mountains momma!

The Sheenster!

Hanging out on Lake Kootenay.

Deciding against our original plan to enter the mountains through the Kicking Horse Pass (just outside of Banff, AB), given the number of avalanches that have been happening this past winter, we detoured south where we were able to meet up with Sheena - an Inuvik (NWT) friend, who recently moved to Pincher Creek, AB with her husband Denis, who are expecting their first born any day now...

Largest truck, Sparwood, BC.

Truckin'...

Headed through industry ridden Cranbrook and Sparwood, BC where mining and forestry seem to predominate the landscape and economy, we couldn't help but take some photos of Sparwood, BC's “largest truck”.

The blue skoolie coasted through the Crow's Nest Pass... Following a brief stop in Creston, we headed for Nelson BC, aka BC's 'hippie-central'.  The winding drive from Creston, BC alongside Lake Kootenay is quite stunning.   A neat attraction - is the 'glass house' that was built by an ex-mortician, who apparently traveled around collecting old embalming fluid bottles to build this artful home.  

prairie life

As fate would have it, Uncle Hubert had about 3000 L of used vegetable oil that he had been collecting used veggie oil from the local restaurants around, figuring that he will have a use for t at some point. Uncle Hubert and Scott fltered about 30L of the used oil, that will be the first official batch of used oil that we use to fuel the 'bio-bus'

A batch of used 'veggie oil' - thanks Uncle Hubert!

Figuring we had a couple of days to rest up and since the weather had climbed into the single digits we decided to make a run for it – head to AB, to see our friend Clinton who recently moved to Canmore, AB. Driving through Saskatchewan has it moments – such as the film set the tv show Corner Gas. 

Clinton and Scott chillin' at one of Canmore's thrift stores.

 

'Corner Gas Set' located just south of Moose Jaw, SK.

friends and family along the way...

One of the advantages of heading across Canada is that you can visit friends that you haven't seen for awhile... 

Literally, moments before leaving London for Thunder Bay, we get a phone call from a friend we hadn't seen in two years, who had happened to 'see' our post on FB, about heading north. Recently moving from way up north (Moosonee, ON) to North Bay ON, Figuring it wasn't much out of the way, we decided to head north via North Bay and visit our friends and their new home in North Bay. Thanks for the laughs, warm bed and good food Connie, Keith and Josh!



Connie and Josh (photo stolen from Facebook)

Outside of Ontario, we met up with 'rawkin' Cy who lives just outside of Brandon, MB – and is one of the sweetest 'tough' guys around. Although a stereotypical bachelor, Cy made sure that we were well taken care of – he had some his sister deliver a turkey dinner (homemade gravy, mashed potatoes – the works) made by his mom – who cooks a whole turkey on a random Monday evening... apparently Cy's mom.



Crazy Cy (photo stolen from Facebook again)



Fortunately for us, my aunt and uncle only lived a few hours from Brandon, across the MB/SK border in Alameda SK Driving into the wind on a cold day makes for a long and cold ride. We spent a couple of days with Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Hubert who fed us well and kept us laughing. We also learned a few things... the difference between “mineral rights” as compared to the “surface rights” of your land. Not everyone owns the 'mineral rights' to their land – as you might just strikil as they did this past fall. We took a drive out to see the oil being pumped out of the ground – they sure don't look that large from a distance but up close, they are pretty large.

Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Hubert  Alameda, SK

  

Standing in front of their oil rig



  

headin' north and keepin' warm

Changing our plan to head north, meant we needed to make some changes to the bus. We decided to install a woodstove chimney through the roof of the bus that would be permanent (rather than before, where we piped it out the emergency window) - this change meant that we would not have to set it up and tear it down en route.  This was good thinking on our part, as the temperaturedrops significantly after the sun goesdown.  Most nights in Ontario have been in the -30C range...  

Keeping warm and collecting wood has been a quest of its own.  We've done quite well sourcing out wood where we can - the scrap wood pile outside the Bear Chair Co. in South River, ON is open most days as a source of free wood (Photo I).  Things were a little different in Thunder Bay where we were told of a place where we could find some old wooden skids - no one in the neighbourhood seemed to care that Scott pulled out his generator and skill-saw take what we needed.

denied access

After getting the "veggie conversion" up and running we finally headed for the border in hopes of heading south... Our plan was to head to the gulf coast of Florida and then to head west to New Mexico,  where we would participate in an 'earthshipinternship' with 'garbage warrior' Michael Reynolds... 

The border crossing turned out to be interesting experience - no surprise that we were pulled into their office and interogated for a frustrating few hours.  Little did we think that we would be assigned 'alien' status.  And since we were denied it would mean that we would have to be fingerprinted and photographed.  As we understood, the US Border Patrol were concerned that we didn't have enough funds to support ourselves for our travels south.  So, we spent the night in Sarnia and got together the proof we felt they needed and drove back to see our border 

friends from the night before.  

Again - we spent hours waiting while they searched through our bus and once again pelted us with questions about our intentions while travellng in their country... This time they were concerned that we were both unemployed and that we do not currently or rent a property in Canada.  This time sent us away again with the warning that if we tried to cross again without proofof these details that we would be banned from their country for five years.   Apparently it was necessary to finger print and photograph us for a second time...

Needless to say we were both pretty bummed out and furious that we were turned away for

a second time. We've been so focused on getting this bus on the road and were eager to see it actually run on 'used veggie oil' - a system that is not built for Canadian winters. After seeking the opinion of our MP, and a few phone calls we decided our plan B would be to head west to beautiful BC to explore Canada's west coast.