The journey begins

I joined the North American Epic in Jasper. The journey has been a flight to Vancouver via Qantas to LA and then Alaskan Airlines from LA. I chose Alaskan Airlines as it is cycle friendly, particularly for international connections. Surprisingly to me, it has a significant North American network. I can commend it to you.

Vancouver was a waypoint and re-supply point for consumables for my trip. I am sure it has other attributes but I chose not to explore far, just Granville Island and Gastown.

From there to Jasper I am on the great trans Canada train "The Canadian" that will terminate in Toronto some days hence - my journey began at 20:30 and is about 20 hrs arriving at 4 PM, with only one passenger stop on the way at Kamloops at 6 AM, now some hours ago. The rail line follows closely to the rivers' edges and is a windy and slow route. The train creeps along giving much time for absorbing the evolving vistas from the observation dome car.

So to Kamloops. Not a place that springs instantly to mind for most people. The conductor, a regular passing visitor to this place and that is one of the very few stops on this long journey to Toronto, said its main industry was as a railroad town and a declining logging town, with the surrounding mountains being as denuded as those around Queenstown in Tasmania.

Clearly the conductor is not fully up to speed about this thriving place where people live. Quite a lot goes on there with nearly 100,000 people living in 'suburbs' that extend long distances along the river valleys. It has the Thompson University, but more notably it is a major centre for 'Dodgeball'. A sport mostly for school children and known for its aggression and violence. As best as I can glean one of the challenges of this sport, after bodily self-preservation, is to know the rules on any given day and place. It appears that there are endless variations and local rules that apply. So it seems to be a game to inculcate these rural Canadian children, and others, with a sense of violence and anarchy. I notice there is a recent book "The Philosophy of Dogeball", if you have time. I wonder if they play this game in Vancouver.

As it is now some distance from the violent children and the violent denuding of the forests near Kamloop, the scenery is green again, often with tall trees obscuring the view from the dome car. For those interested, we have passed countless very long freight trains going back towards Vancouver which is a major port for transhipping freight to/from Asia.