Canada
Canadian Dollar (CAD)
Canada was our first stop on the big trip in 1989. We flew out of Brisbane on February 19th in 28 degree heat to land in negatives in Vancouver. Our British mate Rob met us at a hostel and we stayed there for a few days.
I remember skiing for the very first time on a mountain near the city. Rob and Mark Walters had skied before but Mark Stoker and myself had not. Well they set us up on the beginners slope gave us a few pointers and left us. We struggled along till they came back and took us up the mountain. Needless to say that was a mistake and we fell over a lot, getting very frustrated. If you ever go skiing for the first time, spend the money on a proper lesson.
From Vancouver we made our way up to Whistler mountain. We stayed there with friends of Robs and it was the weekend of a world cup downhill ski race. Well the local boy Rob Boyd won and the town went nuts. Whistler village was abuzz and it went long into the night.
We were out on the balcony of this house and I saw one of the boys had left his beer out there. He said yes that’s how I keep it cold. D’oh! Silly me the Qld boy where beer is kept in the frig because it is not freezing outside.
We then went on a road trip to Banff and Jasper that was good fun too. We got to do some night skiing and we saw a deer on the side of the road that seemed to be tame. We spent time in youth hostels which was new to me. You have to do a ‘chore’ every day to help out, be out between 10am-4pm, and mark your food when you put it in the fridge and hope no one pinches it. What you put up with for cheap digs.
Robert our English mate and a friend.
Obviously it was tame but this was on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.
Rob had this big old American tank for a car that fit us and our gear comfortably. He had this tea maker that he plugged into the lighter and made himself a cup of tea on the go.
I went back to Canada and Whistler in late 1991. I had decided on Canada for a ski season after my plans for a 3rd season in Austria were scuppered by my Austrian girlfriend dropping me during the year.
So I arrived there flying solo in my big American yank tank named ‘Axel’ (see America). This was the first time I had travelled on my own and it was a bit daunting. I had a contact to see outside of Vancouver and met her at the bar where she worked. She was pleasant enough but not forthcoming with any tips on where I should go or where to look for work.
So I took off for Whistler and made my way to the youth hostel that was on the far side of a lake. We got there before it opened at 4pm but they let us in to wait. Well when they opened reception after not too long the guy behind the desk announced that they were full. On my own, nowhere to stay, not knowing what I was doing was obviously too much for me – I fainted! I woke up I guess not long after, and they were saying there was a place across the lake in Whistler creek, which is like the backside of the main mountain, away from the Village proper. Well luckily it was a great place.
It was a ski lodge during season that they opened up to backpackers before the season and it was cheap to stay. Same as Austria in fact. And the same as in Austria, I met some great friends there all in the same boat, looking for work while conserving money.
We stayed in for cards and games and cheap nights in while we looked for work during the day. I pretty quickly snagged a job at a French restaurant, Le Deux Gros (the two fat boys) cleaning during the day from say 2-5pm for 5 days. That gave me some cash, and a few odd treats from the cold room. Prawn breadrolls was a fave for a while. So I ended up skiing during the morning then going to work for the afternoon to vacuum, clean the fireplace and do the washing of the table linen.
Now I needed somewhere to stay for the season, which can be one of the challenges in a ski season because it is so expensive.
One day I walked to the ski lodge next door called the Fireside lodge, where Pommie Rob had worked a few years before.
I introduced myself to the manager and asked if could look around as my friend had worked there. She was fine with that and I wombled around. I am not sure if it was then or if I went back another day but I said to the manager it’s a bit cheeky, but by any chance do you have any work for the season? She said as a matter of fact I need an assistant manager. She said it does not pay, but you get free board, use all the kitchen and laundry facilities, do a bit of cleaning and some shifts on reception, and there are few little bonuses, like collecting bottles for recycling cash and dinner with the club members etc. Sorted! I had my accommodation and a job lined up for the season.
I then snagged an indoor labouring job prior to the season, even though I had sworn off labouring after the Cotswalds (see England) and earned about $500 per week for 3 weeks before the season started.
On the financial side I was actually in the best state I had been up to that point in my travels. That year we had sold our Kombie in England and got £800 each (for Mark W and I) and we had also got a tax cheque back from the previous year of £750. So I had rocked up to the US and Canada with good coin, spent $1100 US on the car, still had some cash, then topped it up labouring with another $1500, then I had my weekly wages from the cleaning job.
So it started well and got better. I already had my skis and spent $600 on a mid-week ski pass, as I had to work weekends anyway so would not be skiing then.
Early in the season I went on a snowboarding promotional day where for $5 we got a two hour lesson and lift hire, snowboard and a goody bag. Well I stood up inside the two hours and was hooked. I bought a board from a guy I had met and I was off. I only skied once after that – sold the skis and got some more cash.
Some of the guys I met at the cheap hostel moved into a snowboarders house and I hung out there a lot. The guru was Matt Gilder, who at the time was Australia’s top snow boarder, instructor and examiner – he was it for snowboarding at that time. So I got tips from him before I started, and a few more when I skied with him which was great. He had done 13 ski seasons in a row, both northern and southern hemisphere. I asked him why he kept coming back to Whistler and he said well it was the snow of course, but also the locally grown product was exceptional and hard to pass up….
My friends Pete and Dean were a couple of real characters.
Peter was from Yackandanda in country Victoria and Dean was from Busselton a surfing town on the Margaret River in WA. Allegedly he had grown a big crop, driven across the Nullabor with it in the back of his Holden, then sold it in Sydney and bought a ticket to Canada. He also allegedly made normal cookies and went to an outdoor concert in San Francisco and sold them off as hash cookies. Characters.
They both worked for a guy who had a logging contract to clear and trim pine trees. They would not get paid till it was finished and were always trying to get others in the share house to go with them, but I was set up and had enough of that sort of labouring. To their credit Pete and Dean stuck at it and duly got paid.
The other job they had was working at the local brewery on a casual basis for $6 an hour, a sixpack for each shift and a knock off drink from the keg in the staff room. Well that lasted quite a while but of course it was not just one knock off drink after shift, they usually drained the keg and the work trailed off after a while… I wonder why. One day a guy sliced his finger off on the packing machine and had to be taken to hospital. Dean found the finger and put it on ice for them…
So they never really had much money and I was always happy to shout the odd beer as I had some cash. In fact Pete later travelled with me across Canada and America on the way to Central America and I mostly paid for petrol etc on that trip as he was low on funds.
Another couple of funny fellows I met, whose names I don’t recall, were in Vancouver before the season washing house windows. They had bought a bucket and squeegee each and progressed from car windows at the traffic lights to houses. One day they were doing a house whilst the owners were out and one of them squeegeed the glass doors only to find they opened as they were unlocked, but they avoided temptation. One of them had this weird way of dancing by jumping straight up in the air and then landing on his feet, bending his knees to cushion the fall. He always woke up with sore knees and could not work out why…
Christmas was a bit lonely that year for some reason, maybe because I was with newer friends rather than old. But on Christmas day I got a great present. I was cleaning at the restaurant and took the rubbish out. Well there ambling slowly away from the bins not 15 feet away was a small brown bear. He turned to look back at me and I froze, but he continued on his way and wandered off. So that was a lovely present to see a bear that close, not in a zoo.
At the end of the season Peter and I decided to travel together as we were both heading for Guatemala. We had a great time mostly through the northern states of the US, but dipped in and out of Canada. We met a French speaking mate Gabriel in Montreal, whom we had met in Whistler. He was working on a farm. He worked for 7-8 months each year driving a tractor in the wheat fields during their hot summer, and then went on government benefits in the off season that gave him something like 80% of his wages. So he used to take off and ski for the season without having to work.
We also saw the Montreal Olympic stadium from 1976. They had this roof that could be opened by drawing the roof back up into this high tower that stood at one end of the stadium. It worked, but was so low and laborious that it was not really successful.
Site of the Montreal Olympics. The roof could be extracted back up into the tower you see in the foreground
We visited Quebec and Niagara Falls, which was amazing. It is such an incredible natural wonder and I felt the draw of it as you stood close, it was hard not to keep moving closer and closer…
Peter at Niagara Falls.
When I stood near it I felt this weird pull towards like you wanted to jump in…
Canada was a great place, very friendly people, up for a laugh, great snow and huge mountains, and it is where I got hooked on snowboarding.