Going to Canada eh ?

The biggest truck in the world is now a tourist attraction at Sparwood BC. It used to work in the local coal mine but the cost of spares meant maintaining it was too expensive. We had visited on a previous trip but David wanted to see it again.

His first comment was “It’s not as big as I remember it “. He seemed to forget that he had grown a lot in the six years that had passed.

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of the size.

Lin’s arm fits within the tread of the tyre

Can you see what it is yet ?

The first thing you need to appreciate is that the equivalent of the DVLA is on provincial not a national basis and the there are offices in main towns that are privatised. We went to one of the agencies called One Stop named probably because after one visit you stop going back. They said we would have to surrender our english licences and take a learners test. During that period we could not carry passengers or drive after dark ! quite a contrast to being able to to any of those things if we were still tourists.

Not happy with that response we checked on a web site and there is a reciprocal arrangement with the UK and we should be able to exchange our licences for Alberta Driving licences. Sorry Class 5 operators licences.

Un happy with the service from One Stop we went to a different agent in downtown Red Deer.

Success….. well sort of.

All we needed were:

1 proof of residence in Canada- cards not arrived yet

2 proof of residence in Alberta i.e. rent agreement, utility bill, or bank statement. The first 2 were not possible as we are still in a motel and the bank still had our uk address.

3 valid uk driving licences. Lin’s was a new photo style which was acceptable apart from the fact that it had been updated 18 months ago when she changed her name and so at first sight was not the required 2 year old. Then we pointed out that the paper addendum showed the license had been first issued many years earlier so that was ok.

Then came Pete’s turn, having the older style green paper license there was no problem over the issue date. But then apparently uk licenses issued around that time were only valid for 3 years (no I didnt remember that one either). This necessitated a phone call to head office for clarification and copy of the licence being faxed over. The result was yes it was a valid licence but where was the photo ? I explained they were not mandatory but this didnt seem to help. No photo no Albertan licence. Ah but what about the photo on my International Drivers Permit? More faxes and phone calls and yes that would be acceptable.

Now we just have to hope that they will remember all that we when finally get all the other documents sorted out.

The other day was Sam Steele (famous mountie) Day in Cranbrook and we went to see the parade. It was headed by a police car, fire engine and ambulance each trying to out do each other with sirens and horns. For a moment I wondered what would happen if they got a call ? would they race off at 120Kph with the rest of the parade trying to keep up.

The near by town of Kimberly has taken on a Bavarian theme to attract tourists. Hence the theme of the float in the parade, its a sort of North America meets Bamberg and I am not sure who wins.

This magnificent team of shire horses were very well behaved given all the noise around them.

No parade would be complete without a marching band, this one had two. The men in skirts the ladies in trousers of course.

The building in the background is a local historic building dating back to the 1920s.

Last week we went to visit our friends in BC. They have a cabin on the shore of Lazy Lake which we have stayed in each time have visited BC.

To get to BC we had to cross the Rocky Mountains. We did this by going through Banff National Park, very spectacular with snow still on the mountain tops.

This is the view from the cabin down to the lake. The lake is fed by melt water steams from higher up and so is quite cold until later in the year. Dave supprised us by his skill in the canoe, he had done some with the cubs and was able to get about on his own. This came in handy when next doors padle boat slipped its moorings. Dave paddled out to get but could not tow it back in as the boat had lost its painter. So Dave paddled to the nieghbour’s dock to collect the missing painter, the neighbour and her baby. He then paddled back to the drifting boat and got a rope tied to it unfortunately he could not make much head way against the off shore wind until the neighbour joined in the paddling. Eventually the boat was recovered and Dave returned safely.

Lin and Dave in a paddle boat

Earlier I commented that there did not seem to be much effort going into recycling. I was wrong it was just hard to see when staying in a hotel.

Domestic refuse is sorted by the householder and a deposit is charged on all plastic bottles. For example a supermarket own brand of cola is $0.99 but there is a 20c deposit and a 3c recycling fee. Even the small 300ml water bottles have a couple of cents on them.

Unfortunately the shop that sells the bottles does not refund the deposits. We have not found out where to take the empties yet but we reckon the hotel cleaners know as they put the bottles to one side when emptying the bins.

Monday I flew to Toronto for a meeting. The flight reservation had been made for me over the internet and I was nor sure how easy it would be to get my ticket. However i did nt need an actual ticket. All I had to do was type the booking reference into one of the check-in machines and it recognised me and printed out the boarding pass. Better than the ones I have tried on my last trip to Bamberg both broke and we had to do it the old fashioned way.
On the return jouney the one in Toronto even printed the baggage tag and recipt.

I was several hours early at the airport but thankfuly I was able to check in my luggage. The big story of the day was that Air Canada had announced 2000 redundancies and the closong of several routes. Not a good time to be flying Air Canada, I hope the pilot isnt one of the ones affected. Fortunatelly the crew all seemed in good spirits and the in flight entertainment even worked this time.

We have had a long running battle with Vodafone trying to get our old UK cell phones to work as pay as you talk. Once Peter’s had been reconnected he was able to register it on Voda’s web site and top it up using a credit card. When we tried with Lin’s phone we got error messages with logging on and then had go through a long process of trying to get Voda to confirm user names and passwords etc. In the end Pete had the idea of asking Andrew to top up Lin’s phone using his bank card in a cash point machine. Amazingly it worked.

Meanwhile the Rodgers sims we had ordered over the internet finally arrived and Bri-Ann brought them round to us. So now we have Canadian cell phone numbers but with Toronto dialing codes.

PS How much does a $10 top up cost ?………………..$11.50

Gas (petrol) has now passed the $1.30 mark (~65p). This has been quite traumatic for the Canadains who have doted on their large trucks an 4 wheel drives. (The difference between here and the UK is that they actually need the 4 wheel drive.) Some gas stations never expected the price to go over a dollar and so their forecourt signs do not have enough digits to display prices over $1. This must cause some confusuion if the sign reads 30.9 per litre when it should be $1.309.

Another thing I have noticed is that many cars do not have amber indicators at the back instead that flash the tail light bulb. This is the same technology as on my my Morris Minor from the 1950s , not sure if I should mention this too loudly.

Last Sunday was fathers day and we went to visit Trent and Tara on the their farm.

David was still expecting to see the puppies that were there last time and didnt seem to comprehend that after 4 years they would have grown up. Fortunately Zeus David’s old adversary was no there, he had passes awa y the year before. His replacement Diesel was comletely a different temprement and was much more fun to play with.

Trent had built a new deck at he back of their living romm an dDavid decided tha this needed to be jumped off from at ant available opportunity. On his third go he managed to  acquire a black eye so we persuaded him to calm down a bit after that.( or so we thought).
Next thing we know Tyson has taken him around the farmhouse on a quad bike and is giving him lessons to go off on his own. Almost as soon as he had disappeared from view there was a thump and a silence. He had missed his turning and hit a fence. The quad was well and truly wedged and it took two of us to lift it up and disentangle it from the fence.

Dinner was burgers grilled over an open fire and the sun had chosen to shine for once. This was the life style and weather we had signed up for !

Although we dont think we have an accent many people ask where we are from. At first we would just say England to which they would say we know that which part ? This led to some interesting conversations where people who sounded like locals turned out to have been born in Birmingham or raised in Bradford. It is said that 50% of Albertans are not from Alberta, and 10% of the police in Calgary are recruited form English police forces.

One observation was that on supermarket trolleys they have cup holders so you can take your coffee with you as go around the shelves. I can think of one or two former colleagues that would appeal to.

After a couple of visits to banks and post offices I realised what was missing. There is no glass barrier, you are actually face to face with the counter staff and nobody seems worried about being robbed, but I didn’t try it just in case they have other methods of deterrent.