High above the north bank of the Peace River There are three humps that must be got over on a transcontinental journey during the winter. One is the winter solstice, after which the days slowly start to lengthen again. The second is the Continental Divide; once one has crossed it, the rest is a long, gradual downhill. The last hump is the thermal one, and it usually straddles the end of January and the beginning of February, when temperatures hit their yearly lows. I have now got over the first two of these humps. And, so far, I have been able to dodge punishing cold temperatures; I have not been in anything less than -20°C yet. But I’m not going to get my hopes up that that will last.
Last night I skied into Taylor, BC, an industrial outskirt of Fort St. John, happy to have reached the end of a gruelling fifty-kilometre day. I had spoken the night before with Eliza Stanford, who, with her husband Edward, was kind enough to offer to put me up while in town, and on my sat phone in the comfort of my tent I had said that I thought I could make town by sunset the following day. So getting here became an imperative (not that they would have minded a delay). In the event, sunset came some time before I crossed the long and high railroad trestle spanning the mighty Arctic-bound Peace River. And not long after I had reached the north bank, darkness fell. It was just three more railroad miles to the Taylor yard, and believe me, when you get into the business of long-distance skiing, three miles is about like walking to the end of the driveway to check the mail – especially when you’re hungry for human company and perhaps some food made by someone else’s hands.
When I last wrote, I had just enjoyed Christmas dinner with new friends in Fort St. James. (In case you’re getting confused, don’t worry, my next stop will not be a fort, nor will it be named for a saint, and nor will it contain the letter J). As my folks and Elena had flown into Edmonton, expecting me to have come much farther by that point, we decided to head east, closer to where they would be leaving from, for the remainder of their stay. The obvious choice was Jasper, where I spent three days in the lap of luxury; decadent, I know, but I was glad to get a glimpse of the dramatic central Rockies. Further north, where I would be crossing, the mountains are much gentler. After three relaxing days we said our sad goodbyes. I caught the 4:25 bus west to Prince George the next morning, and then transferred to a northbound bus, which I got off of at Azouzetta Lake, right at Pine Pass.
It was a flag stop, so I alighted alone in the cold and grey while the other passengers looked down at me like I was some kind of a madman. The driver opened the hold and helped me to pull my things out, and on closing it back up asked “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?” “I’m already into it," I replied. The bus drove off and I was alone.
Standing in my sled to keep my feet off the ground, I changed my clothes and socks. I repacked what need repacking and assembled my sled’s towing system. With no fanfare, I was off once again. For the first couple of kilometres I tried skiing alternately along the side of the road and atop the snowbanks flanking it. But the going was awful. It was getting late, and I was getting frustrated. After an hour or so I saw a point from which I could access the railroad, so I decided to give it a shot. I soon discovered that the going was much better there. The tracks are graded in such a way that just outside each rail there is a depression about eighteen inches wide where the snow has been compressed. It’s easy to ski in, but, more importantly, it makes a near perfect fit for my pulk.
I had crossed into Mountain Time, so the day was a little longer, but by now it was getting dark. I was fortunate enough to find a suitable campsite immediately. I tamped down a platform for my tent, pitched it, and crawled in. I was feeling lonely and my morale was at an all time low. And low it remained for the next two days as I slogged along the tracks in the gritty railside snow, laden with bits of sand, wood, stone, and tar. The skins under my skis, once a brilliant orange, were making their way towards a sooty black.
But then one night a fierce wind came down from the west. As I cooked my supper there was none of the usual condensation on the ceiling. This is nice because it means you don’t get a dusting of frost across your face or down the back of your neck every time your head happens to skim the top of the tent. When I woke up in the morning there was still no frozen moisture to be seen, and crawling out of my bag I was not greeted by the usual chill. It was a balmy 0°C or so. A Chinook had visited the eastern slope of the Rockies, I later learned. In Calgary the mercury rose to 9°. Soon after I got on the trail I emerged from the forest into open range and the sun was beaming down on me. I met a railroad foreman out driving his truck slowly along the tracks. He looked and sounded like he was from somewhere in central Asia and had a big toothy smile. I told him that I’d come from Prince Rupert, but that didn’t seem to mean anything to him. He was just amazed that I had come “all the way” from Azouzetta Lake, less than thirty-five miles away (note that I’m using miles because the railroad is still measured in miles). The combination of sun and this meeting with another member of my own species was enough to lift my spirits at least part of the way back up from the pit they’d been wallowing in.
Skiing along the tracks can be a dirty business. I skied across bridges with spikes of iron sticking out, waiting to tear a hole through my sled. I also skied through sulphur and coal mines. Skiing through an open-pit coalmine in the winter is quite an experience chromatically. The world of white so bright that you have to wear glacier glasses to keep from hurting your eyes is suddenly recast in black: you still hear your skis gliding across the crust beneath your feet, but when you look down you see that the crust is now black. And when you look behind you, you see the white trail of your sled that has fractured the crust. The trees are coated in thick soot, as are the tracks of the animals, and even the feathers of the birds who have not thought to flee. The clear, breathable winter air becomes heavy and stale, as though a weight were being dropped into your lungs at every breath.
The foreman I met had told me the mileboard number for Chetwynd, so last Friday I knew I could get there by nightfall. I skied into town and made my way to one of two Chinese restaurants, where I sat and ate and sat and sat and watched the smiling people with their families and sat some more. I then put a call through to Jon and Laura, a vital part of my support team, to tell them I needed them to ship a replacement for my sled to Fort St. John; the terrain had begun to put a series of longitudinal lacerations into the base. So far it was still working, but I knew it was the beginning of the end.
Next morning I stopped off at the post office to unload some more weight (the better to prolong the life of my sled). When I came out a fellow in his mid-twenties walked up and asked about what I was doing. His name was Oleg, and he was from the Ukraine. He was a chatty and friendly character, so he ended up walking across town and through the Chetwynd railyard with me. By the time we said goodbye it was mid-afternoon. I skied about ten miles and set up camp in the middle of an idyllic stand of aspens – a sure sign that I was getting into the Peace Country.
The snow between Chetwynd and Fort St. John was much cleaner. This stretch was also the most civilized I’ve seen. While the population was still sparse, I could see signs of farms or the places where farms had once been and I could hear the traffic of the resource industry buzzing in the distance much of the time. The skiing was, literally, straightforward. The mountains were now behind me and for three days I skied the long line to the Peace River and Fort St. John.
And now here I am, again in the company of strangers who have become friends. Fort St. John is a gas-industry boomtown. Trucks and young men eager to make big money. Gas flares and trains. Fistfights and spilt beer in the local bars at night, I’m sure. And yet I have found a haven to rest and recuperate and enjoy some wonderful society. A little slice of peace in the valley of the Peace…
Last night I skied into Taylor, BC, an industrial outskirt of Fort St. John, happy to have reached the end of a gruelling fifty-kilometre day. I had spoken the night before with Eliza Stanford, who, with her husband Edward, was kind enough to offer to put me up while in town, and on my sat phone in the comfort of my tent I had said that I thought I could make town by sunset the following day. So getting here became an imperative (not that they would have minded a delay). In the event, sunset came some time before I crossed the long and high railroad trestle spanning the mighty Arctic-bound Peace River. And not long after I had reached the north bank, darkness fell. It was just three more railroad miles to the Taylor yard, and believe me, when you get into the business of long-distance skiing, three miles is about like walking to the end of the driveway to check the mail – especially when you’re hungry for human company and perhaps some food made by someone else’s hands.
When I last wrote, I had just enjoyed Christmas dinner with new friends in Fort St. James. (In case you’re getting confused, don’t worry, my next stop will not be a fort, nor will it be named for a saint, and nor will it contain the letter J). As my folks and Elena had flown into Edmonton, expecting me to have come much farther by that point, we decided to head east, closer to where they would be leaving from, for the remainder of their stay. The obvious choice was Jasper, where I spent three days in the lap of luxury; decadent, I know, but I was glad to get a glimpse of the dramatic central Rockies. Further north, where I would be crossing, the mountains are much gentler. After three relaxing days we said our sad goodbyes. I caught the 4:25 bus west to Prince George the next morning, and then transferred to a northbound bus, which I got off of at Azouzetta Lake, right at Pine Pass.
It was a flag stop, so I alighted alone in the cold and grey while the other passengers looked down at me like I was some kind of a madman. The driver opened the hold and helped me to pull my things out, and on closing it back up asked “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?” “I’m already into it," I replied. The bus drove off and I was alone.
Standing in my sled to keep my feet off the ground, I changed my clothes and socks. I repacked what need repacking and assembled my sled’s towing system. With no fanfare, I was off once again. For the first couple of kilometres I tried skiing alternately along the side of the road and atop the snowbanks flanking it. But the going was awful. It was getting late, and I was getting frustrated. After an hour or so I saw a point from which I could access the railroad, so I decided to give it a shot. I soon discovered that the going was much better there. The tracks are graded in such a way that just outside each rail there is a depression about eighteen inches wide where the snow has been compressed. It’s easy to ski in, but, more importantly, it makes a near perfect fit for my pulk.
I had crossed into Mountain Time, so the day was a little longer, but by now it was getting dark. I was fortunate enough to find a suitable campsite immediately. I tamped down a platform for my tent, pitched it, and crawled in. I was feeling lonely and my morale was at an all time low. And low it remained for the next two days as I slogged along the tracks in the gritty railside snow, laden with bits of sand, wood, stone, and tar. The skins under my skis, once a brilliant orange, were making their way towards a sooty black.
But then one night a fierce wind came down from the west. As I cooked my supper there was none of the usual condensation on the ceiling. This is nice because it means you don’t get a dusting of frost across your face or down the back of your neck every time your head happens to skim the top of the tent. When I woke up in the morning there was still no frozen moisture to be seen, and crawling out of my bag I was not greeted by the usual chill. It was a balmy 0°C or so. A Chinook had visited the eastern slope of the Rockies, I later learned. In Calgary the mercury rose to 9°. Soon after I got on the trail I emerged from the forest into open range and the sun was beaming down on me. I met a railroad foreman out driving his truck slowly along the tracks. He looked and sounded like he was from somewhere in central Asia and had a big toothy smile. I told him that I’d come from Prince Rupert, but that didn’t seem to mean anything to him. He was just amazed that I had come “all the way” from Azouzetta Lake, less than thirty-five miles away (note that I’m using miles because the railroad is still measured in miles). The combination of sun and this meeting with another member of my own species was enough to lift my spirits at least part of the way back up from the pit they’d been wallowing in.
Skiing along the tracks can be a dirty business. I skied across bridges with spikes of iron sticking out, waiting to tear a hole through my sled. I also skied through sulphur and coal mines. Skiing through an open-pit coalmine in the winter is quite an experience chromatically. The world of white so bright that you have to wear glacier glasses to keep from hurting your eyes is suddenly recast in black: you still hear your skis gliding across the crust beneath your feet, but when you look down you see that the crust is now black. And when you look behind you, you see the white trail of your sled that has fractured the crust. The trees are coated in thick soot, as are the tracks of the animals, and even the feathers of the birds who have not thought to flee. The clear, breathable winter air becomes heavy and stale, as though a weight were being dropped into your lungs at every breath.
The foreman I met had told me the mileboard number for Chetwynd, so last Friday I knew I could get there by nightfall. I skied into town and made my way to one of two Chinese restaurants, where I sat and ate and sat and sat and watched the smiling people with their families and sat some more. I then put a call through to Jon and Laura, a vital part of my support team, to tell them I needed them to ship a replacement for my sled to Fort St. John; the terrain had begun to put a series of longitudinal lacerations into the base. So far it was still working, but I knew it was the beginning of the end.
Next morning I stopped off at the post office to unload some more weight (the better to prolong the life of my sled). When I came out a fellow in his mid-twenties walked up and asked about what I was doing. His name was Oleg, and he was from the Ukraine. He was a chatty and friendly character, so he ended up walking across town and through the Chetwynd railyard with me. By the time we said goodbye it was mid-afternoon. I skied about ten miles and set up camp in the middle of an idyllic stand of aspens – a sure sign that I was getting into the Peace Country.
The snow between Chetwynd and Fort St. John was much cleaner. This stretch was also the most civilized I’ve seen. While the population was still sparse, I could see signs of farms or the places where farms had once been and I could hear the traffic of the resource industry buzzing in the distance much of the time. The skiing was, literally, straightforward. The mountains were now behind me and for three days I skied the long line to the Peace River and Fort St. John.
And now here I am, again in the company of strangers who have become friends. Fort St. John is a gas-industry boomtown. Trucks and young men eager to make big money. Gas flares and trains. Fistfights and spilt beer in the local bars at night, I’m sure. And yet I have found a haven to rest and recuperate and enjoy some wonderful society. A little slice of peace in the valley of the Peace…
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