There are days when I hate Canada. They’re frequent. But there is one thing that I can always be sure of. Nobody is ever going to accuse me of trying to immigrate illegally to Canada. The United States, however, is a completely different story. I tell you, I have been to the lovely US of A many, many times. Several times a week, often. Seattle is like a second home to me and I go there every chance I get to enjoy the culture and the blatant market. And I have never been so much as questioned before. Not that it would have mattered in any of those cases. I was only going for the day or, at most, a few days at a time. Go back to Vancouver? No problem.

Today was different. Loaded the car, at much personal degradation, and attempted to cross the border to drive and see my Uncle and Aunt (complete with young cousin) on my way to St John’s and a new life in the hypersalted eastern Canadian coastal town of Paradise.

Three hours of interrogation later, such was not to be the case. I don’t get to see my extended family and I am forced to drive a painful route through Canada for the next week or so. I shall update in the days to come with my progress.

So far, I have made it to Banff. Had I started at the beginning of the day, mind you, I would have made it to Brooks or Medicine Hat. But I’m not bitter.

I’m a little bitter.

I shan’t write a decimating diatribe here of the United States Border Patrol. That would be cliché.

I shall simply invite a plague of locusts to arrive, care of the god in which the government of the United States so frequently declares trust, upon the heads of those who accused me of a crime that I had no intention of committing. Yes, I would like to move to California. Or Washington. But that was not my intent and it is inexcusable to detain and question an innocent person without even a shred of evidence.

So I turned, teary-eyed, from my cross-America trip and began my cross-Canada driving excursion. Nightmare, you say? ‘Deed I do.

The part of British Columbia that follows from Vancouver to the east is a blatant wasteland followed by highway on which the average driver has the capacity for attention of a small, boiled turnip. Once you reach Kamloops, though, this is beginning to improve and the scenery becomes more impressive.

The Rocky Mountains are brilliant. They make the day feel far better.

Except for the fact that I just drove through them at night.

National parks are frightening places during the daytime. It’s all the trees. They remind me of something from MacBeth.

And there’s no mobile reception. That drives me up the wall. I don’t need to talk to people all day every day on the phone. As you all know, I spend very little time actually speaking on my mobile, except for the occasional lengthy conversation with my far-spread family.

But I do like to be in contact. All the time. And it’s not simply because I need my Twitter updates to survive. I can live without incoming messages. What I can’t live without is the ability to make a call at any time or to be called at any time by, for example, my mother. It is staggeringly unbelievable that there are large stretches of the Canadian highway network that do not yet have any rudimentary mobile coverage. Not only is it unbelievable. It is blatantly dangerous.

I am driving across Canada alone. I need to reach someone in an emergency. Now. And I have a phone for such a purpose. And most of today was spent without such an ability. If this continues, I will be more of a wreck than anticipated.

Quite a statement, I am aware.

I am staying at a lovely little inn in Banffffffffffffff. There is no such thing as Canadian spelling. I am unsure whether this is because Canadians can’t agree on anything or that they are simply incapable of determining what is a reasonable spelling.

Placenames in British Columbia are ridiculous at best. They are unpronounceable and silly Latinic approximations of native words and Chinese terms conflated to create a mess of cataclysmic, cartographic proportions. Sure, keep a native name for a place. And if you’re going to use the same name in English, that’s fine, too. But there is no “7″ in Latin script. It doesn’t mean anything. Nor does the apostrophe have a pronunciation function. Use English letters or not. Your choice. But do it properly or give it a rest.

Two Fs is also silly.

But this place is staggeringly beautiful. Even at night. Pictures to follow.

‘Night.

I’m back. Figuratively. It’s been far too long since I have been writing on here – or on anywhere, for that matter. And that is all going to change now. So, what’s been happening since I last posted?

• UBC still doesn’t like me.
• SFU does.
• I started a PhD.
• PhD is a euphemism for the sixth ring of hell.
• My little sister got married.
• So did one of my best friends.
• One of them is happy.
• Amy had a kid.
• As a result, I’m an uncle.
• The child’s name is Hunter.
• He doesn’t know how to fire a bow yet.
• That’s ok, because he’s only a month old.
• My car died.
• It’s come back to life.
• Transmissions are the death of savings.
• I moved to Burnaby.
• Burnaby is in the middle of nowhere.
• Getting high is nice.
• As long as it involves moving to the top of a mountain.
• Driving from Burnaby to Vancouver is nothing like driving from Vancouver to Burnaby.
• That’s because people in Canada drive like boiled turnips.
• I’m moving again.
• I’m not exactly sure where.
• But I think it might be the east coast.
• Of which country, you ask?
• Not sure of that, either.
• But I might find out today.

Now you’re briefed.

Expect some details in the future. Time to finish the pages…