Expedition Canada

But for Day 1 Disaster Tuesday June 3 I had not anticipated doing an update quite so soon, but the first two days have been rather newsworthy. No more than ten minutes off the ferry, approaching Capilano on Vancouver's North Shore, a loud bang, huge wind noise and we quickly realised our glass roof on the Tundra had shattered.  We were passing a large dump truck and trailer at the time and assume a stone had bounced off the lorry onto us.   We were a few minutes from Toyota, Jim Pattinson North Shore to be precise, who were no help, anymore than the collision repair centre they directed us to.  "No glass available in North America" was the refrain.  Nick has si nce found some in Ontario.  The question at the forefront of our minds was, will we get further than Abbotsford where we are due to pick up the trailer? The collision specialist, vacuumed out the broken glass (but left half the broken roof in place), stuck on a layer of sticky plastic and duct taped ...

Day 1 - We're Off Monday June 2nd, 2025 Sebby - checking our route After months of planning, several changes to the route and dates, the first leg of our 20,000k trans-Canada  (and back)  adventure, starts today.   We will be travelling through nine of Canada's provinces; British Columbia, Alberta,  Saskatchewan , Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec,  New Brunswick,  Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  We won't get to Newfoundland & Labrador as the shortest ferry ride to them is around twelve hours and Jack would have to go into a crate-kennel, where he is bound to let everybody know of his displeasure.  Fred would probably not enjoy what can be rather rough seas!   We also won't get to any of the three territories, Yukon, Nunavut or Northwest Territories, though we're thinking of Yukon next summer.   The three month outbound leg will get us to Cap Breton in Nova Scotia on August 24th, when we turn around and head back. ...

Trailer & Tariffs Beaver on Nita Lake We first came out to Canada in 2000 for a 2 week holiday.  The plan was to spend a week in Muskoka, North of Toronto, then drive over to Vancouver and spend a week on the West Coast. Realising it would take the best part of a our second week to get there, we abandoned the plan. Lake Vernon on the edge of Huntsville was our base for those two weeks, playing in boats on the interconnected lakes the first week, then exploring Lake Huron and the Algonquin National Park, north of Huntsville the second week.  In the two weeks in Ontario and every visit to Canada since, we've never seen a beaver in the wild; nor since we moved to Canada in 2021.  That was four years ago, Thursday April 3rd. The last week of Feb we were in Whistler for a week and on one of my early morning walks with Jack we discovered a young beaver was walking along the ice on Nita Lake.  It's one of the last places I'd expect to see a beaver as it doesn't fee...

Earthquake Hits SW BC Friday Feb 21st earthquake - Cronk Towers the red dot The house shook and rattled after the initial thunderous roar, while birds scattered in all directions from the feeders and trees.  It took me a few seconds to clock that it wasn't a plane crash or other manmade disaster, but an earthquake.   A first, and quite frightening experience.  Jack was equally unimpressed and didn't know where to put himself.  The centre was 25k North of us (close!) on the northern edge of the Tetrahedron Provincial Park and registered 5.1 (later revised down to 4.8).  Tetrahedron is a popular hiking area and on a clear day can be seen from the Sea to Sky Highway that takes you up to Whistler.  It was also felt in Whistler, Metro and North Vancouver and Vancouver Island. BC's Emergency Notice When we first moved in to Bonniebrook Fred packed a 'grab bag', which is recommended for parts of the country that could be affected by forest fires, earthquakes...

Happy New Year Ok, OK, I know I do a lot of sunsets (and sunrises) - but they are so beautiful Sunset over Vancouver Island (iPhone) Well, as feared in the last blog, it turns out that coming from a new joint email address our festive messages ended up in a lot of folks junk folders. W e sent e-Christmas cards as Canada Post were on strike for several months before Christmas.   So if you were thinking "we didn't get a card from the Cronks this year", check your junk email.  If it isn't there, then our email list was clearly in error (or you have changed your email address)!   It seems e-Xmas messages are starting to replace snail-mail (not surprising if you go on strike before Christmas) and probably arrive nanoseconds after they were sent. We had several.  Our first batch of the more tactile traditional cards arrived from the UK Fri Jan 10th, apart from a couple that must have been posted last summer, or maybe even Christmas 2023! Winter seems to have bypa...