Canada 2010: Alberta

I wake up in Ryley, SK. The conductors announce we’re about two hours from Edmonton. They also tell me I could have died sleeping underneath the seats; it was the first time the conductor had seen someone wedged underneath there in fourteen years? The first skinny Yank to try it, I presume. Something about becoming decapitated, I play dumb. I doubt it could have killed me; I think it was just because they don’t want people to have a way to slide around paying for sleeping, versus sitting, accommodations.

Barely awake to really care, I cave in, buy a coffee, two dollars; my second expense of the trip, the first on the train. We pass Roundhill, SK; there are two other riders and myself in the observation car. One is a worldly Canadian from Liverpool, riding the VIA from Halifax, asking me about what teams I follow in hockey, and after I mention to him that my plans after the Olympics aren’t set and may head to Alaska, probably hitched to a freight train, he tells me about Hyder, a lawless town where one must be wise to picking fights. No police. Just bars and Alaskans…

The other rider gets off in Edmonton but entertained us in a morning conversation as we slowly roll into Edmonton; we’re three hours late – waiting for freight at night, making no time, not my problem, but such is the VIA. The industrial part of the city comes first, as most towns have along the Canadian Northern tracks thusfar, when we hit downtown off to our left it looks about like Minneapolis in terms of size, but back in Minnesota there is no Wayne Gretzky Drive…

Dirty, dirty snow along the Yellowhead Highway Trail, (16) running parallel to the train tracks towards the station. Catching a glimpse of the LRT, I’m awake, trying to take Alberta in, Edmonton comes second; not much time to know Saskatchewan, so what is this province? Saskatchewan must be drawn on an odd scale, taller than it is longer.

Alberta and Edmonton are one in the same I write, the furthest North I have been in North America, I think. Every vehicle here has a fine layer of grime on it, more than normal, I perceive, somehow. Loads of West Fraser Lumber, 2x6, 2x8, noted in the record. This town doesn’t really evoke much in terms of emotion from me, the externals make up most of it, I’m hoping this changes further West in the land of splendor.

With our arrival at Edmonton Station we’re given a twenty-minute break to stretch the legs, people getting off are mad that their rides are fouled up, I realize that I’ve planned this whole operation out fairly well, things are going according to the new plan. Writing madly to finish Chapter six, I occasionally peak up to breathe or adjust posture; it is these times I switch to the other notebook (this one) and record what is happening, now, some smokestacks over a large lake I’ll never know the name of, oil refineries, out of Edmonton and into the bush again. Snowmobile tracks and a lot of beavers working alders along this lake.

Another ice rink as part of a shoveled lake. Next stop, Edson, AB. Trees and trees and most of it virgin spruce bogs? As we enter hillier terrain, the grades become more noticeable, the streams are getting larger, the mountains are becoming evident in the distance…people on the train are doing crossword puzzles…computer stuff…watching…sleeping…few people talk, we all become friends in Jasper.