The cell phone rang while my Jeep sat idling two vehicles away from Canadian customs. It was Starling, explaining that I couldn’t reach her apartment in Vancouver using the instructions I’d been given. She’d just learned that streets were being blocked off for a fireworks display. I hastily scribbled down the new directions as I inched closer to the international border, then had to hang up so I could speak to the border agent. Normally, Canadian guards pepper me with trick questions, asking repetitive queries in the hopes that I will contradict myself. This time, due to heavy traffic, they let me off easy.
Safely in Canada, I reached for the phone again so I could reconnect with Starling and clarify the instructions. Zero bars. My budget-priced, sorry excuse for a cell phone plan was refusing to function outside of my home country. I glanced at the new directions, written in sloppy handwriting, and noticed I had street names, but not enough indicators like “turn right” or “left” to help me navigate through a metropolitan area of two million people. This was going to be problematic.
I survived my journey thanks to the help of several patient pedestrians who volunteered their advice and their cell phones, although I admittedly crossed bridges over the same body of water three times before I found Starling’s neighborhood. Hordes of Vancouverites flocking to the waterfront to see fireworks made progression through the urban landscape increasingly difficult, and police manned several checkpoints to keep unnecessary traffic away from the west side of the city.
I sweet-talked a policewoman into allowing me to continue west, but encountered one last obstacle when I pulled up to a stop sign and looked out onto Denman Street. The road had been completely taken over by masses of pedestrians, who surged in a great, ceaseless river of humanity downhill towards the ocean. The current of Canadians showed no signs of ebbing, and I had no desire to miss the fireworks display myself, so I was forced to plunge ahead and hope I would not run over anyone or get carried away by the mob. I felt like closing my eyes, but as I drifted forward, the traffic broke and flowed around me like a boulder in a stream.
I drew breath once I reached the far side, hit the gas and found Starling waiting patiently for me at her apartment building. She sequestered my vehicle, and we hurried down to the waterfront just as the first fireworks were being launched from a barge floating out in the English Bay. This was the inaugural display in Vancouver’s “Celebration of Lights,” and while watching the tendrils and blossoms of smoke and radiance, I felt as giddy as the children sitting behind us, who announced that the booms were loud enough to give them heart attacks.
After that warm, pyrotechnic welcome, I ventured in Starling’s company to the largest island on the western side of North America – Vancouver Island. Mediocre weather and low-lying clouds forced us to confine our explorations to shorelines and waterfalls until our final day, when we attempted an ascent of Mt. Arrowsmith, which holds dominion over the island’s southern reaches. The trail was short, but mercilessly steep as it climbed over 3,000 feet in just 1.5 miles. The mountain itself had eroded into an unusual shape, appearing like the biggest spud in a ridgeline composed of lumpy russet potatoes. From the summit dome, we could see a panorama of more jagged, glaciated peaks, including the snowy Olympic Mountains in distant northwest Washington. The forested hills far beneath us were a patchwork of green scabs and scars from past logging operations, with the most recent cuts standing out as red, raw abrasions, full of scattered tree branches and churned earth.
Since we had suffered a three-hour delay trying to board an outgoing ferry to Vancouver Island, we paid extra this time to reserve a space for my Jeep on a vessel departing for the mainland at 7:30 this evening. Now we had a commitment. Our descent of Mt. Arrowsmith was swift enough that we were able to spend a few minutes examining the old-growth, mossy giants of Cathedral Grove. Despite our tight schedule, I expected that we would also have time to pick up some fish and chips near the harbor, and my stomach was rumbling anxiously in anticipation. But when we emerged from the forest canopy, Starling noticed that I had punctured a tire driving on logging roads near the Mt. Arrowsmith trailhead. Oh boy.
Even though the jack was buried beneath a mountain of boxes and camping equipment, I still set a personal record for my fastest tire change. Then for the final forty miles to Departure Bay, I had to get creative with speed limits. If you squint hard enough, 110 kilometers-per-hour can look a lot like 110 miles-per-hour. We reached the gate at 6:59pm… a single minute later, and our reservation would have been forfeit. I felt a great rush of relief when the vendor put the ticket into my hands, until she smiled and mentioned, “Oh, and the ferry will be a half-an-hour late this evening.” I remained polite, but my stomach growled a few choice obscenities.
We prepared a substitute meal of vegetable stew on a camping stove in an adjacent parking lot, and the coveted fish and chips had to wait for another evening in Vancouver city, when we feasted during the hour immediately prior to a second fireworks display at the waterfront. This time, there was no rush. We were able to sit for a while and digest our food happily before the explosions began. Little children started having heart attacks left and right, and all was well on a midsummer’s night in Canada.