Cross-Canada Road Trip Day 1: I Can See My House From Winnipeg!

July 5, 2004

Distances have been rendered largely abstract by air travel. We look at a map, see that Edmonton is 3000 kilometres from Toronto, and say: "Huh. That's a five-hour flight. Wonder what the movie's gonna be."

Driving, however, you feel on a visceral level how incomprehensibly vast the Prairie is. Saskatchewan sprawls endlessly in front and behind and to all sides - the illusion is completed by the sheer distance you can see on the flatlands. And when you realized that you're only seeing a small slice of the entire plain, you feel awed by the sheer expanse.

Driving is a layer of disconnect away from WALKING that distance, however: one day of experiencing the flow of the land as opposed to several weeks. But it's as close as any of us are liable to get in our lifetimes, and we watch the repetitive countryside scroll by like the repeating-hallway background in a cartoon.

I figure I'd add a review of the places I've been. You feel so much more meaningful when you're passing judgement...

Alberta: is surprisingly lush in early July. The wheat is still young and green and hugs the contours of the land, and the canola is early enough that it provides only a hint of the mustard explosions that'll dot the land like a spastic work of modern art. Also, if you're an idiot and forget your camera, you can buy a cheap digital one in Lloydminster without paying PST! Sweet! Alberta gets a B+, because they were nice enough to twin the damn highway.

Saskatchewan: kind of boring. The landscape gets drier and scrubbier, with short grasses replacing the crops in places. And the highway is single-lane, which sucks when you're stuck behind farm vehicles. Bleah. Saskatoon has some nice bridges, though, and I stopped for gas in this small town called Lanigan, which has a nice main street lined on both sides and in the middle with shade trees. It's cute, albeit in a Village of the Damned kind of way. Saskatchewan gets a C.

Manitoba: seems almost impossibly green after Saskatchewan; if you're driving along the Yellowhead, you'll find yourself spit out into the trees and water of the Assiniboine Valley and, if you make it around 7:00 or so, you'll see the opposite bank set on fire by the sun. It's something.

I laughed my ass off coming into Winnipeg: the signs greeting visitors have the motto "ONE GREAT CITY!" and I finally get the title of that Weakerthans song. Not that I HATE Winnipeg, per se, since my experience is limited to the Comfort Inn off the highway I'm writing this in, but still... in any case, Manitoba gets a B.