Is it the Trans Canada or Highway 1? Well, that depends on where you are! The Trans Canada is a series of contiguous highways that stretch from Victoria at the bottom of Vancouver Island BC to St John’s Newfoundland. For much of the Western sections it is Highway 1, in Ontario it’s Highway 17 and in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland it’s Highway 104. From Vancouver to the start of the Selkirk mountain range it’s 2 lanes each side, but over the Rockies it’s mostly one lane until Calgary. Then it varies by Province
I left home at 07:30 with the car packed to the gunwales with clothes and everything I would need to survive in the wild and sleep in the car. I had a blow up mattress that just about squeezed into the rear with the back seats down, survival rations left over from my Arctic trip in 2023, first aid kit, spare car battery, bear spray and Bowie knife, tools and torches.
God only knows how much that all weighed and the extra gas it would burn!
To get to the Trans Canada Highway 1 I had to head East from home on 8th Avenue in South Surrey, BC but there was a slight problem… like many roads in the BC Lower Mainland, 8th Avenue wasn’t contiguous, so I would have to head North up to 16th Avenue and use that to cover the gap in 8th Avenue before dropping down South again to regain my original route. It turned out that this was clearly beyond dear Siri’s comprehension as she insisted on sending me up and down the highways, finally joining Highway 1 West of Abbotsford airport instead of East of it where the morning traffic was lighter.
By the time I got on to Highway 1 I was wondering why the sky was a strange burnt orange colour. By Chilliwack the sky was much darker and there was an acrid taste in the air inside the car even with the air conditioning on. Then the news came over the radio that Highway 1 was closed between Boston Bar and Lytton further North.
I wasn’t bothered by the road closure as I wasn’t going up that section of Highway 1, which heads North, then East like two sides of a right angle triangle, and Highway 5 was the “hypotenuse” shortcut. But I was bothered that the fires might hit Lytton again. At the end of June 2021 a wildfire destroyed virtually the entire town, two people were killed and hundreds made homeless.
These fires are particularly dangerous because of where they are – in the Fraser River valley. It’s a very steep valley so the wind coming down from the North accelerates and can cause the fires to move very, very quickly.
I had left home without eating breakfast, so I had a brunch in Hope, where Highway 1 and Highway 5 part company. I’m ashamed to report that I did indeed eat at a place that is known in my family as Macciedoodahs, but I confined consumption to a Big Mac, or two.
Highway 5 heads North to join Highway 1 again at Kamloops, where the South Thompson river and the North Thompson river join to form the Thompson river. That flows South into the Fraser river at Lytton. The area around Kamloops is obviously a periodic flood plain for the rivers so is very flat and covered in what appeared to be fruit farms.
The route took me alongside the huge Shuswap Lake and then into the start of the Selkirk mountain range. I stayed overnight in Revelstoke in a very forgettable hotel and fell asleep exhausted as soon as I hit the sack.
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