Electric Road Tripping: Blog 4 Across the Prairies

This series of blogs chronicles the Intrepids’ adventures driving round North America in an electric car. So far we have covered 14,000km from LA to Alaska and across Canada to Ottawa at a total fuel cost of $5.  After exploring the Yukon and the Rockies, this blog sees us crossing the prairies on the Trans Canada Highway from Calgary.

Life on the Road.  It’s already August and the notes say we have been on the road now for three months or 91 days. It certainly feels like we have been driving across Canada for that long. Neil Young has been on heavy rotation as ‘amber waves of grain bow in the prairie wind, the green keeps rolling for miles and miles, fields of fuel rolling on for miles’  From Calgary which was our last supercharging opportunity to the next one near Ottawa is almost the same distance as Sydney to Perth. The prairies aren’t as flat, brown and monotonous as we anticipate, although the roads are pretty straight at times and unlike the Nullabor, there are lots of trees. Although pretty flat, they are surprisingly green, sometimes bright yellow, Canola as we discover and hence its name was invented here not all that long ago, and sometimes blue. Yes lupins are a major crop in the rotation. The prairies are also surprisingly moist dotted with small lakes and sedge-fringed marshy areas, as well as a few major rivers.  In addition to the main crops, there are fields full of beans, lucerne and occasional corn, as well as lots of beef cattle, particularly in Alberta to the west which is a bit dryer. Also in Alberta there are lots of dinosaurs and mammoths, or there were until they were wiped out by a meteor, and a few fields of bison, which were also nearly wiped out more recently as Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump national park near the equally fortuitously named Medicine Hat accurately conveys.  

Prince Rupert

On the Yellow Head Highway

Ksan Historical Village, Gitanmaax, BC

Junction of Skeena and Bulkley Rivers, BC

Unlike Australia there are far more people and towns, strung out along the road and railway, each with its massive grain silos and rail yards with trains a few kilometers long. Instead of car yards there are thrasher yards, with hundreds of green and yellow agricultural machines of amazing complexity lined up to temp the passing cockies, all of whom seem to drive enormous pick ups called RAM or Dodge or Titan or other equally Avenger-like names.  Some of the towns have chargers often at parks or museums so we are able to break the journey and chat with the locals whilst refuelling. Most of the time we just sit there on 60mi/hr cruising along, sometimes tailgating a semi trailer which is like getting a free ride, until we get to a motel where we can charge overnight. 

A bear in downtown Jasper

Elk along the Yellowhead Highway

Caribou on the Icefield Parkway

Sunwapta Falls, Athabasca River

Typically as we cross the continent we travel around 200-250 mi per day so the driving is not too exhausting, stopping for picnic lunches by lakes or in parks and hopefully getting to our chosen motel before anyone else grabs the charger. Mostly we are lucky but in Saskatoon three teslas have to share 2 chargers which means someone has to get up at 3am to switch one over; fortunately the EV community is pretty cooperative and in Winnipeg we are able to leave the car to charge at someone’s house near where we are staying whilst we explore the city. 

Although the roads in Canada are not of the same standard as in the US, they are mostly pretty good, and reasonably smooth - the smoothness along with the wind makes a big difference to fuel consumption. This is of course true for all cars, but far more noticeable in an electric one as the consumption is much more accurately monitored.  Most of the Trans Canada Highway is single lane, but it’s not very busy in the central provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, although there are plenty of semi trailers and a surprising number of trucks carrying pipes as oil fracking is big in this area and building pipelines is a major occupation.

After leaving the Rockies and Calgary, there isn’t a lot of spectacular scenery until we reach the Great Lakes, but there’s a fascinating dinosaur museum at Drumheller with some fabulous fossils beautifully displayed, a tasty Afghani restaurant in Regina and the amazing Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg which everyone should try to visit. Inspirational, challenging, thought-provoking, educating, questioning, reflective, a visceral reminder of hard won freedoms and how quickly they can be eroded through populism, complacency, self-interest and manipulation.  Winnipeg’s a charming small city, at the confluence of two rivers which made it a pivotal trading and meeting centre for the first nations over the millennia. At the fork is a beautiful park and outdoor brewery where most of the city seem to be having sundowners, surprising in a country which has a somewhat wowzerish Australia in the 1970s-ish attitude towards alcohol, although we suspect that is perhaps more related to a recognition of the damage it can do to their communities than any puritanical heritage. God though is big in the Prairies; even the Mennonites, last seen in Belize with their enormous cauliflowers get in on the act here, along with lots of Ukrainians, Swedes and Finns. In fact Canada seems to be one of the most ethnically diverse nations, resembling at times the restaurant at the end of the universe, or perhaps for the Mos Eisley Cantina.

The intrepids, white water rafting near Banff

Not Jurassic Park, Drumheller, AB

Real life dinosaurs, Drumheller

Not-so-real-life dinosaur (left)

the road and the big sky

Nice motor, only one owner

Lo-speed charging station, Virden, Manitoba

Travelling on with our backs to the sun, the miles are gradually eaten away, although it takes us ten days and nights to cross the electron desert from Calgary to Sunbury, making Best Western, the motel chain with the most car chargers a small fortune in the process.  Fortunately BWs aren't too bad, most have been refurbished and after the sticker shock of Jasper and Banff aren't too badly priced. Occasionally we treat ourselves to more salubrious lodgings, and occasionally find ourselves in less desirable surroundings, but at least with free electricity and generally the accommodation is clean and comfortable.  

Crossing into Ontario the scenery changes sharply from flat endless fields of grain and Canola to undulating forest, rocks, rivers and millions of sparkling lakes, small and large as we drive along the northern shores of Lake Superior. At Thunder Bay we spend the day at Fort William, the centre for the fur trade and chat with a Cree girl about how her people trapped beavers and other furry creatures, exchanging the pelts with the ‘voyageurs’ for manufactured goods from Europe.  The voyageurs, many of whom were scots or metis, journeyed out from Fort William to the far west to collect them exchanging manufactured goods such as tools, muskets and buttons according to a strict barter system. As autumn approached the voyageurs returned to the fort for the Rendezvous festivities, with the pelts then making their way eastwards towards Montreal and Quebec for the onward voyage to Europe where beaver fur hats were all the rage. A battle royal raged between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North Company, which set up Fort William, as both had been granted monopolies over the fur trade by King George, leading to much infighting and culminating in the merger of the two after a few massacres.   

Fort William main gate

Fur store, Fort William

Skirmish, Fort William

Canadian history with its wars, territorial conquests, and exploration is quite interesting and eventful compared with Australia’s. It seems to have eventually reached a level of mutual understanding or agreement with its diverse original inhabitants or First Nations and Inuit peoples who now appear somewhat less marginalised than indigenous Australians. Admittedly though it's been a long struggle, with starvation from the slaughter of buffalo almost to extinction, masacres and decimation through smallpox and other diseases, annihilation of huskies in the arctic and the forced removal of thousands of children to residential schools where their culture could be eradicated but where over 6000 children died at the hands of well-meaning and not so well-meaning authorities. Even potlatches, the ceremonial gift giving feasts of Haida Gwaii were outlawed. Today it is far from perfect but it seems to us that native canadians have a much greater role and recognition in Canadian society than their Australian counterparts. However two months doesn’t give us anything more than a very superficial view of what is a long and unfinished struggle for acceptance and recognition.

Ottawa

Locks at the entrance to the Riddeau Canal, Ottawa

After the Great Lakes and the canal locks at Sault Sainte Marie, or SSM, referred to locally as the Soo, but which really don’t compare with the Panama Canal we are on our way to a return to urban civilisation in the nation’s capital Ottawa. Here we find marching bands, ribfests, Canada's answer to Vivid projected on Parliament House, museums, a street busking carnival and fabulous restaurants and wine bars. We also find another flight of locks in the city centre and on Sunday morning they're changing guard at Ottawa palace, so the intrepids go down with Alice.

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