part 6: the photo shoot my mom was being a mom. knowing i was about to graduate, she requested pictures of me in the sfu regalia. when i told her that i was going to skip the graduation ceremony, because of terrible timing (it was in october 2010), she was almost offended. i didn't want to let her down and told her i was going to rent the regalia, go to a professional studio and get a private photo shoot session. then i discovered a price: $125 for renting the regalia and being able choose 7 pictures. "fuck it," i said "no pictures then. not worth it" so i went off to yukon (you can read about this adventure in the previous post), forgetting about the whole thing.
when i came back, my mom asked about the regalia photos again. i sighed and told her i'd find a way to get them. i remembered i had awesome friends (adam nowek and newby douglas, by the way!) who were interested in photography whom i asked to perform a graduating photo shoot for me on campus. they did it for a cup of coffee, literally, and they did it with great artistic pleasure.
the sun was shining, the suit i borrowed from fraser was way too big, but i had immense amounts of fun to be a model the first time in my life. adam even brought a polish scarf and flag! being sincerely thankful to both of these people, i present some outcome of their work below:
after flying in from halifax in the beginning of august, the time i had had left in canada was limited. not even a month to go and there were many things to check on my to do list. i wanted to take full advantage of every minute on the soil fertilized by maple syrup. i permanently moved out of the most awesome house on pender st. and lived into another magical house on sherbrooke st. other necessities involved playing tennis with my friend mannan and taking the last exam of the bachelor’s degree (kinesiology 140), sealing the diploma with an a+.
meanwhile, my roommate, ta, and dear friend, jesse got a placement at the ubc medschool. having celebrated properly with many beers in black frog in gastown and later with a bbq in the backyard of our house, jesse told me that the real celebration is yet to come. jesse was going to yukon, a remote canadian territory in the north bordering with alaska. yukon covers area roughly equaling to the area of germany, spain and france combined, but it is home to only 25,000 inhabitants (which is merely a tenth of population of my hometown in poland).
the scenes from sean penn’s “into the wild” came alive in my mind when jesse asked me if i wanted to join his crazy enterprise. at this stage, i must make clear that i had a week left in the canada before going back to europe. i was disorganized, but excited. i looked for some flights from whitehorse (the capital of the yukon territory) to vancouver, booked the cheapest one and proudly announced to jesse: i am coming with you, man. i had three and a half days to get up north, almost 3,000km in a gmc wrangler truck which was older than i. it was that kind of a truck that would have given my mom a heart attack had she known i was travelling in it. what can i say? challenge is part of adventure; no risk, no fun.
gmc wrangler 1987
we left on saturday. we left confident, in the full vancouverite summer sun. driving north seemed easy at first, despite greater vancouver traffic jams and lack of radio or ac. it was going surprisingly smooth and we cruised the trans-canada highway 120 km/h (mind you that the truck’s speedometer showed only 130). on the first day we stopped only couple of times to tank some fuels and energy drinks, and to enjoy the views of the interior british columbia.
cruising 120 km/h
we arrived in prince george after dusk, but at the gas station we decided to drive on, into the darkness. we faced a crucial decision; take highway no. 97, through the rockies and liar river hot springs or perhaps take highway no. 37, the so-called stewart-cassiar highway, very scenic, but not fully paved road, leading straight up north. 97 was jesse’s pick (yes, because of the hot springs), i wanted to go on the stewart-cassiar. there were two reasons behind my pick: firstly, it seemed more of an adventure to travel through the true wilderness with very limited traces of civilization, and secondly it was 350 km shorter. because we were a bit behind schedule we decided to go my way. after all i had some flights to catch.
first we entered highway no. 16, the so-called yellow head highway connecting edmonton, ab and prince rupert, bc. it is sometimes gloomily referred to as ‘highway of tears’, after many kidnappings and murderers of the first nations hitchhikes along this way. as we drove up, there was much wildlife crossing the road: caribou, rabbits, foxes. it was so hard to drive in complete darkness that around 2am we pulled over into a town called fraser lake, where we spent our first night on a parking lot of some random elementary school.
we rose up at 6am and drove on towards smithers. it was in burns lake, where we first learnt of wild forest fires raging on further up north. at one point a road sign said that there’d been temporary/permanent road closures along the stewart-cassiar highway, right before it reaches the junction 37, that is the intersection with the alaska highway. this is when i first though, i was going to miss a plane. in smithers we calculated: to continue on no. 16, and then 37 would take us about 800 km to reach junction 37; to go back to prince george and up highway no. 97 would take 1,700 km. shit. that meant no way back. we needed to take our chances.
on the road, with jesse
it was getting smokier and smokier the further up north we drove. before noon we reached the junction of highways 16 and 37. we were about to enter the most remote highway of bc, the stewart-cassiar highway. driving through complete emptiness in an extreme hot sun, equipped with a 1987 Wrangler truck and zero experience with northern wilderness felt awesome. we were probably totally underprepared had something happened. but screw it, we drove on, up north, towards the wild fire, towards the yukon!
along the way there were only three or four communities and many abandoned towns. The whole stretch of stewart-cassiar was about 725 km long and there were maybe 1,000 people living in that strip of land. gas stations, shops and settlements were scarce (with 250km longest distance between two gas stations), so we really were making sure that we had gas, water and food for emergencies. fortunately, the most adventurous (and scary) things that happened were jesse's jokes, black bears on the side of the road eating berries, and driving gmc truck through the unpaved, gravely and dusty parts of the highway.
somewhere along the stewart-cassiar highway
the further north we got, the more hope i had. listening to the locals’ info about the situation at the junction 37, we got to know that the fires had raged for one week on both sides highway before the firefighters were able to do anything!! in dease lake our moods were elevated up high cause we heard we were going to get through, escorted by a pilot car. excited, we decided to drive as close to the barrier as possible, sleep there and take off early in the morning. so we did - we camped the car in boya lake provincial park, had a refreshing swim in the crystal-clear lake, slept for good 7 hours and took off at 6.30am to line up for the escort.
the remainings of the beautiful forest along the stewart-cassiar highway
it was really frightening to see the remainings of the beautiful forest on both sides of the road. Some parts were still smoking, but nothing too extreme. this way, on day 3 we reached junction 37. alaska highway, babe! the yukon territory – larger than life! from there it was a matter of a distance that even my european mind was able to grasp - a mere 450 km to whitehorse! we alternated driving, cause both of us wanted to hold the steering wheel along the famous alaska highway! :-)
yukon - larger than life!
on the alaska highway
in the afternoon we finally reached whitehorse and slept at brett's place, who is working up there as a geologist. we also tried some locally brewed beers, which were delicious! in case you didn’t know, i’d like to inform you that yukon red won some serious awards, among which last year it was selected as the best beer in canada.
chillin' in the takhihi hot springs
in front of the north bean roastery
the next day we went to the takhihi hot springs, wandered around downtown whitehorse (which really has this wild west atmosphere on the streets), and visited the north bean coffee roastery. it was also time to get my ass on the airnorth flight back to vancouver in order to getmy shit organized before i left for good.
the smoke of the wild forest fires, taken from the plane
these days were full of excitement, joy, happiness, fear and anxiety. some people thought i was stupid to spend 200$ on a journey to whitehorse and back in three days. but what was i suppose to do with this money? get myself an iphone? occasions like a crazy and spontaneous trip to whitehorse are exactely the occasions on which money is ought to be spent! this is what money is for – to have less and do more. for that little i had experienced one of the most majestic things in my life. thanks jesse, thanks gmc wrangler 1987, thanks yukon. i shall be back!
