Journeys Afoot in North America
Part I, Early Walks
When well in August I took a ferry to Nanaimo, start of the TransCanadian Highway which was to be the northern tier of my circuit of inspection around the U.S. The plums were ripe and cheap on Vancouver Island. I ate many as I walked through the melodiously named towns of Ladysmith and Duncan. Across in Vancouver, B.C. I heard a rock band in the city square but found no place to sleep other than a Salvation Army floor.
Leaving in the morning I was warned off the freeway by a policeman who then offered a lift to its end. Away from the city the province is wild; I had good camps and met a man who prescribed for my sore feet:
It was an old prospector that told me.
Russell Hickey had peddled hides too,
All over British Columbia.
He said I'd never worked around mules
Or I'd know already.
What you do is rub in
A little piss where it chafes,
Once in the night and morning.
You do that for three weeks
And your feet will be so tough
You can walk down the road barefoot,
They'll say lookit that hippie coming.
He was right too, in a way.
My hands have gotten so tough
I expect I could split a board÷
It's my feet are sore.
The poem is a tease but the treatment works; over many miles I've been grateful to him. Near Revelstoke in the forest I found sweet yellow apples on an abandoned tree. Local people called them banana apples. At Banff began a stretch already walked along when returning from the climb of Mt. Temple. Buy a train ticket then to Port Arthur in Ontario, where the Canadian part of that trip had begun.
(Don't look for Port Arthur on a map; it and the twin city of Fort William have married to become Thunder Bay.) Afoot again, this province taught a lesson in patience. Honest hitchhikers, as opposed to one who walks and hopes, had warned me Ontario would be slow. But not impossible.
Sudbury was smoky; in Toronto the hostels close too early. Shouldn't have deviated so far south anyway. But this part had already been done, from the Soo, so I entrained for Quebec City, the earlier trip's turn÷around point.
Across the St. Lawrence, I walked once more on fleurs-de-lis . Before Notre Dame du Lac illness made me so weak I only covered six miles all day. Then I stumbled into the town's 4-H camp, and wandered from spot to spot trying to find a campsite. Choosing high ground was good, for later the place was nearly flooded with the eerie sheen of Northern Lights. Are they the earth's magnetic field made manifest? Do the lights sing and can they cure? Silly, but by morning whatever had me was gone. Happy coincidence, blessed night.
Most people who impulsively pull over to offer a ride are very kind and don't scare me at all, but the potato pickers I rode with next day were frightening. While stopped at intervals to cool the engine, they'd huddle off to themselves as if plotting. The not so sober French driver stomped time on the gas pedal to wild Cajun music. The Ontarian and black American didn't seem unfriendly, but the driver wouldn't believe me when I said I had very little money. At the next stop as the sun set I left them. The rest of Quebec was friendly and pleasant; I was sorry to part from the St. Lawrence when TransCanada turned inland.
In the rain I walked twenty-seven miles into New Brunswick where it is said they never get all the potatoes picked. Some freeze in the ground every year. Now came the most splendid vehicle that ever stopped for me, a brand-new fire truck, silver grey with real gold trim. When we stopped for night at an inn, I rested while the Montreal driver went out on the town. As rain fell again, shorting out the truck's electrical system, everyone learned it had a splendid piercing horn that couldn't be stopped. Except by the driver, who luckily came back to silence it before battery failure.
We delivered the lovely elephant to Douglas, Nova Scotia (settled by patriots who left the U.S. rather than collaborate with our treason against the Crown). There seemed to be wildflowers all over Nova Scotia, in September. At New North Sidney the owner of Red Star Surplus opened up on Sunday for me to buy woolens. Then I took the sea ferry to Port-au- Basques in Newfoundland.
Night fell soon on the ferry road. A cold night I slept in a weighing station and left early the morning. Before I got warm a man in rough clothes strode across the moor and in the soft musical brogue so laughed at by Canadians asked me would I breakfast with his family? I heartily did, delighting in their talk. He blessed my further journey on the ãhigh roadä, and I left my harmonica, at which I had little skill, with his talented son.
Newfoundland seemed Texas-sized; its part of the TransCanadian Highway has nearly 600 miles and I was glad to accept rides with some of its speeding youngsters. There was a camp under the bridge of a big river before I got to Terra Nova Park. At the park as I searched for a site, an old man asked how many lunches I carried? How was that to be answered? At the campsite I got out what I called supper and, under the scrutiny of crows, left for a few moments. Returning, I idly picked at a bread wrapper to get crumbs for the crows. But that left my loaf unaccounted for! I damned the crows, and shied a rock at them! Through supper angry, but by dessert I shared a doughnut of conscience money with the scamps.
Terra Nova is also the place for moose but I saw none. At yet another park I climbed in the window of a cabin to get warm. When caught in the morning I expected at least a lecture. But instead of meanness the caretaker smiled and said, ãA-number one, sir, A-number one.ä Near Avalon Peninsula where moose are rare, I finally saw one, a great bell-bearded creature posing on a rocky bank for my mind's camera. Happily I marched on; when asked if I ãbelongedä to St. John's, I said perhaps. In the city a little boy tried on my rucksack and eagerly guided me out to the lighthouse. Trail's end, no more TransCanada; the blue meadow leads to Ireland.
Back in the city rain fell and I had trouble finding a cheap place to stay. But there was one out by the university; I warmed again to St. John's as I rested. When, leaving, I bought dried cod, the monger gave a spruce beer to remember them by. There was an Irish celebration going on with the airline, Aer Lingus, giving away the big bright copper pennies of Erin.
Instead of retracing TransCanada I chose the long ferry back from Argentia, reveling in Irish tunes, good food, and the pillows they brought to ease my sleep. I loved the Newfies so, that later I offered to teach at the Memorial University of St. John's. But I must have put it clumsily, for they never answered my application. Is this form any better?
I love busybodies,
Dag Hammarskjold in the Congo,
Schweitzer in Africa generally,
A wife who asks,
All those Wyomingers
Who wouldn't let me walk.
In Newfoundland
When I rested on the right
The wrong-way trucks would stop
To ask if I were well;
Do you belong to St. John's?
I belong to each and every busybody,
To the space that makes them cry
Me back my centripetal people.
By train and bus I got to within ten or twelve miles of the Maine border and
walked across. The U.S. was strange to me until I saw an Appalachian-type shelter
in a roadside park. Then I felt at home.