stopped to use the outhouse, the hole is so deep its like pissing into some great abyss... you have to wait a good 3-4 seconds until you hear anything hit the bottom. In for dinner for a nice beef stir fry. Conversation got a bit intense once they started talking about Rollands family and how bad they were, he started counter acting that by saying how unbearable her family was, it all ended in them both saying in sync “NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER AND WE MEAN NEVER WORK WITH YOUR FAMILY”. Think we were in there for a good hour and a half stuck in a conversation black hole. We ought to be getting paid for this....
Monday 19th March 2012
We had set our alarm for 1am to see the Northern lights, as the sky was clear and their Aurora website had said they should still be good (also spurred on by the Japanese guys photos in the eez Knees). Tall one forced himself up and he went outside while small looked out the doorway. It was pretty cold and though tall one could see a million stars, there were no fantasic lights. All there was was a big, hazy green arch across the sky which was not moving. This was not quite the fantastical green ghostly flame shapes we’d heard of. Back up 2.30am to re-check, and byt hen it was just a green haze.
Awoke shattered and freezing cold. Though it wasn’t until we went out to use the outhouse and came back in we realized how warm it was in the cabin and how cold it was outside. Tried to work out how to eat breakfast with essentially no crockery. Mary had given us a carrier bag of dry food (buts, granola, shreddies, bread, teabags) plus a container of milk and water for breakfast. Though she had not given us any crockery from the house she said to just use the stuff in the cabin. Well, the stuff in the cabin was either in the draw covered with mouse droppings, or outside in a bucket covered with snow and dog piss. We tried the kettle first, which made noise, then stopped abruptly. The toaster worked okay, but we had no plates so we used small one’s book – Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time as a make-shift plate. There was no bowl for cereal so had to empty out the Tupperware pot which held the cereal, then use that as a bowl between us. We managed to find a make shift kettle later, there was a metal coffee pot which we took out the filter, sterilized it best we could and then just stuck it on top of the electric hob - even though it wasn’t a kettle it worked quite well. We were starting to feel like old pioneers in the make shift cabin, near freezing to death in our long johns, making do with whatever junk was handy to eat and cook with. We now realize that the term “wwoofer” refers to the fact that you must learn to like a dog while doing it.
Started work at 9am, and Mary wanted the snow shovelled off the roofs above the green house entrances (so during the thaw they would not collapse down in a hep onto people or block the door). Tall one did this (as he was tallest), though he bent the metal ladder, and worked hard raking the snow off with an extended snow shovel. His hands got numb with the cold within minutes... Mary said it was -22 degrees outside. He ran and got more gloves, but were still numb. She did bring out coffee later which helped thaw them, though changing from numb fingers to hot coffee made them sting. Meanwhile small one was on snow shovelling duty on the ground. Mary apparently had her own make shift outhouse – she did want to share the other one (by our cabin) with other staff as she said she had a bowel condition. So small one’s job was to shovel a path all the way down to her personel shitter (this was a long way and took a couple of hours). By lunch around 12pm both had bad back aches, cramp in the hands and fingers. Though the sun was surprisingly warm, so going from frost bite fingers at 9am, to stripping off two layers by midday. The sun was lamost blinding without glasses as well.
Sat in and had lunch, some toasted cheese sandwiches and soup. Mary and Rolland told us how they’d got previous wwoofers to dig one of the outhouses (straight down a good 15 foot or more?!) and had found an ancient jaw bone for a bison – it turned into national news. They told us how they’d named their farm Rivendell as they were big Tolkein fans. Mary then suggested we stop for the day after we finish the roof (another ten mintues work maybe), we’d only started at 9am so suggested we clear their shop/garage roof as well. In the end done buy 1.30 ish. Back to cabin to snooze an dnurse our aches, then Mary said she was going to the dump we would like to come... we wondered what kind of dump she was going to, but apparently one of the old sofas we took out the cabin yesterday was being dumped which is located by Lake Lebarge (which is used in the Robert Service poem the Cremation of Sam Mgee). Took us for a ride down their, telling us some local history how on a particular stretch of road there were only two land owners, one was a millionaire with his own private air strip, the other a local blind goat herder. Arrived at the lake which was deserted, and had a 5 minute stroll down on the frozen surface.
Back for supper, and Tall one was took his turn to shower today, small one would be tomorrow. Tall one went inside and asked Mary if it was okay if he showered now, feeling like Oliver Twist asking for some more. She told him there was a squiggy brush that after he showered he must wipe down the whole inside of the shower as otherwise it gets rusty. The bathroom door lokcs strangely, where by the handle must be pushed in and turned to lock, so you never quite know if its locked as if you test it, it just reopens anyway. So tall one showering keeping an eye on the door and an eye on the time, then having to spend 5 minutes wiping down this shower removing any trace of having been there.
Sunday 18th March 2012
Small one saddened by Celtic losing a cup. Tall one took him for breakfast to a cafe called Burnt Toast – which they’d been looking for for the last few days. It was over priced and over modern, but did quite nice fry up with sour dough bread – which used to be made by the pioneers on the gold rush. Back to the hostel via a mcflurry, to wait for our lift for Ruvendell wwoofing farm due 12.30pm – 1pm. Well we stood outside for a long time, making awkard chit chat and further goodbyes to owner Nancy of the Beez Knees, and watched as she turned away a lot of aboriginal or Japanese locals who claimed they’d been sleeping rough could they check in for a few months. Finally Mary from Rivendell showed up half an hour later at 1.30pm. We did have fears of what to expect as they were an organic farm and stated wwoofers should have an interest in organic foods. Well our fears were dispelled as her first words were that we were going through McDonalds drive through did we want anything? She had her 20 year old son Joseph in the car whose birthday was exactly the same as small one (December 3rd) and exactly 10 years later. Mary told us about bears in the area how a few locals had had their faces mauled by black bears and had saved themselves by playing dead. Small one mentioned the bear spray the Drumheller man swore by, she just scoffed that it was hopeless.
Mary gave us a brief tour of their short road “Takihini Springs Road”. At the junction there was a log cabin style petrol station which was used in some TV or film. Halfway down was her farm and a few others (about a 1-2km drive down a track), the other end of the main road was three attractions; Takhini Hot Springs, Yukon Wildlife Reserve and the Organic Coffee Shop. She took us for a coffee and we ended up getting their tour round the back. They roast there own beans daily and even visit the picking farms in Africa and Asia., small one just wanted to ask about the wifi however. He was disappointed as both Mary and the Coffee shop said it was very expensive and for use of email checking only.
Arrived at the farm itself, located on a hill overlooking Takhini river and their fruit orchards. Great view of snowy mountains and forest, well away from the main road. Had a fairly big house they’d built themselves, a big garage/work shop, two big greenhouses, and our make shift cabin round the corner. Cabin was not a log cabin, just a makeshift ply board shed with some bed and furniture. Had been shut up all winter so a bit messy, and full of mice droppings. Had three windows in the cabin, two had views of the mountains, the main window looked out on their snowy yard which had half a dozen broken down cars left abandoned (small one asked what they had done with the bodies, they didn’t laugh). There was also an outhouse next to the cabin, which was basically a small wooden shed with a hole in the ground. The toilet seat was hand cut out of polystyrene, and was an enormous hole you could fall into.
They had 2 cats, one an evil black one, the other a very friendly tabby kitten who jumped and played continuously. Small one explained his fear of cats to them, and noted how he wants to see a Grizzly Bear but is afraid of a kitten. He sat through a cup of coffee and lunch with them occasionally jumping out his seat shooing away this tiny kitten. They also had a gigantic lack dog called “Bob”. Bob was chained up outside and would not stop leaping a good four foot into the air everytime he saw us, it put us off going to stroke him as he was big enough to crush either of us.
We met the husband Rolland who was busy ploughing a path through the 2 foot snow (the most he remembers them every having) to our cabin. We chatted briefly, he seemed very nice, friendly. Both Mary and Rolland were in their 50’s, Mary seemed to do most of the talking. We sat inside and Mary explained that once Rolland had cleared a path to the cabin we would have to help load up the truck with all the furniture stored inside, then we’d have to clean it out for ourselves. She explained that we’d be working 5-6 hours a day, she’d give us food to make our own breakfast int he cabin then she’d prepare lunch and dinner in the house. She said there were always water shortages so we could only shower every other day... She lso said her maiden name was Cheney and she was a distant cousin of ‘Dick’. While she started cooking dinner we waited inside chatting with her, suddenly there was a voice calling from the front door, Rolland called in “Mary can you come here?”. Mary called back “what is it Rolland?”, then suddenly Rolland was screaming “DON’T ANSWER ME LIKE THAT! COME HERE!”. Mary walking to the front door was speaking calmly back “okay okay, Rolland what is it?”. Shouting again he roared “I SAID DON’T ANSWER ME LIKE THAT! YOU JUST ANSWER ‘YES’ OKAY!!”. They went outside and argued further, small and tall sat with their cold coffees and looked at each other in bewilderment, they hadn’t expected him to change so drastically, everything had been looking fine up till then. Mary came back in chirpy as ever, apparently the car couldn’t start. She continued to prepare our dinner (roast ham and scallop potatoes), she smoked like a chimney whether in the car, house or outside and unfortunately even while she was chopping up our spuds she had a fag going in one hand. Despite this she does prepare some great dinners.
Finally around 6.30pm the cabin path was clear, we had three trips to the garage to store old beds, mattresses and two old sofas from our cabin. We then swept it out, cleaned the windows, sterilized the sinks. There was a bunk bed left, two tables, a chest of draws (containing mouse droppings, cutlery, scrabble and a Sports Illustrated). There was also a double sink, but no taps and indeed no drainage, just two holes leading to underneath where you had to put a bucket. At least we had electricity, but no wifi (poor small one), no running water. It was rustic living, and although a little bit awkward and uncomfortable at times, it was akin to camping and would be a good experience out in the Yukon.
Saturday 17th March 2012
1am the owner returned and came round the dorms to see if anybody wanted to come see the Northern Lights, there was also some old man who said he wanted to show everyone where they were. Tall and small were well too shattered for that nonsense and stayed in bed, the English lad Jason went along though. Next morning he was up in the lounge (on his endless skype calls to the girlfriend). He told us quite loudly how the old man had led them across the town just to show them a cloud. Though later on a Japanese fella showed us his photos from last night and they looked great – showing the green bands of the aurora across the nights sky. Jason and the Japanese guy left with some girl to drive up to Inuvik via Dawson (in the arctic circle).
Went out to the supermarket called ‘Extra Food’, as we went inside through the automatic doors a stray dog followed us inside. No one seemed to bat an eye lid though, it sniffed about then left through the same doors again. Back for some bacon sandwiches then into Town once more. Went to the MacBride museum, history and junk from the Gold Rush days, stuffed bears, and the cabin of Sam Mcgee from Robert Service’s poem. Afterwards small one wanted a medical centre to get something for his bad tonsils. Looked around for a good half an hour, they all seemed closed. What was more strange was they were closed for the day but all their doors unlocked (like the hostel). Small one went inside one medical centre / dentists, all the way upstairs and into the dentists room (filled with drugs and dentist chairs / tools) nobody about, so left again. Finalyl found an open centre and small one went and spoke to the large Canadian nurse. She asked him all manner of questions about allergies, and started tapping his face with her fingers asking if that hurt, small one said no, but it feels quite nice. After a bit of charm he wangled two prescriptions from her, so he had one back up if it came back again down the line.
Went for a walk up the historic Yukon River. Nice blue sky and sunshine today. Edge of river had a lot of huge overhanging ice ledges. Was a 5km loop walk in all and got back very hungry. Small one cooked an enormous dinner for St Paddys day, half a roast chicken each, a pile of spuds and broccoli. The downside was that we had to eat in the kitchen with the most dippiest, smuggest, stuck up young couple you’d ever met. She said she was from Alberta and small one asked where abouts, and she said “oh you wouldn’t have heard of it”. They played Chess inbetween this hideous playful chat, and him telling her “do you know this means you’ve never once beat me at chess....”. Managed to make quite a big dent in the dinner, then the owner Nancy turned up in her Pyjamas after spending a good 45 minutes outside shovelling ice in -7 temps. She’s a wee bit rough, and talks with some bitterness about things. We asked her about the wwoofing farm we were headed to and she got up and went to the fridge and came back with a box of eggs, to illustrate the point that they may use these kind of boxes to put seedlings in.... oh right. We ran and hid soon after. Small one could not drink for Paddys Day due to his medication, so had planned a cup of Barry’s tea, but then again there seemed to be no kettle in the place.
Friday 16th March 2012
Arrived in Whitehorse at 3am, pretty tired by now... Made our way to the near Tim Hortons for a large coffee. Stayed for 2 hours, just about getting online to the next door Pizza Hut wifi. At 5am moved to McDonalds for the breakfast and free wifi, was served (like in Tim Hortons) by an all Asian staff – we may as well of been back in Thailand and not in the Yukon.
Finally headed into the hostel for 8am. The English lad opened the door with a big “good morning!” to the little French woman running the place. She was pretty sharp straight away, “ssssh it is very early, people are sleeping...” . We were aloud to sit in silence in the somewhat claustrophobic, dark and cold downstairs lounge until 10am. The showers were very cramped and the toilets very hard to lock. We asked for the room and door ket, the French woman laughed and said there is ni key, front door never locked, bedroom never locked. We asked if there was lockers for our laptops... she thought it was funny still, who would still them?? Oh right. Got out beds sorted and headed into town. Not really too much to see. Long gird like town of a few modernised old buildings, claiming to be from 1900, but now a Starbucks... Stopped at a cafe built out of logs, it only served ‘organic coffee’ and for someone reason small one couldn’t say no to her, so we ended up sat in their for a dull, awkward half an hour making chit chat about how her organic coffee business made no money, but she was still celebrating her 1 year business anniversary. Stopped for an all you can eat buffet at Pizza hut where tall and small gorged themselves. Immediately afterwards went to Shipyard park where three boys were sledding. Small one asked if he could have a go, and they pointed to a sled left abandoned on the snow. As soon as small one picked it up, a woman and s amll child called out to him that it was hers.... in the end she thought he was Scottish and let him use it for 2 goes (she did offer it for 45 minutes use, but that was far too long...). Some tips from the 7 year olds and tall and small both had a go. The pizza buffet didn’t help their agility.
`Headed up via an unhelpful dollar store, to a lookout over the city. Whitehorse also seemed full of crows, like Banff was full of magpies. Walked back to town through a Pioneer graveyard, but was so deep in snow could barley see the tops of the graves. Had a stop at the SS Klondike historic boat, then back over the Robert Service highway to the hostel – where half a dozen cars were beeping their horns incessantly, for o reason we could see. Back to hostel shattered, but could not manage to fall asleep. Tall and small seemed to be the only 2 people in the hostel freezing cold. No central heating (not to mention dodgy wifi) the French girl showed us how to turn a little electric fire on, but 20 minutes later stormed in and shut it off then walked off again without saying word to us. We were starting to wonder why this place had been so highly recommended to us. The town itself was quite historic, the street names were named after old Pioneer characters, there was a museum that was filled with children but was too expensive. Overall, it didn’t seem the effort to come up here just for Whitehorse itself.. though we were still to do a walking trail and of course the wwoofing.
Thursday 15th March 2012
An hour or so into the journey the two men (strangers) sat next to each other, the otherside of small one started arguing. The Indian fella against the window was accusing the Canadian man (with a seedy moustache) of feeling his leg. The Canadian man said he was just asleep and did not mean anything by it, the Indian man insisted that the Canadian moved. The Canadian refused, and so the Indian turned on both spot lights over head and pointed them down to the other guys face “that’s so I can see what your doing”. The Canadian told him he couldn’t sleep with this in his face, the Indian told him to move then... He still refused, and so the Indian kept waving his elbow up in the guys face saying “you gotta move seats, just move!”. This went on for an hour, and it would resurface now and again, when we’d here “you grow up”.... “no you grow up, just move...”. Finally at a rest stop at 2am in Whitecourt the Canadian got off for food. When he got back on the Indian fella had stretched out across both seats and told him he wasn’t sitting back there again. So the Canadian sat down in the seat infront (where a short middle aged woman with a crow like nose had been sat on her own). When she saw he was there the ginger bearded driver got involved, but said there was nothing he could do. The woman sat back in her seat and asked the Canadian to move, he refused her as well. Eventually she turned around and asked the Indian fella if she could move next to him as she didn’t want to be next to the Canadian either, he said of course, so she moved behind him.
Changed drivers at 5.30am at Grand Prairie, to a friendly old fella. A young Canadian hick sat in the now empty front passenger seat and chatted to the driver how he was going to Whitehorse to visit family. Next stop was at Dawson Creek at 6.30am, where we all had to get off the bus as the driver wasn’t sure if we were changing to a new one or continuing on the same one yet. Was told we’d leave at 7.30am, but we waited outside with the new arrivals. The driver came back with a new bus and told us we were changing. The new arrivals got on to the new bus first so we jumped into the front seats. Then that Canadian Hick turned up and got on asking if this was the bus to the Yukon. Tall one told him yes, the driver said we were changing buses. He was confused, so tall one took a while to explain that he was on the same bus as him and the driver said this was the bus, he still asked”so both buses are going to the Yukon?”. Finally he got it and asked to sit next to Tall one, he was told no as small one was in the toilet. He then said “you fuckers took my seat i’ve been in this seat since....” (he’d only moved there an hour ago), Tall one told him this is a new bus. He swore and went down the bus asking someone where they were going, they must have miss understood as they said Prince George (must have been their start point as that’s south west from Dawson Creek), he laughed and got off the bus telling tall one to “enjoy the Yukon!”. The driver then turned up and we left, no sign of the Hick who missed his bus to see his family in Whitehorse (there’s not another for 2 days).
Another stop at Bucking Horse River around 12.15pm, where tall one brought expensive coffees, and the cowboy owners charges an extra $2 for takeaway food. Drove past 2 moose on side of road, didn’t manage a photo. Then to Fort Nelson for an hour and a half. Went to Subway for a coffee along with an English backpacker, Jason. One of the very few Backpackers we’d ever seen travelling on a Greyhound since we’d started. He thought his girlfriend has woofed with at the same farm we were headed to a couple of years ago and thought it was the best place she’d been. Small one ordered one small and one large coffee. He confused little cashier turned to make them then came back and asked, with milk? Small one said just one. She turned away, then came back, in which one? Milk in the tall one..... she turned away then came back, sugar? Small one told her just in the small one? She got very confused and her manager told her “i’ve told you before don’t offer just give it on the side to save confusion”. Well she was still confused as she never gave us milk. Back to the bus and a new driver, a big shaven headed fella (reminded small one of Jim Brass from CSI Las Vegas), he seemed pretty grumpy, slamming his bus door about. Apparently we had him for the next 12 hours to White Horse...
Our new driver started his ‘warm’ robotic welcome, his name was Derek and we would be stopping at.... he then listed off every stop, even if it was just a five minute stop... we will then be stopping at Watson lake, arriving at 9.50 or 9.55pm and departing at 10:05 or 10:10pm, then when we had a lunch break it would be announced as “we now have a 30 minute or half an hour lunch break....”. At least we had some great scenery from Dawson Creek all the way to Whitehorse, vast expanse of forests, and snowy roads and mountains. We stopped at one really remote spot (Lake Muncho?) to let off one single passenger, it was a very old toothless, white haired and bearded man. He gathered all his bags and headed to the front of the bus announcing how he’d been dreaming of this place. He’d also been talking to the little girl sat behind us about how he remembered going for walks with her when she was little (her mother later confirmed that they’d never seen him before in their life). So, the bus pulled over, there was a big final hand shake and this old toothless man set off into the middle of nowhere. Small and Tall speculated that perhaps he’d come out into the wilderness to die, but then tall one pointed out he had to large carrier bags of toilet roll, and a man setting off to die wouldn’t have come quite so prepared.
Derek the driver also had this strange habit of slowly, robotically saluting any lorry drivers that came past – usually to get no response what-so-ever. Past some Caribou on the road and managed a brief photo of the four/five of them. A brief stop at Toad River for some chips at 5.15pm... departing 5.45 or 5.50pm. The driver was a sugar-a-holic. He’d come in from each rest stop with armfuls of bottles of pop, sweet bags and wrappers. As small one was trying to sleep he’d be hoping that was it, and then the driver would rustle and chomp his way through another bag of sweets. After Toad River there were numerous signs warning of Buffalo on the road. Then we saw them for the next half an hour, anything from 1 by the side of the road, head first in the snow nosing through to the grass, or they’d be a herd of 20 just on the verge. Derek stopped his munching to pull over for us to take a photo of a group of half a dozen (all that sugar seemed to lighten him up). It then got dark, and small one thought Derek was falling asleep and so tried to taking to him, this was in-between a little girl behind him kicking the seat/foot rest when she was awake or snoring loudly when she was asleep. A last rest stop at Watson Lake around 10pm, then small one nodded off and woke up in Whitehorse at 3am.
Wednesday 14th March 2012
Made the most of our own room, as next four nights either on a bus or dorm. Checked out and popped our heads into the bar/cafe next to the hostel, looking for breakfast. The place was deserted except for a rough woman reading a paper, she begrudgingly gave us menus, but the place stunk of fags so we left quickly. Reception recommended a cafe a few blocks away, which they said was very dirty but a great little place.... We had a look and it was busy and was very cheap. Had a coffee (with 3 refills), a soup, a main meal (pork chops and mash / sausages and mash) plus a dessert all for $10 each. The waitress was friendly enough, though perhaps a little slow in the head, despite being quick on her feet (she seemed to be the only person working while the owner sat and chatted to customers pointing out things for her to do). Went for a walk down across the river, into Old Strathcona area. It was alright, nice town like feel, red brickwork buildings, but not old fashioned like the Lonely planet claimed. Headed back through the park and cut down a very icy footpath (all the footpaths were like ice skating rinks – which was very hard work heading up hills). Behind us a blonde dippy young girl who stank of hash exclaimed “oh I didn’t think you’d go this way too!”. Tall one let small one do the talking... She realized he was Irish, and asked if he knew Anthony? Small one said “oh yes Anthony’s my cousin”. She didn’t bat an eye lid and started on with other questions like a machine gun, why you here? Where you going? Why you going there? What made you come here? Thankfully it didn’t last long and we detoured up a cycle path filled with dog walkers. Across the bridge back to the downtown side of Edmonton, up some very steep wooden stairs. Found Winston Churchill square where his statue looked more like the Penguin from Batman (then again most of his statues do). Found a shopping mall and a Dollarama. Brought some Bear Repellent Spray (basically pepper spray that shoots out 8 metres). This was recommended by our tour guide David yesterday, who kept one by his gear stick at all times... Brought it downstairs in ‘Atmosphere’ who told us they had not ill so to pay upstairs in ‘Sport Check’, queued for ages then the casher told us we should have got a ‘disclaimer’ form from Atmosphere from downstairs, so had to wait for another 15 minutes while they dug out a contract saying we wouldn’t sue if the spray failed and the bears killed us. Stopped for some soup and a bread roll bowl in a small sandwich shop. The guy behind the counter was very cross eyed and had to hold his head inches from the till buttons in order to read them. He made good soup though.... Back to the hostel via a food shop in Sobeys for tomorrows breakfast, lunch and dinner on the bus.
When we went back to reception to collect our bags from storage, small one asked the receptionist fella in training if we could collect our bags, the guy repeated back to him, “sorry, we’re going to be together for 2 months?”.... small one was confused, told him he was dreaming, just get our bags. Had a short walk to the station, and sat inside with the lunatics. Two police were called to drag away to little tubby tinker girls who were screaming about something. Then the big security fella woke up some poor confused lad, asked him for his ticket, and because he was a bit confused and took his time to get them, he was told he couldn’t travel... Finally on the bus after midnight (no bag checks this time), thankfully the big guy with four chins next to small one was going south not north (he was snoring even when he was awake). Bus pulled out, pretty full, and driving out the city we counted a good half a dozen white rabbits on the roads and footpaths.... still confused by this.
Tuesday 13th March 2012
Awoke and got out the room pretty early, moved everything into the common room and put up with boring questions from some keen Asian lad on his own. Small one showered and noticed when he came out how he’d been using the ladies not the men’s toilets. Had an incredible free hostel breakfast, make your own pancakes, then muffins, bananas, toast, coffee, juice. Checked out of hostel and waited for our tour guide for the Drumheller Badlands and Dinosaur tour. We’d finally plumped with the guy ‘David’ with the bad website, and he was happy for us to pay cash on the day, and to be going out on the tour just with 2 people. He arrived in his big white Ford van, parked way down the street watching us like Ted Bundy for a good ten minutes before driving up to collect us. He was a friendly old Canadian man, not the money grabbing arsehole his website gave the impression of. He was quite red faced (small one presumed alcoholic), must have been in his seventies (though claims he has a 12 year old daughter and exclaimed that they had thought the machinery had stopped working....), he also wore all Harley Davison gear; cap, jacket, tshirt and spoke very highly about his bike. It was then when he mentioned his new Harley and his $25,000 cruise to England and Russia that small and tall agreed they’d never tip this man (it was his own 1 man business anyway, so you weren’t tipping the down trodden under paid employee). He also sat in the front with two takeaway cups of coffee infront of him, at first we thought they were welcome gifts for us, and then he started to drink from the both of them alternately simultaneously.
But despite my description he was a nice old fella, told some interesting facts about the area as we drove out to Drumheller (2 hours of bland, prairie badland scenary). He mentioned how in the neighbouring community ‘Three Hills’ was were the Johnstone Massacre master mind Jim Jones had got farmers to sell him their land and had preached regularly to them. He also pointed out a small airport which used to feature a big sign for Karls Sky Diving... however about 7 years ago Karl got sloppy with his parachute folding and 3 people died within a year including a 17 year old Indian girl. An inquest was held, but before it concluded Karl disappeared without touching any of his money – our guide David’s theory was that one of the victims’ families took the guy out and buried him somewhere in the badlands.
Into Drumheller and stopped at Horseshoe Canyon then Horsetheif Canyon, both were windy as hell, but some very different scenary with broad valleys filled with weird shaped domes striped with different sandy colours – David claimed these were cut out in just 4 weeks by some glacier melting. Onto the town itself to look up at a world’s biggest Dinosaur model. Then on to the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum (the biggest dinosaur museum in the world??). Had 2 hours there, and David led us inside and brought us tickets like he was our dad taking us out for the day. He waited in the car while we went round the museum. We were disappointed that most of the skeletons all said “Cast” and weren’t the actual bones. We watched some terrible video with children acting badly, and small one dozed off. Left through the gift shop and back to David who took us for lunch. We chose Subway for lunch and he joined us, making awkward conversation opposite us whilst we all ate as quick as we could. Then he took us to the Last Chance Saloon, a wild west hotel built in 1913 used in the filming of some terrible Jackie Chan western comedy. It was closed of course so we could only snoop around the outside like burglars. Then on to a suspension bridge over a frozen river, and finally to the Hoodoos, mushroom like rock formations. Small one went toilet on the Hoodoos, and we took lots of photos then got back in to the van as it was blowing like hell. We had got back quite early, so David so hell bent on wasting time before we arrived back in Calgary (we guess so we thought we got our moneys worth). So he told us he was taking anther route home, small one said “so its shorter?”, David said, “no its half an hour longer”. A little into this alternative scenic route small one was fast asleep and David claimed that this looks exactly the same as the rout ein (long, flat praire farms). Though randomly he stopped in Strathmore and brought us an ice cream each, our relationship had now changed to travelling with our grandfather. We had stopped in Dairy Queen (which Dave informed us was not a Gay Milkman) and he ordered a floater (a large fizzy orange with a big squirt of icecream inside the same cup), he asked what we wanted. Tall one looked at the complicated menu of ice creams and the very high prices and said “what would you recommend David?”. David suggest the sundae (the cheapest thing on there), so tall one and small one went for the sundaes. Finally back in Calgary after a day of awkward chit chat. The City was grey and raining down with snow on us, thankfully David dropped us at the bus station. He said he couldn’t shake our hands as he’d bee coughing so much onto them, so we patted him on the shoulder and said goodbye (no tip was given).
We sat waiting for our bus to Edmonton for an hour and a half (Calgary at least have the nicest bus station so far). Tall one ate a whole bag of caramel popcorn by himself and small one had a little old man with red eyes come up and ask him about his “River Kwai” luggage tag. Small one said it was from Thailand, and the man told him he was sent out to blow that bridge up, though it was in Korea and he never made it out, but he then wanted to know if it was nice? Small one never having been to Korea (though had seen lots of MASH) said it was lovely. Finally the bus came and we loaded on, through the security check and bag search. Small one was asked what his tea bags were doing in his carry-on bag, he exclaimed that they were Barry’s Teabags from Ireland and are much better than Canadian. Tall one’s bag search prompted the security girl to tell him he had a big cookie. Through security okay then up to the ticket collector who asked for our tickets and saw they were the Unlimited Discovery Pass she told us we needed to go to the ticket office and get a ticket (we’d never done this before, though apparently its different for the ‘express’ services??). So back out the queue and security, with the bus leaving any minute tall one queued behind some old man who was arguing his extra $10 bag charge and then started chatting about sports to the ticket guy. Finally he left, we got the tickets and got on the bus. The bus was well kitted out with free wifi and free electric sockets, why they don’t provide this for the 35 hour trips we don’t know. So I am sat awkwardly on the bus typing this now, waiting to arrive in Edmonton around 10pm for a private room.
Arrived in Edmonton okay, went around in circles looking for which street to head up (the hostel was only 800 metres away...). Because the streets were called 100 avenue and 100 street we got turned around a few times, and amidst all this confusion we caught sight of a large white rabbit running across the middle of the Greyhound car park – in the middle of the night in the middle of the city.... it was all a bit Alice in Wonderland. Finally found the hostel and a confusing checkin where we were told we could only pay with the credit card we had made the booking with, she then reeled off directions to tv rooms, kitchens, communal areas, bathrooms, local areas.... it was 11pm at night and we were only staying one night.
Monday 12th March 2012
Long, hurtful walk with the bags up to Banff Railway station, via a coffee at Tim Hortons. On the bus on time, and straight to Calgary no problems. Out of the station and had to work our way up a confusing highway and pedestrian bridge system until we got to the free C-Train car. Sat on the end car for a good 10 minutes thinking we had got inside an out of service one, then off it went. Got off 5 stops later (as directed by the actually quite good directions by the HI hostel). Walk to the hostel and checked straight in around 11am. Tall and small both scared by the prospect of a night in a dorm, af ter only ever sleeping in private rooms for hte last few years (other than sleepily on the over night bus, and the Tasmania trip. Tall one bumped into a very hairy, thick bearded Indian man who recognised him as having checked him in at Canadiana back in Toronto. That was fun trying to avoid him, without the safety net of i work here and you are a guest. Headed out into town past two Canadian geese crossing the road in the middle of the city. The city seemed pretty bland, and lots of weirdos hanging about on corners with no purpose, more creepy than the ones in Toronto even. Weren’t impressed with the city, nor by the bland shopping mall we had a strabucks coffee in. Looked at the Calgary stampede ground and the Calgary tower, and both were pretty dull (obviously there was no stampede on). Back to hostel to microwave our lasagne, then sat up in the dorm beds waiting for the weirdos to come in. The main one was the old fella under small one who told tall one his laptop was not working and he could only see the screen if he closed the laptop with only a couple of inches gap left, so he could peer down into the screen to view it??
Sunday 11th March 2012
Tall one had yet another headache, and small one was again farting like a trooper, real smelly things as well. Had a breakfast in a little cafe. Walked round own a bit, asked bookshop if he had a certain book, he ended up grabbing another one of the shelf about a local grizzly bear attack and started going on about it, no thankyou, goodbye. Brought some chocolate buttons then had a walk up the otherside of the river to the lookout over the frozen river and falls. Watched a big group of Asians thoughtlessly walking along the frozen river, and wondered / hoped it would break. Back to hostel for some planning and booking, ordered a dominos pizza delivered and tipped the guy about 5 cents. The pizza made small one fart even worse. Another early night and ready for the next bus back to Calgary early next day.
Saturday 10th March 2012
1am and you could kinda of see the Northern Lights outside. It was pretty overcast so all you could see was some green blurs lighting up the clouds... still it was our first bleary eyed glimpse of it.
In the morning had the Bagel and Coffee special in the lodge cafe, though the only special thing was the chef who didn’t give us bacon. Walked up to the Gondola, past the vast Fairmont Springs Hotel. Took the trail through the wood up hill to the Gondola (a bout 1.7km). There were no paths, and so at any intersections we just had to guess and usually went for the directions of the most foot prints. It seemed to work and we made it to the Gondola and had a dizzy 8 minute ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain. We were worried about weather as it was quite overcast (and we had few days left to chance it), but it was actually pretty good. The clouds broke enough to get some blue sky, and the view looked great. Asked some big German fella in blue who was holding a huge camera to take a photo of us, he looked disgusted with our little camera but did it anyway (it was out of focus so deleted), he then for no apparent reason felt the needed to show us how good his camera was, we nodded and smiled then got the hell away from him. Walked along a wooden path along the top of the Rockies to the weather station lookout. The path was being cleared by some lazy young staff with shovels listening to Kings of Leon. At the top of the weather station there were some photographers doing some time lapse video, so you had to duck under their camera to get by. We took some photos and small one ran around with an Irish flag on his back. Stopped for expensive cup of tea, soup (no roll – they don’t give you rolls with soup they give you crackers.... rip off Canada!), and a couple of cakes... $20 for that! Headed back down Gondola and refused some staff member to take our photo which they wanted to sell us for $20 (Despite having our own camera). At the bottom of the Gondola headed into the Banff Hot Springs where we had our free ticket. It was very busy, and some Russian guy with gold jewellery and tattoos kept whistling “Don’t Worry Be Happy”. Only stayed half an hour then headed back down the forest track where small one through a snow ball at a wood pecker, who responded by freezing still as if we wouldn’t see him. Back to hostel by 2.30pm and will be ready for our night walk and campfire on the lake tonight at 6.30pm.
Had another McDonalds, posted some cards after buying a stamp from a disgruntled man with a broken arm, small one tried on some women’s shoes that didn’t fit him. We then tried to book the Drumheller Dinosaur tour for Calgary, but both companies seemed a bit illegitimate, one was a man operating on his own and was asking for a 45 day cancelation policy?? The other one seemed to be asian and had really really very bad really English.
Picked up at 6.30pm for the last tour, just as a car of absolute piss heads tumbled out and managed to book a room – one fella swearing at everyone as he arrived. This tour had only 2 quiet German girls and a middle aged English lady who was very proper and seemed to act something like Princess Ann, making dry little quips at any question asked by the guides throughout the night. The guide himself was this very tall thing who we thought was stoned or pissed, red eyed and had bad coordination, not making any eye contact when he spoke to us. He then picked up a 2nd guide, a middle aged south African woman, as well as a middle aged Australian woman who was our last passenger. Mini bus drove out to Lake Minniwanka, we saw a large Elk on the road side on the way. There was talk about us not making it out onto the ice, small one was thinking he wanted his money back then as this was a paid ‘ice walk at night’. Luckily the tall guy took us out anyway while the south African made a fire for our hot chocolate and marshmallows. On the way to the fire the south African lady wanted to prove a point about how quiet it was in the middle of the forest, so shouted out to the group “everyone be quiet, sssshhhh everyone stop talking, be still” there was a pause and small one added loudly “there’s a cougar!”. There was some uncertain responce, the tall guide said he braised himself with his walking pole until he realized it was just a joke. Then we listened to the silence and moved on to the ice. The tall fella told some good stories about the legends of the water spirit of the lake and some of the local characters (such as Bill Peyto local trapper reportedly hating people, and after a days trapping and catching a live Lynx he wanted a drink – but the bar was packed with people, so he just let the wild cat free into the bar to empty it out), the hot chocolate was again exc ellent, but the trip was very short and we wondered what we paid for... though it was a nice novelty walking across a frozen lake in the dark (we also saw some cougar or wolf tracks across the ice, the tall fella didn’t know which). Got back to the hostel and to bed with a flask of tea by 8pm. Though awakened at 3am by the idiots who checked in earlier making banging noises and loud stupid laughing. The receptionist came and told them to be quiet, he had heard them from reception apparently.
Friday 9th March 2012
Up early for the Johnstone Canyon ice walk. Had a bagel and coffee breakfast in the lodge cafe again. Picked up by the Discover Banff minibus at around 8.30am. This time a slightly larger group, 2 young English (girl and a lad), then a group of middle aged Australian couples (6 in total). One of which made jokes within seconds of getting on the bus about how young our guide / driver looked, asking her if she had a license to actually drive yet. She did look very young (and small), she was also extremely Canadian, with a very chirpy manner and outlook, constant grin and a real distinctive Canadian accent. She asked who on the bus was here to ski, and only the old Australians raised there hands, none of the 4 under 30’s did.
Arrived at Johnstone Canyon, the guide said it was perfect weather as not too sunny – this meant the ice formations would look blue instead of bland white. We put on ice clamps and then noticed that 2 of the Australian men were one legged, and both had prosthetic limbs. This meant the tour moved pretty slow, and finally one of them fell by the wayside and headed back to the van. It was a 5 km return walk in all, and saw we no wildlife except a squirrel and some foot prints of a Pine Martin.... The ice formations were very impressive, the upper falls were a huge curtain of icicles and ice pillars and sheets dripping down the cliff side. There were even two people ice climbing which was interesting to see. We got some fantastic hot chocolate from the guide which was worth the $50 alone. Headed back and stopped off at the ‘lower falls’, which weren’t anywhere near as impressive, and wondered why she left these till last. Headed back to Banff for lunchtime, she asked where everyone wanted to be dropped and tall and small said McDonalds... she was shocked anyone would want to eat there. As per yesterday she got off each time someone got out, presumably waiting for the tip that never came. We had our McDonalds 2 meals for $9.99 (as given to us by the Asian shop keeper), and small one spilt vinegar all over tall one’s crotch. Back to the lodge shattered, typed up this blog, updated the photos, and using a photosuite program removed the big spot of small one’s lip he’d gained from all that dirty travelling time on the bus journeys.
Had a bit of a walk up the river, saw how the snow was now all off the trees compared to the thick snow when we arrived. Chased a small squirrel and sat next to a snowman after repairing his head. The Bow Falls Trail was “Closed” but we ignored that and went up the steep, icy steps anyway. It wasn’t too bad, but could see why it was closed – very slippery. Great view of the melting river below and the now foggy mountains ahead. The falls themselves were more of a rapid, and most of it was frozen, but parts where running. Had a walk further up towards the golf course, past the big Banff Springs Chateau hotel. Headed back into town before it got dark. Popped into a camping store and priced a simple scarf at almost $80, left quickly but not before small one accused the cashier of looking like a mannequin and scarying the shit out of him (the poor girl wasn’t sure to be offended or not). Found the ‘Olde Irish Pub” off Banff Ave. Actually a nice Irish Pub (better than the ones we found in Toronto), actually had some Irish music playing, as well as an open wood burning fire. Sat at the bar had one Guinness (though in a thin glass??), and some great food (Hunters Pie and some Roast Lamb). Left feeling fed, and small one very drunk on his one pint. Back to the lodge and wrapped up in bed wearing Long Johns holding a flask of Barrys Tea by 7pm.... this is the life.
Thursday 8th March 2012
Up relatively early, and out to Tim Hortons for a breakfast where small one won a free coffee...hooray! Back to hostel and waited outside for a good half an hour for the bus to pick them up for the Lake Louise / Dog Sled tour. Finally the small mini bus came and picked us up, the guide was a short French girl called Mia. The only other passengers were a group of 4 Asians from Beijing – one was a girl wearing a completely florescent pink outfit, one of the men had a mini video camera (that had a head strap to be mounted on top of his skull) and he would not stop filming everything on the way down (including the poor guides every word), there was also another one fo them who had a backpack with a radio mouth piece extending on a curly cord to a clip on the side, and occasionally he pull this radio mic off and speak into it – presumably he was taping a commentary, no one seem to know. The only other passengers other than us two and the four from Beijing were a middle aged English couple who would not stop asking the poor guide questions. So much so that she got confused and thought she’d missed the turning for the dog sleds so turned around and headed back until she then realized she hadn’t missed it at all and just had not got to it yet, so turned around again – after that the English couple kept their mouths shut.
The dog sledding was well set up, everyone went in 2’s and had to sit on their partners lap in the sled while their guide covered them with blankets. Each sled had eight dogs, and our guide (forget her name) introduced all her eight dogs which she seemed very fond of. She reeled off their names and positions, such as Duff, Mary, Two-Legs, Bowsy and Curly.... then as soon as she was finished she asked tall and small how many they remembered, they struggled to think of one (and could not even remember the guides name). The dogs were desperate to set off, and for a good ten minutes yapped and jumped around all screeching with eagerness to just go. Once we set off tall and small learnt a few dog names (still clueless on the guides), as she kept shouting at them enough. Mary was a trouble maker who kept turning her head and looking back at us, Bowser and Curly were the brothers pulling the most weight directly in front of the sled – who kept snapping at each other in competition, then you had two-legs who kept trying to run and poo at the same time, causing a fantastic view for small one, not to mention some small flying turds being kicked back into his face. The guide called down that the dogs are full of Piss and Vinegar that’s how they come to pull the sleds so well. The good thing about the trip was that there were no tourists or walkers about where we went, and that tall and small were the front sled to leave so had no one in their view ahead of them, just the mountains and snowy tree line. We stopped a few times for photos and took turns trying to run the dogs with her at the back. We went over the continental divide into British Columbia, where we stopped and small one stepped off the hard sled path snow and disappeared up to his waist in very deep soft snow, tall one had to pull him out. We got back after the 17km run – after about an hour and a half. The guide was waiting and poured us all a free hot chocolate. Well we say hot, it was luke warm at best. The Bejing group thought this was hilarious “she say it-ah hotta chocolate, when it-ah not hotta?!! Ha ha ha!”... well that was my translation anyway.
Now on to Lake Louise, running a bit late as she faffed around with the cold hot chocolate so long. Dropped off and given an hour and 40 minutes free time along with some big red plastic snow shoes. Headed out across the frozen Lake Louise which some British Royal had renamed after some Princess, so Tall one on behalf of the UK renamed the lake, Lake Smebe after the small one. Was some great scenary of the frozen lake surrounded by pine trees and huge mountain ranges, along with the large Chateau Hotel. Headed back to the hotel and ate our Subway sandwhich lunch by the melting ice sculptures. Fed some small birds some sandwhich and crisps, small one found out one of the birds was a Clarks Nut Cracker...? Went inside the hotel for a cup of tea, only to find that even a takeaway cup was over $3.50. Brought one and shared it, but could not stay long as the heating was on so high it was like a sauna. Went outside to wait for the group to re-group, and tall one spied a small brown chipmunk. Back to the bus and everyone got in. One of the Beijing group held out his bare hand filled with peanuts and asked tall and small if they wanted any? This was instead of offering them a peanut straight out of the bag, so looking at this pile of nuts in his bare hand, tall and small declined his generous offer. Finally back to Banff and the hostel, very tired. Noticed how since they’d left in the morning a lot of the snow and ice was now gone, defrosted. The roads that morning were still ice, now you could see tarmac and it was slush and water everywhere. Saved money on dinner and went to bed by 7.30pm.
Wednesday 7th March 2012
Woke up late and opened the curtains to our room to get our first glimpse of day time Banff – a great view from our window of the snowy lodge and a huge mountain looming in the background. Blue skies all day made for some great sights to see. Had a much needed shower, the first in almost 48 hours. The shower made an offensive squeaking sound while it ran, small one even thought it was the fire alarm going off, until he turned it off that is. Had a bagel and coffee in the lodges small cafe. It’s a nice enough lodge, outside the busy centre of town, but more of a run down motel, with quite expensive wifi (most places its free – here its either $12 for 1 day, or $20 for 5 hours...!).
Wondered round up the river in the snow, it was quite deep and our trousers and socks got cold and wet. Up through the town we booked some day trips for the next few days, including the Lake Louise and Dog Sled tour for tomorrow, the Johnstone Canyon Ice Walk the day after, the Evening ice and campfire walk for Saturday, and an open pass for the Gondola ride. The girl was very helpful, gave us a free ticket to the hot springs and a walking trail map. Headed back to the lodge across the frozen river, then up for the Tunnel Mountain walking trail. On the way up through the residential area, spotted the two deer again happily grazing in someone’s front garden. Up the trail, which parts were quite hard work (we were out of shape), but it was well worth it. Tried recording tall one’s Wedding Message for his sisters special day he is missing in June – took plenty of takes, but some good scenery for it at least. Wasn’t too busy either, we picked a good time of year and were lucky with the weather – hopefully it will hold out for the week. On the way back down we past three snowboarders with shovels who were clearing the path for the walkers. Back to hostel where we had their pizza special – which was a pizza made out of wrap, so was pretty thin (and floppy), but cheap enough. Early to bed.
Tuesday 6th March 2012
Thankfully the weirdos on this bus were the quiet type and the journey was relatively uneventful compared to the last one full of snorters and jokers. The only exception was a fella was told off for repeatedly putting his feet across the aisle on the next row of chairs and also the Vietnamese girl going up and down to the bus toilet with a tampon proudly in her hand, then sitting on the front seat making loud phone calls to a friend bout how she had had the operation, but she was till bleeding??
The driver was not the cheeriest of men, and announced the first stop was “Vagina” though we presume he meant “Regina”. We got more and more late through the night, though this seemed to mostly be down to their “Greyhound Courier Express Delivery” service. So we wasted a good ten minutes and ach stop watching the driver dropping off and picking up parcels. Changed drivers a couple of times through the day, and had some extremely flat landscape which was all prairie. As we got nearer to Calgary there was less and less snow, so was more the grasslands, farm lands and oil fields. Had stops at Indian Head at 7.30m, Regina 8.30am. The new driver from Regina was very pedantic, and each announcement was reeled off like a robot to have 14 minute break here, it is now 3.54 PM and so please be back on the bus by 4.08PM and watch your step as there is snow outside....”. We also got a new passenger, strange Indian looking man with no facial hair except a few whiskers on his chin – who with sun shades on sat next to a terrified young woman and began to eat a huge bag of cheezits whilst coffing literally non-stop for the next few hours.
Next the bus went on through Moose Jaw 10am, Swift Current 12pm, Medicine Hat 2.30pm (clocks had gone back an hour though), Bassano at 5pm, then arrived in Calgary at 7pm (an hour late). The new driver we had until Calgary was completely different to the former, he made no welcome speech telling us his name, just got on and started to drive. When we arrived in Calgary (an hour late – and fifteen minutes after the connection to Banff / Vancouver was due to leave) he again made no announcement like all the former drivers in regards to connecting bus leaving from station number... your bags will be transferred/you have to collect your bags”. So there was utter confusion, no one new if the bus had left, where to go, if they had to get their own bags or they’d be moved for them. Some people got their own and stored them in a station locker and then were told to get straight on to the next bus as it had waited for us.... ! So finally got on to the Banff bus (which had been delayed 15 minutes due to us). We got our own queue labelled “Priority and Connecting Passengers” and much to the delayed and frustrated other passengers in the general queue (who’d been waiting in the station for hours) we got on the bus before them all.
The bus trip from Calgary to Banff was only meant to be 1 and a half hours, but still the tall bushy beard fella was moaning at the somewhat friendly Portuguese driver about how they’d got no break between transfers. Well he was in luck as the bus broke down in ‘Canmore’ about half an hour outside Banff. We were then stuck there by a Tim Hortons and Wendys for 3 long hours. We realized this was 3 buses out of 4 we’d taken in Canada which had broken down...
There were some more entertaining travellers on this connection. Some poor German woman sat down next to a middle aged German man in a green baseball cap who persistently tried asking her out to dinner. He told her “I will not be offended if you say no” and she said “I AM SAYING NO!”. It went on for quite some time. There was also a quiet girl who asked if anyone on the bus wanted to read some of her National Geographic magazines?? There was no response... maybe if i was in a Dentists waiting room I would have. Finally a mechanic turned up, but they didn;t even bother trying to fix the bus as someone had thrown up on the back seats and they weren’t going to drive that around for the next 12 hours to Vancouver, so we all just changed buses. It was quite dark driving up to Banff, but what scenary we saw looked fantastic. It came out of nowhere after all the long, flat Prairies to see the very dark, jagged, silhouetted, looming mountain range of the Rockies. Finally arrived in Banff at Midnight (instead of the scheduled 9pm). A 1.5km walk to the lodge, past a bush which contained two wild deer, which seemed as tame as sheep. What we saw of Banff at night looked very nice as well, set right in the middle of the mountains, a frozen river through the centre and lots of old lodge style buildings. Checked in by a not to bothered Aussie guy (there are a lot of Australians in Banff), then went for a long sleep....
Monday 5th March 2012
A very hot night in the middle of winterey Winnipeg, damn them for not being able to turn down that sauna of a room. Went downstairs for breakfast and they had NO KETTLE and also only about 2 bowls and a few dirty spoons... The reception guy got us a dirty cup of hot water each from the restaurant kitchen, but it was so vile we threw it away and headed into town. First went down to the supposedly historic ‘Forks’ area. It all looked pretty new but was still quite nice. Had some cheap food, $5 bacon sandwhich, $5 fish and chips and a weird plastic pot of tea which poured through the base when you lift the pot above the cup? We had asked the tea shop for two pots of tea, but despite advertising over 65 types of tea available they only had 1 teapot in the shop?? Also ate while we watched a Canadian bearded man busking, playing some quite nice folk songs about Nova Scotia. We gave him $4 in change and half a song later he packed up and left.... ! Before he walked out the bus load of grannies who were watching had scratched together their coins to give him though.
Went down to the frozen ‘Red River’ – which was indeed very white. There were some random Wig Wams put up alongside it as well as a long ice skating lane which weaved up the frozen river and had been kept clear by a small digger (un-like the Canal in Ottawa which was just closed). Tall and small thought they’d save the $4 ice skate rental fee and just slid up the frozen river on their trainers.... it kinda worked, despite the frowns from some of the serious looking skaters. Crossed the river over a pedestrian bridge past a random statue of Ghandi (he seems to get around a lot). The otherside of the river is St Boniface – the French Quarter. Went over to the big standing Cathedral whch had a huge facing wall with a big hole in it. Quite a nice building, covered with icicles. Went inside to warm up for fifteen minutes but just as we were leaving got caught by a balding Belgium woman who wanted to know where we were from. As usual she was only interested in the Irish man and not the English one. We cut her short and left and she did seem desperately lonely and sure to lock us in if we did not leave soon. E skipped out across the snowy churchyard, realizing we were short cutting across half the graves. Back across another bridge to the proper English speaking side, past a tramp urinating joyfully into the snow under the bridge. Up past Union Train station, suppeosedly designed by the same guy who did the one in New York – but it was pretty boring. Across the street from their we noticed a lot of snow fall coming from the roof of a red brick house. We went t o investigate and realized a man up in the top balcony was shovelling heaps of snow on it. We watched him for a good while, as it was just raining down in heaps onto the pavement below without a care from him. Sadly the businessman and the Chinese woman with toddler did not get hit.
Further up into town past the famous Portage and Main st junction. Then up into the Exchange District which we had seen on a few ‘must do’ lists of Winnipeg. We found it rough as houses, full of fat tramps and single mothers with fat babies. Headed back out and down to the Elephant and Castle Pub we had past earlier (and eaten in the same chain pub in Toronto). A nice pub and had some great Bacon and Cheese soup, followed by Bangers & Mash / Roast Beef with Yorshire, then Apple and Berry crumble. The downside was that they did not have a toilet and strangley anyone from the pub was aloud to stagger next door into the fancy hotel and use their toilets. Small one went in to use a cubical there and found the first toilet filled to the brim with the last person excrement. He decided to use the next stall. While he was in there a person came in and used that first stall, sat down to perform his own ‘ablutions’, but never bothered to flush the other persons waste away, just happily dropped it down on top. Small one recounted this whole story in grat details to Tall one while he ate his Apple Crumble. Finally back to hostel, got directions for nearest supermarket (despite them trying to send us every other place than the one we asked for), finally got there through a somewhat rough neighbourhood, and shopped for tonights snacks, tomorrows breakfast and dinner – all for the next 22 hour bus ride to Banff – leaving the station tonight at 11.30pm.... At least we’d both had a good rest and stretch since the last ‘trip’.
Caught the bus quite easily but had an unfriendly Korean driver. Though he was snappy at some passengers, he seemed to be quite chatty with the weird transvestites who almost knocked tall one out with their baggage as they got off. Dropped at the station and had only cost $2.50. Sat and waited from around 8.30pm expecting to board the bus around 11pm for departure at 11.30pm. Plenty of weirdos about the station, including a French man ranting in French, turned out he’d be “robbed” of everything on his bus in – the bus driver who brought him in just led him up to security and said “i;m not dealing with ‘this’ any more”. The friendly black security guard got him a free bus ride to Quebec, then came over and explained to us what had happened, and preached how you should always help people out. We were sat next to an elderly gentleman looked like he was dressed to go fishing, and he was listening to a ‘disc man’. Small one chatted away to him, though he never waved good bye when he left. We then had two Indian looking men sit down opposite us who had the worst faces we’d ever seen, their noses where squashed and twisted brutally, thankfully they didn’t sit there long and there bus and faces left us. Finally was just the passengers left for our bus to Calgary. There was a little Vietnamese woman who seemed completely nuts. She staretd asking us these non-stop questions in an un-polite manner, “where you been” “where you going” “where you get that?”. We asked her where she was from in Vietnam, and she said she wasn’t sure? There was also a very tall fella in a leather jacket and a baseball cap that said “security” on it. He had a huge bushy beard and came into the station crying bout how his friend had died, then ten minutes later was laughing his head of telling dull stories to two poor American lads, who looked bored to tears. This bearded fella then chatted up the cocky security men who started to do our bag searches around 11pm. They started talking about “the book” and a load of conspiracy theories. There was a Mexican fella they padded down who they found a knife on, who seemed quite upset that he wasn’t a loud it on the bus with him. The Vietnamese girl desperately pushed her way to the front of the queue for the bus, but then she was told to wait as the bearded fella had paid extra to reserve a seat (which just means he is aloud on first – i wonder what would happen i everyone paid for that?”. The bus didn’t arrive until Midnight though, and didn’t leave until 12.30am.
