Oh, Canada!

Well, we made it into Canada, and the Great White North did not disappoint.  

Shortly after leaving our hosts in Eureka, we reached the border, just a few miles away.  We entered at the Roosville border crossing and the customs/immigration guy couldn’t have been nicer.  The line was quick and the inspection took about a minute.  There’s a convoluted process for entering Canada (ArriveCan) but in the end it worked out fine.  

We headed north on the 93 and stopped at a little roadside dairy bar about 25 miles in.  It was there that Pierre, a resident of Quebec, came over and said hello.  He provided some good route info that really helped.  I’m hoping running into two friendly, helpful people right away is a good omen.  

We rode along the Kootenay river almost the entire time.  The Kootenay is a major river in southeastern British Columbia and northern Montana and is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River. 

Listening to music along the way, I enjoyed hearing Rick Danko and The Band sing, “It Makes No Difference.”  Later, Steve and I would discuss other great Canadian artists like Rush, Triumph, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot. We then listened to “Sundown” by the latter singer.  Good times.  

There were many signs for elk and bighorn sheep, so I thought we’d have to amend The Contest to include those.  And then, Boom! There were bighorn sheep everywhere: alongside the road, up in the mountains, climbing down the hillsides.  Just beautiful.  

We rode a total of 243 miles today and pulled into the Hoodoo Creek campground, off the Trans-Canada Hwy between Golden and Field. After setting up our tents, we spoke with some of our fellow campers, all of whom were Canadian.  The campground provided free firewood so we stoked up a fire and sat around recounting the past week’s ride.  The Buffalo Trace whiskey went down smoothly, too.  

It was still light at 10:30, and just getting dark at 11:15.  

A fine day of riding.  Tomorrow we plan to take the Ice Fields Parkway north through Lake Louise and Jasper.  

Thanks for following along, folks.