Canada — Alberta

Soon after we crossed into Alberta we came to Cold Lake, a boomtown with "help wanted" signs, new subdivisions, and high housing prices. It had its amenities — a bank, two supermarkets, a bookstore (although we couldn't find it) — and we enjoyed our overnight stay in the nearby Provincial Park campground. We continued westward and northward to Lac la Biche, where we stopped at the library to access the Internet, and met two happy, gregarious, and helpful library staff. They were soooo accommodating, trying my laptop on three different networks until I could check my email. (Thanks, Candice!) Later we spent the night in Blueberry Hill RV Park in Athabasca, although we couldn't find any blueberries (too early in the season for them — at the end of July!) .

Ever northward and westward, we came to Slave Lake, and, while looking for a camp site, we got stuck in some soft dirt. Soft, as in Very. Soft. Dirt. Stuck, as in up to the hubcaps on the right side. We couldn't go forward, couldn't go backward. Stuck, but good. What to do? It was four in the afternoon, the sun was hot, flies were buzzing, and there was no breeze. I walked around Cruisemaster, surveying the situation, when a Canadian came by and stopped. He offered to pull me out with his Jeep, but before we could hook up, another Canadian came by with a better idea: use his Caterpillar bulldozer. With great clanking sounds he brought the bulldozer around, hooked up Cruisemaster with a very heavy chain and slowly, slowly, pulled us out and we were freed. Whew! What an adventure! What kindly Canadians! To calm down, I needed some serious comfort food, so I bought and ate an entire 350 gram (3/4 pound) bag of chocolate chip cookies, washed down with two cans of beer. (Burp.)

From the place names in all the provinces we've driven through, we see that French explorers and traders once lived here, and that Native Americans (or First Nation, as they call them up here) have lived here for a long time.

Checking the GPS at Slave Lake, I found that we were just above 55 degrees north latitude, which is ten degrees (about 720 miles) north of Minneapolis, sixteen degrees (1150 miles) north of Washington DC, twenty-one degrees (1500 miles) north of Los Angeles.. More dramatically, this is the same latitude as Hudson Bay — if we had driven northeast from Minnesota, by the time we had gotten this far north, we'd be in the water at Hudson Bay. More dramatically yet, we are north of most of Canada's population, north of most of North America's population, north of most of the world's population. We're way far north, we are!

Even this far north, the terrain has lakes, trees, and crops (including canola). But we have the definite feeling that we are near the edge of civilization, as we pass through isolated hamlets, some with a gas station and maybe a cafe, few with a grocery or library. We see few cars on the road and notice that campgrounds have more oil-field workers than tourists. We are getting tired of the prairie and are ready for the scenery to come.