Home
Calgary to Whitehorse
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2684
A month later and I'm just finding time to relay the Alaskan adventures now.
The first few days on the road with the daughter (the boy having decided somewhere along the way that he'd prefer to hang with friends in Calgary) - old territory, Jasper, Burn's Lake, camp a couple of days to recover from all the driving, being devoured alive by Black Flies that leave painless bites that stream with blood. The girl is horribly bitten.
Then North, along the Stewart-Cassiers Highway.
This is beautiful, and I can feel it calling....
There are few cars, sometimes only one an hour, and fewer services, gas at $1.50 per liter, stations every 300 KM. The road is somewhat paved, sometimes just gravel, and the road is taking us due North.
We stop - for a break - at a rock shop by the road, nothing of interest, only kitsch souvenirs, we ask the obese lady behind the counter what rocks and where we might go looking, she looks confused - "I dunno...try down by the river..."
"....and what might we find?" I ask, never one to let things go.
"rocks. And driftwood" is her reply.
***
We continue. This landscape is wild, there are no signs of human presence apart from the road, the top half of British Columbia virtually unexplored. A reservation, new vinyl sided houses in yards overgrown with purple weeds, derelict cars, suspicious locals. Not a good place to stop.
And still we go on.
By 6:00 PM we're at the 2nd Jade Shop - Saws, samples, raw jade, pieces thrown away, cut open, a great shop in the middle of nowhere, ridiculous prices, tiny carved bears smaller than a dime for $20.00, somehow they're convinced that their jade, mined at 900 tons per year and shaped in China, is worth more than gold...We are probably they only visitors that day, by the traffic on the road, and seeing all this raw jade - white, uncut, convinces me that we must have found some in our rambles by the river, and not recognizing it for what it was threw it back. The salesgirl assures us it's unlikely, most of the jade here - in this shop - was quarried high up Cassiar's mountain, there is little if any to be found along the rivers and creeks....
I buy the girl a small bear and matching jade cave. "We'll only be here once" I tell her, and this will be her souvenir.
We go on, further north a couple more hours before finding a campsite along a lake.
There are a few campers, the sun is up late - by 11:30 I retire, sun still in the sky, and at night have that Farley Mowatt moment where I hear for the first time the cry of the Loon.
***
It's peaceful up here, in the morning we take down the tent, drink our coffee. We passed a creek back on the road that gave the history of the Cassiar's Gold Rush, we keep our eyes peeled on the road ahead, what few turn-offs there are on the creeks are staked with no-trespassing signs, and we decide to make Whitehorse our next stop.
***
The scenery, the landscape is fantastic. There are long stretches of nothing, then bare and smoothed mountains, it's a country that begs you to get out of the car and just walk. It's new, and it's been too long since I've seen anything new. And on and on the road continues...
We hit the Alaska highway around Noon, across the Yukon border, and begin heading West. 3 hours roughly until Whitehorse. We stop for lunch, a dismal diner off the road and hidden behind a modern-decrepit facade, once inside it's a properly 60's or 70's truckstop, complete with velvet paintings of Indians and wildlife, somehow perfect - not, as you see so often nowadays a mock-up or reproduction, this is the real deal, and somehow it has that homey-smell.
***
Bears, many bears upon the road, we take pictures, and now the highway - the view from the road, it begins to resemble that landscape in my dreams, there's a sense of Deja-vu, as if somehow I've been here before, as if I'm revisiting after a long absence someplace I once knew well in my childhood.
***
In Whitehorse we take a hotel, settle down for the night to explore, go for dinner and walk about the town, a main street or two with brightly painted facades, various gift shops and museums, an incredible amount of vehicles on the road (especially given how small the town is...), but here nobody walks.
Meetings in the Back Room
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1793
Now for the first couple of days there were the meetings in the back room, groups of people defrauded in the Luxury Car Scam, the Owner, the door would be closed and none of the waiters would dare to enter.
There is a cloud above the restaurant.
They're not the most sympathetic group of victims by a long shot, people who thought they could by next-to-new Ferrari's and Lamborghini's at a fraction of their value are not exactly widows and orphans. And some of them have too generously shared their pain by reducing their tips.
It's taken it's toll at home as well - we can only speculate, but the Boss has been unshaven, there's a blanket on the sofa downstairs, his wife calls and has staff relay messages to him, he's shouted himself hoarse and the frequent shouting fits in the kitchen are sounding more and more exhausted, he's worn himself out.
They've caught Franco or Santo or John or however he styles himself, the police seem confident they can recover most of the money, me, I'm not so confident, seldom do victims of fraud ever see their money again. But what else can they say?
And there are more of the private meetings, the Italians sitting round the table and discussing in quiet voices the probabilities of whether they'll ever see their money again.
Unlikely.
Cars out of control on a snowy road
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 2035
It's dark, early evening on a snowy road somewhere (downtonwn?) - a side street off a steep hill. And cars are going past, hitting some icy patch and spinning out of control, flipping over, smashing into parked cars, no one seems to be getting hurt but it's like a scene out of the movies.
I'm wishing I'd brought a Camera.
One - looks to be municipal vehicle, flips and rolls before landing upright in facing the opposite direction. I go to see if the driver's alright - it's Fabrizio - the bosses' nephew's friends brother. He seems a little annoyed, on the back of the truck there's all these road signs - hand painted with neon highlighters, I can't read what they say. He's worried about his load, and I get off the street, it's just not safe, too many maniac drivers...
I step into a shopping mall, it's rotating, and I try to take a shortcut through but it's a series of slides who's angle change, I get into one and am somersaulted as it turns....I get off just in time, with a little sliding of my own, at the right door, a walkway into a parkade....
Money & Power
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1949
Money and Power came into the restaurant the other night.
Now Money, he's a legend amongst restaurant folk, came to the country some 30 or 40 years ago, started as a dishwasher, soon opened his own restaurant. Fancy. And his reputation from here drops off the map, countless reports from people I've known who've worked for him describe him as a sexually obsessed tyrant, strange perversions, lawsuits, bizarre things hushed up. This is the report from the underbelly, those people (un)lucky enough to have held employ with him - from discussions with our customers he's well known in the business community as well, for much the same sort of activities, shady dealings and non-payment, despite all this, or perhaps because of it, he's done well.
Power, well, Power wouldn't be anywhere without Money. Somewhere along the way they met and became friends and Money, perhaps realizing that his reputation wouldn't bear the scrutiny that a career in politics necessarily entails, or perhaps he just realized that Money forever has Power in it's pocket, propped up Power, became his invisible banker and supporter on the Campaign trail and so Power did a few terms at the Municipal level.
It was a classic win-win situation. Power came into money, and Money came into more money, diversified into real estate, development, together they organized municipal strategies that saw both of them become very rich, and now there's no untangling where their dirty little fingers have been.
They're pleasant enough, if you play their game, they have a guest they're trying to impress - Priviledge, perhaps, or maybe just more Money? It's uncertain. But things when they don't go Power's way have him whining, he's a bully, first trying to steamroll through his objectives and then meekly backing off with apologies and "you misunderstood", he frustrates easily, a short temper, the fact that he ever became Power, even with Money, especially with Money, is proof of the failure of democracy.
In this restaurant he's aware that Money is king, you see glimpses of his temper and evil disposition, he is, together with Money, guilty by acquaintance, Money, this Money, is someone no politician should ever be seen with, but he doesn't care, and I'm reminded of the Pig Farmer in British Columbia who murdered countless prostitutes upon his farm, forever having parties for Bikers and Politicians, apart from the dress code and general sense of style there's really no difference.
And I wonder if Power really understands that Power, real Power, doesn't need Money. Probably not.
Page 877 of 1106