Final Instalment – Day 8: Medicine Hat → Calgary. 300km, 7 hours.

After a surprisingly good sleep in my luxury top-of-the-range ditch, I hit the road again at 6:30am, because my accommodation still did not lend itself to sleep ins. I did not anticipate having too much trouble escaping from Medicine Hat, and after an hour I was in a car with an old engineer named Vic on his way to Redcliff.

After a short time on the road, we reached Redcliff and I hopped out, realising it was the same destination that a gorgeous tattooed blonde had offered me the night before. I had declined her offer, so as to stay in an already-scouted-out area, but I regretted it deeply.

A quick look around confirmed that it would have made a fine place to stay the night, and I continued inwardly cursing myself for letting the opportunity pass by. She would have taken an immediately liking to me, and I to her, then she would have offered me a place to sleep, and then we would have lived happily ever after roaming the world on a romantic whim. Of this, I was certain, and I had only myself to blame.

It took another hour and a half of signholding and smiling to get me another lift, but the lift I got was one of the most memorable I had. A lady truck driver waved me in while she was stopped at the lights, and I wrestled myself and my pack in through the cab door just as the light turned green, taking a seat next to one of the most colourful characters I met on the road.

Chain smoking, cheerful, foul-mouthed and loud, Diane’s manner made it clear that she had maintained a work hard/play hard lifestyle all the way through to the age when most people start their retirement. She was going all the way to Calgary, so I had nearly three hours full of crazy stories, crass jokes, and raucous laughter as we traded tales from the road. She even bought me breakfast at a truckstop, in the form of a pile of pancakes, when she realised I was fairly well impoverished.

Many of the stories she told were on the topic of drugs. As the daughter of a truckstop owner, she had spent her high school years counting out pills to sell to the truckers, who would then drive for days on end kept awake by these illicit chemical packages. Diane herself had relied on the same pills to get her through exams. Continuing this lifestyle of questionable legality, she later found herself working as a drug mule for the Hell’s Angels, running drugs from British Columbia through to Alberta and doing illegal street racing in between times.

These may sound like tall stories, but after hearing them in person, I honestly think they were true. I asked her what the Hell’s Angels were like to deal with, and she replied ‘Well, I wasn’t one of them, but I fit in and they were really good to me. If I ever needed help with anything, they were always happy to send a couple of guys around to lend a hand’. Not for the first time, my normally decent stories paled in comparison. One time I got drunk with a homeless man on a week night, another time I vomited on a first date, but in the presence of gang stories, these stories sounded terribly weak to my own ears. This feeling was reinforced when the told me about getting mugged in California while waiting to pick up a load, then being abandoned by her employers when she drove home empty.

Thankfully, these stories never felt like one-upmanship the way they could have been, and Diane was some of the best company I ever had on the road. She eventually gave up the drug-running street racing days when the other and she turned to the more legitimate career of truck driving. I asked her what she was hauling that day. ‘Air conditioners’, she replied. I could not help but think that air conditioners probably have plenty of spaces to hide secret stashes.

On the road with an ex-drug mule (Calgary)

After a couple of hours of these spectacular stories, Diane reached her truck depot, and my dear friend Kira drove me back to her family’s place, bringing a close to my hitch hiking marathon. Kira and I had many more adventures in the following weeks, and she really was the purpose of my trek out to Calgary, but those are stories for another time.

I spent almost a year in Canada on a 360 Abroad exchange, and without any exaggeration, I call it the best time of my life. Hitch hiking from Montreal to Calgary was the best possible way to conclude such a significant chapter of my life.
It took me 8 days to cover the 4000km between Montreal and Calgary, and those days were jam packed with laughs, sighs, excitement and frustration. Through substantial periods of dehydration and hunger, I covered the entire way with little more than hand-drawn signs and a smile, and picked up stories every step of the way. I spent 62 hours on the road, 19 of those spent at the roadside, the other 43 split between 12 cars, travelling through 5 provinces and 3 time zones. I met fantastic and bizarre people, cemented friendships, and truthfully had some of the best times I have ever had. The life of a wayfaring wanderer is a good one.

You’re right, Canada, I think have. (Toronto)

Further adventures await! (Jasper National Park)

Day 6: Thunder Bay → Kenora. 490 km, 5 hours.

So, due to poor attention to detail, I posted Day 7 before I posted Day 6, so these two posts are out of order. Sorry about that!

I must have made a sufficiently good impression on the drive from Sudbury to Thunder Bay, because Caitlin (my incredibly lucky lift from the day before) offered me a lift for the next day as well. She was staying with friends in Kenora, near the Ontario-Manitoba border, so our second day driving together was a much shorter drive. Frankly, I was just happy to have a lift right from the start, and the added bonus of not sleeping in a ditch had me in good spirits.

I had not researched hostels in Kenora, so I planned to keep going through if the lift with Caitlin felt as if it had run its course by the end. Thankfully though, we continued to get along well, despite being in each others presence for many consecutive hours, and she suggested I stay at her friend’s place.

While I thought that was a nice gesture, I did not think it likely that her friend would agree to host a potentially smelly hitch hiker she had never met, but Caitlin called ahead and again I was surprised by the hospitality of strangers. She explained that Megan, the host, was in a relationship with ‘the ultimate backpacking hitch hiker dude’, so was happy to support the travelling cause and host the two of us. With that, I had a place to stay for the night, and so the day was established to be the easiest hitch hiking day ever.

Caitlin and I, by the Kakabeka Falls (Thunder Bay)

The drive to Kenora itself was uneventful, with no unpleasant surprises waiting for us. Caitlin had a couple of audiobooks with her, so we decided to start listening through The Poisonwood Bible, which had incidentally been recommended to me by my English teacher 4 years earlier. The recommendation turned out to be a rightful one, as we quickly became enthralled in the characters and their struggles.

It made me think back to that English teacher, and it dawned on me how much of an influence she had been – her reference played a large part in getting me into a volunteer program in India after I left school, her support in my final year had encouraged me to change from physics to English at university, and even a few of her phrases had made their way into my vocabulary. I made a mental note to send her an appreciative email when I next had the chance.

After 5 hours on the road and one crossed timezone, we arrived at Wendy’s house. Similar to Caitlin, Wendy was immediately friendly and likeable, and invited us to join her weekly pot-luck dinner at a friend’s house. We came prepared with corn chips and salsa, but when we arrived, it turned out to be sushi night. While everyone else showed up with crab meat, avocados, carrots, and other assorted sushi-suitable foods, I sat there with chips. My contribution was still welcomed by the host though, and so we made an oh-so-multicultural fusion cuisine dish of sushi with a side of nachos.

There were a handful of people there, the majority of whom were full of fun banter and quick jokes, but one of whom I could not figure out. He was the only other male there, a tall and ungainly fellow named Pat, with a sense of humour that neither fit the audience nor seemed appropriate for any other conceivable situation. His wife was inexplicably beautiful and sweet, with a far more suitable sense of humour, and I found myself genuinely puzzled as to what drew her to him.

Perhaps that was shallow of me, perhaps I was petty in my judgement of him, but I truly did not understand. How did his his sleazy jokes, obsession with correcting others, and achingly boring stories manage to win over a woman who clearly was the object of much admiration? Surely she could have done better than him? But, each to their own, and I chose to take courage from the evident fact that sometimes awkward guys manage to do well for themselves.

I might have been the odd one out, but I was not the misfit. 5 points for guessing who that title went to. (Kenora)

It was about halfway through the evening that the host questioned how it was that I ended up at the pot luck. It was not interrogative, nor had I made myself unwelcome, she simply wondered what my connection was, but was surprised by my answer. ‘So, I get that Caitlin is Megan’s friend,’ she said conversationally as she turned to me, ‘but how do you fit into the equation?’.

‘Oh,’ I replied, thinking it had been explained to her before my arrival, ‘I’m just a hitch hiker Caitlin picked up the other day’. The response around the room was simultaneous and almost identical.

‘Hahahah wait WHAT? Are you serious?’
They genuinely did not believe me, and for a moment I was worried that I may not be so welcome any more. Thankfully, they were not too concerned once the initial surprise has settled down, and we could return to our storytelling. Caitlin later pointed out to me that most of the people there were born-and-bred small town folk, so the prospect of hitch hikers was well outside of their comfort zone. To be fair, that is probably out of most people’s comfort zones, but I was glad I had established myself as good company before being exposed as grimy road-trash.

After a pleasant evening, Caitlin and Megan and I headed back to Megan’s house for the night. It was a small place, and the ‘sleep on the floor’ bed arrangement for me really did mean sleeping on the floor. There was not much padding between my angular bony physique and the equally unyielding floor, but I was happy to be sheltered and grateful to Megan and her hospitality. My family has hosted many people over the years, but we had never hosted a hitch hiker before, let alone at such short notice and so short on space. I added another entry to my extended mental list of favours to pay forward, and promptly fell asleep.

To be continued (with the last entry, exciting times!)

Day 7: Kenora → Medicine Hat. 1250km, 15 hours.

Caitlin, my multi-day lift of the previous few days, and I were set to drive together as far as Medicine Hat. It was a town around two hours southeast of Destination Calgary, and at that point we would part ways, with Caitlin continuing a southerly journey, while I tacked northwards toward Calgary and my best friend Kira.

We set out early to leave enough time to cross the prairies in one hit. As expected, it was an exhaustingly long drive, and I felt a little bad for not being able to share the driving. We filled the time by listening to The Poisonwood Bible audiobook, pausing it from time to time to discuss the character arcs and developments like a rolling book club.

Along the way, we had a rare sighting of another hitch hiker, looking somewhat defeated trying to get a lift, but unfortunately all our car space was occupied. He was not smiling as we passed, which highlighted to me just how worthwhile all the smiling I had done was, as he did not look like a cheery companion to have. Immediately after we passed him, I realised that roles had been reversed, and now I was the person sailing past without so much as a wave or sympathetic shrug. After inwardly cursing such callous stoicism while I was on the roadside, I found that I became much the same as those unfeeling passer-bys the moment I was sheltered within a car.

 

15 thrilling hours of soul-contemplation and inner searching. There wasn’t much else to do. (God-knows-where, somewhere on the prairies)

Across the expanses of the prairies, we just-about-finished The Poisonwood Bible in between breaks of folk and bluegrass bands, and eventually made it to Medicine Hat. It was around 8pm when we got to M.H., and after three excellent days with Caitlin I was a little sad to part ways. Regardless, the road beckoned us in opposite directions, and so we had to say our farewells and continue solo.

I had already picked out the best location in M.H., with a good onramp near a Tim Hortons bagel house (ideal) and a comfortable nearby ditch I had scouted out on Google Maps the night before. With the sun on its way down, I continued to try for lifts into Calgary, reasoning that a lift all the way would be worth it, but not planning on any taking any shorter partway lifts. I would be better off sticking to my five-star ditch than gambling with getting stranded God-knows-where, so with that reasoning I smiled my most winning smile and tried again with my ‘I’m not smelly’ sign.

Again, the sign was a hit, with several people pulling over and offering me lifts a little further down the highway. Having already made my all-or-nothing lift decision, and knowing it would take at least two to three hours of driving to get to Calgary, I politely declined each one. One car even pulled up and said that my sign had made their day, so I can at least claim to have cheered somebody up with my mostly-untrue-and-not-even-original witticisms. Around 9:30, I decided to reign it in for the night, and wandered over to the nearby Tim Hortons, when a car pulled up next to me in the car park and called out.
‘Hey!’, said the driver, ‘I saw you at the corner with the sign and turned around to see if you wanted a lift? Just to Redcliff, 10km or so’. I wandered over, and found myself confronted with a conflict of interests. On one hand, I had made my decision not to risk any short lifts for the evening, but on the other, the driver was a jaw-droppingly gorgeous blonde in her 20’s, with elegant tattoos weaving their way down her arm. I always did have a soft spot for tattoos. I stalled, frantically trying to weigh up my best option, but eventually settled on declining the offer. Charming she may have been, astonishingly attractive she definitely was, but I could not afford to get stuck in the middle of nowhere for a second time. She waved goodbye and I inwardly cursed myself, concluding that I had just met my soulmate and would be destined to die alone for screwing up my one and only chance. The feeling only sank deeper when my internet friend in M.H., with whom I had loose let’s-grab-a-beer plans that night, cancelled on me, condemning me to wallow in my lonely misery.

In all seriousness, a great place to sleep (Medicine Hat)

I shuffled off to my ditch, which, honestly, was everything I had hoped it would be. Tufts of grass made for a vaguely squishy mattress substitute, next to a quiet road, close to emergency 24-hour fast food, well-lit surroundings but sheltered and shadowed, hidden behind a concrete road divider, and not even on private property, it was unsarcastically ideal. I wriggled into my sleeping bag, made a pillow out of my pack, and in my rough comfort, dozed off thinking lonely thoughts of my absent tattooed soulmate.

 To be concluded

Day 5: Sudbury → Thunder Bay. 1010km, 14.5 hours

At 3am, huddled in a ditch, I was freezing. It may have been approaching summertime, but Canada’s nights clearly had not received the memo.

I gathered my belongings and shuffled into the nearby diner, where the waitress spotted me and offered me a menu. I explained my situation, and she took pity on me and brought me food and tea on the house. Another blessing from those who owed me nothing.

By 6:30am, the sun was up and the road was busy, so I set out by the roadside again. For two and a half hours I stood there, squinting into the sun, unable to catch a break. By all reasoning, the truck stop should have been the perfect place to catch a lift from, but I had never been stuck in one place for so long. I thought of the Toronto fratboys calling out ‘F*CK SUDBURY, STAY IN T-TOWN!’ Maybe I should have stayed there? Pessimism, as touched on a number of times previously, becoming overwhelming. It was the lowest point of my travels.

You see the orange marker? That was my bed for the night (Sudbury)

Eventually, the sun shone on me metaphorically to match its physical presence, and a couple of short rides brought me outside of town. Though they did not take me far, both rides gave me money to help fund my further travels.

As others before them, they also called out ‘Don’t get stuck in Wawa’ as we went our separate ways.

For my next trick, I brought out a sign that I should have used a long time earlier: the sign that read ‘I’m not smelly’. Only two of those three words were true – can you guess the odd one out?

Oh, but I was. I really really was.

After 10 minutes, a young lady pulled up at the traffic lights and saw my sign. She laughed, and pulled onto a side road to let me in. Though I did not realise it at the time, this marked the some of the best luck of my trip.

Her name was Caitlin, and upon hearing my accent, brought up that she had spent eight months working at a national park in New Zealand. She was a couple of years older than myself and easygoing company, so our drive was off to a good start.

Initially she said she would drive me to Sault Ste Marie in accordance with one of my signs, but as I established myself as a likeable and trustworthy fellow, she offered to drive me to Thunder Bay. I had long since given up on making it that far in a single day, and after a few highs and lows of morale in rapid succession, I was relieved to know that I had a long lift to my destination, making good time in good company.

Caitlin was a Sudbury local, proud of the fact, and held Toronto in much the same disdain that the Toronto fratboys had held Sudbury. We passed a number of roadside billboards advertising an alien novel called Frozen Beneath, which she explained as part of a Northern Ontario phenomenon from a self-published author who wrote terrible books that were so heavily promoted and laughably bad that they had become local favourites. Reviews put it in perspective: 2/5 stars, ‘honestly the worst book I have ever seen in print’. I should find a copy at some point.

It was soon established that Caitlin and I got along well, and so she revealed that she was actually driving all the way out west to British Colombia to be a sea kayak guide, meaning that I had a lift almost all the way to Calgary. She further explained that she had made the 4000km trip every summer for the past 6 years, and this was her first time setting out to drive it alone, so finding me 20 minutes after she had left home had been lucky for her too. When I was in need of a lift, she was in need of driving company, and between the two of us we had an almost ideal solution to those issues.

As we drove along the coast of Lake Superior, we approached Old Woman Bay, a little rest stop on the shoreline that had become a traditional break place for Caitlin’s friends and family when heading that way for the summer. She had vowed to go for a swim when we got there, but as we drove further north around the lake, ice and snow patches became more and more common by the roadside. I expressed my doubts as to whether I would join for a swim, but she remained adamant that she would tough it out.

As it turns out, snow outweighs sun when it comes to swimming weather (Old Woman Bay)

We arrived at Old Woman Bay, not to be outdone, I stood with her at the waters edge as we dipped our toes in. Predictably, with snow piles still sitting around, the water was freezing, and Caitlin said she might not swim this time. ‘NO!’ I exclaimed, ‘We said we would do this! Now let’s DO THIS!’, and on the count of three, we jumped in.

The water felt like a vice, and one particular appendage of mine did its level best to disappear to warmer places. Wheezing, he two of us hauled ourselves out of the water and sat shivering violently until the sun warmed us up, and we continued on our way. ‘Thanks for that,’ she said to me, ‘you’re a good sport.’

Many more hours passed uneventfully, though we did pass through Wawa (turns out it is just a nowhere town with a hatred of hitch hikers) and nearly 15 hours since I hauled my sorry carcass out of the truck stop ditch, we made it to Thunder Bay. I knew a great hostel to stay at, so Caitlin and I set ourselves up there and wandered to nearest pub for beer and burgers. Soon, exhaustion took over, so we retired to the hostel and promptly fell asleep.

To be continued

Day 4: Toronto → Sudbury. 390km, 11+ hours.

I started hitch hiking at 11am, a little later than I had hoped. Again, it took a long time to get out of the city, though waves from passing cars kept my spirits up. The drivers offered sympathetic smiles, and, oddly enough, money. I was not begging, but I was not so proud as to turn it down, so I accepted their change and made a mental note to use my ill-gotten gains to buy somebody a beer later down the road. One Jeep full of fratboys saw my ‘Sudbury’ sign and called out ‘F*CK SUDBURY! STAY IN T-TOWN!’, the first hint I got of the Toronto-Sudbury ill feeling that I would hear more of later.

After an hour and a half I got a lift with a man named Chiu, then Robert after him, but neither of them were exceptionally interesting. Still, I can not complain, seeing as they picked me up not for need of company, but merely to help a traveller in need. After these lifts, I found myself again on a non-ideal stretch of highway. My optimism wore down, but I plastered on my most winning smile as best I could, though my increasingly sweat-soaked clothes did not help my cause.

An hour after stepping out of Rob’s car, I had trudged quite some distance, and a car finally pulled over. The driver was a 30-something construction worker named Sean driving all the way to Sudbury, and after two uninteresting lifts and lonesome hours on the road, his company made for a welcome change. We were soon trading stories of the road, including his tale of a last-chance hitch hiking marathon to an illicit weekend meet-up, and his subsequent desperate attempt to get home in time for work.

Partway through the drive, he exclaimed ‘Aha! That’s it!’, while I looked at him, puzzled at what his sudden realisation could have been.
‘I’ve been trying to figure out who you remind me of, and just figured it out. You’re just like my friend back home, he gave me this,’ he said, handing a book to me, ‘so you can have it for the road. Just seems fitting, y’know?’. It was Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing No Country for Old Men, a novel I was thrilled to have. The only other book I had with me was the novelisation of The Road to El Dorado, a film I had seen 22 separate times. I thanked him sincerely, particularly as I knew I had no place to stay in Sudbury, and was anticipating a lonely night by the side of a road.

As we pulled into the town, Sean added to the generosity he had already shown me and handed me a spare first aid kit as we parted ways. I thanked him again, he replied ‘No problem man, just don’t get stuck in Wawa,’ and drove off cinematically into the gradually setting sun. I did not understand what he meant, but thought little of it and hit the road again.

As there was still light left in the day, and I had no reason to stay in Sudbury, I brought out the ‘Sault Ste Marie’ sign and attempted to make to the next town. Sean had informed me that Thunder Bay, my next destination, was substantially further than I had calculated for, and suggested that I keep going. I got conflicting reports of which road to take, and eventually gave up and went in search of food. Along the way, I walked past an angry shew-like lady berating her barely-listening husband, who interrupted her mid-sentence to chat with me and give me some of his change for dinner. His affable demeanour sharply contrasted his wife, particularly when she cursed at him for handing me money, and yelled at me to get a job. I offered to return the money, but the man cracked a long-suffering grin and told me to keep it. I think his real intention was just to wind her up.

Sitting at a diner, I relaxed and idly drew on my cardboard signs. I took pride in my sign making, even though they were constructed with brown cardboard and Sharpie pens.

A family sat down near me, and I offered them my larger table. They declined, but sparked up conversation. Seeing my sign, the man talked of his experience as a trucker, and suggested that I should make my way to a nearby truckstop, where all Thunder Bay-bound traffic would be passing. The lady, who was his sister, offered to drive me out to the truck station, which was not an offer I had expected from a young mother with her two toddlers. Again, the generosity of strangers both surprised and uplifted me.

Michelle, as her name turned out to be, drove me out to the truckstop, and we arrived at around with a little light remaining. She wished me good luck, and added ‘Don’t get stuck in Wawa’ the way Sean had done earlier. Slightly puzzled, I thanked her, and as I stepped out of the car, said ‘I couldn’t say this earlier because it would have seemed creepy, but you’re very beautiful. Thanks again, have a safe trip home!’ then walked off to find my next lift. I find it much easier to feign suave charm and character when I know I am unlikely to see the person ever again. Zero risk charisma, you might call it.

Desperately trying to escape Sudbury

Unfortunately, my luck must have been entirely expended for the day, because the lift never arrived. For an hour and a half, I sat as car after truck after car sailed past, and any truck that pulled up did so to sleep for the night. At 10pm, I was once again disheartened, and retreated to a small ditch for the night. It was behind a fence, admittedly on somebody else’s property, but discreetly out of sight. In preparation for the night, I put on every single one of my jumpers and jackets to keep warm, but chose not to use my sleeping bag so I could make a hasty escape should I be kicked out of my sad little camp.

The temperature began to drop. It was not looking to be a good night.

Believe it or not, this ditch was actually less comfortable than it looked (Sudbury)

To be continued

Day 2: Toronto

Still coming to terms with the rigours of the road, I took the second day of my travels at a much more relaxed pace. Instead of trying to blast through to the next town, I chose to spend the day in Toronto and meet up with some friends. I awoke to a message from my older brother Richard in Minneapolis, informing me that The Veils, a favourite New Zealand band of ours, had recently played in his town and were playing in Toronto the next day. His offer was to pay for my ticket, under the condition that I had to talk to the musicians afterwards. Sadly, I had to inform him that I would be leaving Toronto the next morning, so would miss out on the concert.

With that early disappointment behind me, I found breakfast in the form of a bag of croissants, for roughly the price of a postage stamp. Upon eating them, I realised they had roughly the same nutritional value as a postage stamp, without any of the practical applications or collectibility. Still, it was technically food, so I set off to an art show to find sign-drawing inspiration.

 Really helpful, Toronto. Really helpful.

Unsurprisingly, the art show was far more demoralizing than inspirational. Still, I worked on my sign and talked to a few interesting characters. The $1 croissants had failed to stave off hunger, so with a little bit of bartering, I managed procure some Oreos, and I was back on track to meet up with my friends for lunch.

Fast forwarding an hour or two of aimless wandering, I met up with Alex, a friend I had met studying on exchange at McGill University in Montreal. Goofy and immediately likeable, I found Alex wandering around in jandals carrying an empty violin case, ostensibly to make him look like a serious musician and not just another guy with a guitar.

Alex and I explored the nearby shops and found, among other things, a detailed carved wooden penis, which Alex suggested I use to beckon lifts on the road. ‘Maybe if you just mime with it a little bit, truckers will be like “Aw yeah I want some of that” and pick you up?’. Thanks for your wise advice, Alex, I know you only want the best for me.

Irresponsible suggestions depleted, went to find D.J. There are few people on this Earth that I would rather hang out with than D.J. or Alex, and hanging out with the two of them together is always hilarious. Though my attempts at stand up comedy have been reasonably well-received, or at least not objected to, D.J.’s wit makes her professional comedian material. When Alex and her spark off each other, I just sit back and spectate.

D.J. led us through Kensington Market, past a variety of stores and signs such as ‘Hot Box Cafe. Serving potheads since… ahh, I forget’, to her local haunt. The food was good, the company was fantastic, and the jokes were set to match. As if that was not enough, D.J’s sympathy to my malnourished travels prompted her to pay for my meal, and Alex invited me to ditch my smelly hostel and stay with his family for a night or two. One day I will repay the favour, but the time, all I could do was thank them.

 

Alex and D.J., pulling shapes. 

Sadly, Alex and D.J. both had other reservations to attend to, and our afternoon of food and laughs came to an end. Realising that I now had better accommodation and an invitation to stay longer, it dawned on me that I had the opportunity to see The Veils the following night, and I messaged my brother to claim the tickets. I was excited to see them live again, but Richard regrettably informed me that the tickets had sold out.

I sighed, quietly on the outside and obnoxiously on the inside, but decided to stay the extra day regardless. I had great company and an upgrade in accommodation, so I pulled myself back together and sat in the sun until it was time to meet Kaitlyn and Kyle, more friends from Montreal.

I met up with Kaitlyn at the bus station, but rather than accompanied by her boyfriend Kyle, she had her workmate Emily with her. I rarely object to more female company, but I was saddened that Kyle could not make it.

Kaitlyn, a pretty blonde with a quiet conduct hiding a sharp sense of humour, informed me that Kyle had essentially been grounded for failing to meet his parents’ study expectations, which was both unfortunate and unfair. Still, I was happy to see Kaitlyn. we had shared the majority of our courses at university over the previous year, we soon found a bar to reminisce and catch up.

With a pint in hand and a bowl of poutine (Quebec’s favourite dish, a purpose built booze-food of chips with gravy and cheese) in front of me, I sat content and passed the evening trading hangover tales with the others. I have had some brutal hangovers in my time, but I have never vomited into my hands at work the way Emily had. I was impressed, but far from envious.

 Beer, poutine, and one contented hitch hiker. 

After more trading of stories, they eventually had to catch the bus back to their town, and I returned to the grimy hostel to retrieve my belongings and haul them over to Alex’s house.

Arriving at Alex’s house, I found my accommodation upgrade was even greater than I had anticipated, and had the added bonus of an old autistic poodle.

With study-induced nocturnality still firmly ingrained for Alex, we stayed up into the wee hours of the morning playing Super Smash Bros and Halo. When I decided to retire for the night, Alex showed me the spare room filled with girly childhood toys, including a large stuffed pink unicorn on the bed itself. ‘I put it there specially for you,’ he grinned ‘goodnight!’.

Luxury accommodations like never before. 

Day 1: Montreal → Toronto. 540km, 9 hours.

Despite having long since decided how I would spend my last weeks in Canada, very little time had really been invested in planning how to make it happen. Yes, I had hitch hiked before, and in stranger places too, but the scale of the North American continent was still somewhat beyond my understanding. Montreal to Calgary is a long way by most standards, particularly when the only method of transport I had at my disposal was a hand-drawn sign, an extended thumb, and a winning smile. Even the smile was rendered less charming by my messy beard, but I was intent on keeping it throughout, to have the obligatory travel beard of all male travellers.

Well, one must travel in order for the travel beard to earn its title, and this story begins with me stranded at an on ramp in Montreal, having made no ground whatsoever and gradually losing my cheerful optimism.

I knew that location is hugely important when hitch hiking. I also knew I had chosen my location badly – too many lanes, too much traffic, and too little room to pull over. Car after car thundered by in stony denial.

I wondered, how many of those vehicles were destined for very same Toronto that I had so artistically written on my cardboard sign? Was I not smiling wide enough? Did they not like the broken heart I had drawn on my sign? No, the location was the culprit there. Time crawled onwards.

At last, somebody took pity on me! A man a few years older than myself, named Lyndon, offered me a lift off Montreal island, which would at least get me out of my hopeless downtown situation. That short lift was quickly followed by a second one by a fellow named Guy, and between the two of them I reached the Ontario-Quebec border safely. Some far-off deity may well have been teaching me a lesson in choosing a good location, but at least that deity did not plan to ruin my adventure before it had begun.

At the provincial border, I was on the side of a motorway, with fast-moving cars barrelling past in all four lanes. Though less than ideal, this was still better than my Montreal onramp, and a couple soon picked me up.

Anna and Jeremy, as they were called, were an odd couple, not at all short on likeability, but there were certain aspects that I could not quite figure out. Initially, I assumed they were romantically engaged, then decided that they were not, then continued to alternate between the two options. They did, however, inquire about the broken heart on my sign, so perhaps their minds were geared towards such topics.

Is it morally wrong to lie directly to the face of those who show charity towards you? Perhaps. But I did so anyway. I spun them a story of how I had an ex girlfriend in Toronto (semi truth, there was an ex-romantic interest there), who had left me brokenhearted (lie, she just did not want a second date) because I had never made romantic gestures (lie, my romantic gestures were fine) and she thought I took her for granted (lie, we had just one date), so I was on a desperate run to Toronto to win her back (lie, I had zero interest in that). Is that wrong? I argue that it is not, seeing as they enjoyed the story, and there is no chance of anybody being hurt by my lying twist. Unless she reads this, which I doubt.

Moving forward, we delved into other stories, and Anna showed her storytelling skills. She had a lifetime’s worth of tales from working in the performance business. They ranged from stunt horse riding in her youth, to spending 8 months on tour stage managing for a circus, to unknowingly contributing a straight-orientation film to a lesbian film festival.

There came a break in the storytelling when their GPS told them to take a turn off the Toronto highway, a suspicious offramp taking us through winding backroads. Maybe the GPS was just doing something odd, I thought, but what destination had they really put into that eccentric electric copilot of theirs? Shortly after I internally resigned my fate to an unmarked grave, we found the highway again and were brought safely into Toronto. I thanked Anna and Jeremy, both for offering me a lift and also for not butchering me into unrecognisable fragments, then stepped out into downtown Toronto.

It took a while to find my hostel, and once I did, I had to wait outside for the manager to let me in. I had located it in a grungy corner of Chinatown in the evening, and the grunginess was confirmed for me when two prostitutes and their pimp came up and asked me for directions.

Not having had any experience in the flesh trade, I was innocently ignorant until one of the makeup-slathered ladies took a phone from her bra and checked the time, grouching ‘Where the f*ck is this place? I’m losing money here!’. At that point I realized who I was speaking to, though the knowledge did me no good as I still had no sense of direction.

Once the three characters had ascertained that I had no useful knowledge nor interest, they wandered off to search elsewhere. The pimp called out as ‘Stay hustling, stay high!’ to me as they turned the corner, and I made a mental note to use that phrase for exiting future conversations.

The manager, a grizzled maritime Canadian named Pete who ended every sentence with ‘bhay’, eventually turned up to let me in and show me the bed I had booked. It was in a basement reeking of smoke, in a room that was crowded by its sole inhabitant even before I got there. The roommate was surly to the point that I never figured out if he even spoke English. Tired, hungry, dehydrated and somewhat deflated, I wandered out to find food, scowled at some obnoxious teenagers, then sat in my cramped bunk and drank whisky by myself in an attempt to fulfil my tragic-romantic ideal of a lonesome stranger on the road. Sleep enveloped me almost immediately.