Gems of the rainforest

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Skookumchuck Narrows on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast is an awe-inspiring place to explore the rainforest, where the slugs are as long as my hand, and the ferns, moss and giant trees offer endless possibilities for exploration. The girls are fascinated, asking questions, picking up leaves, touching slugs, tasting moss. Their curiosity is natural, and it’s a beautiful thing.

I love that by immersing them in a new environment every few days, their sponge-like little minds lap it up. I also love that I can always find something to use for a school lesson. (Granted, those lessons are getting more and more slack with every passing day but what the hell - how much learning would they do in a real classroom, where even if they started at nine and finished at three, there’d still be 27 kids other kids clamouring for attention or goofing off?)

It must be a tall order for a real teacher to keep order let alone actually teach.

I wonder if, like me, real teachers ever use gummy worms as incentive.

Molly reaches for a toothy milestone

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So here we are, after the heat of the prairies and the snow and cold of the Rockies, with umbrellas and raincoats and duck boots on B.C.’s magnificent Sunshine Coast. The giant crabs, the steady rain, the smell of fish and hard work – it’s all perfectly British Columbia. Fans of The Beachcombers may well want to make a pilgrimage to this place – it looks exactly as it did on TV all those years ago - and the Molly’s Reach cafe itself is still in full swing. We have a special reason never to forget it: our own Molly lost her first tooth here, and her Kinder Surprise container proves as handy as ever, even once the chocolate is gone.

Frosty the snowgirls

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What the f*#@ were we thinking? We’re parked up just shy of Jasper in full-on grizzly country – as well as horny mating elk territory – and if I could sit right on top of this fire to get warm, I surely would. (To say it’s a bit chilly is kinda like saying Mike Tyson has a slightly girlie voice to go along with that little bitty attitude problem.) Fortunately, my kindly uncle in Calgary bought the girls snazzy new sleeping bags so they will be snug little bugs in rugs. Doog and I, on the other hand, can see our breath in the kind of billowy gusts you’d only expect if you were a bivouac or two short of the Everest summit.

As my mom would say: Saints preserve us ...

Munchkins on the mountain

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Although we are getting awfully used to the life of luxury – indeed, roughing it again after a week of comfy beds, home-cooked meals and hot thermal pools in a wintry Banff wonderland could be construed as madness, really - we say farewell to our family and point Fugly in the direction of Jasper. So here we are on the Columbia Icefields road, on a mid-September Alberta afternoon, and we’re wondering: What the hell does it look like out here in winter?!

Snowed-in in September

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The dude can really shovel

Despite all good intentions to get back to the tent, Mother Nature has conspired against us, dropping almost a foot of snow overnight and putting the road to Jasper pretty much beyond the reach of a small, bald-tired Fugly. Doog takes to the shovel with great relish and I realize with some amusement that he never actually wants to leave. Hmmm, let’s see now… Who can blame him? The sauna, the roaring fire, the endless supply of wood, the comfy beds, the stocked fridge … What’s not to love?
So we sit tight, and play our zillionth game of UNO with my best girls.
Man, I dig being a travellin mama.

Just another summer day in the Rockies

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So that’s it then: scorcher one day, snowflakes the next. Molly, left, and Annie have morphed from sweaty little girls on the prairie into frozen-limbed snowflake catchers here at my beloved auntie’s cabin in Canmore, Alberta. It’s so cold we’ve had to raid the local SAAN for hats and mitts and scarves and tights. (Never mind that it’s still technically summer - these are the Rockies and they will do what they damn well please.)

Between snowball fights and snowman building and trips back in to change, the girls keep running out of dry clothes. But we’ve drawn the line at buying winter boots because after all, it is only September … and how long can this last?

Q: How much western hospitality, Trivial Pursuit by the fire, yummy food, booze and conversation can a travelling family stand?
A: As much as possible. Bring it on! More anything? More everything!

Wives are from Venus, husbands are from ... elsewhere

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Here's my favourite new phrase, and one best repeated in my inside voice only: My husband is so annoying. My husband is so annoying. My husband is so annoying.

Out here on the prairies where it’s hot and dusty and there’s not much to do but drive and think, I find myself prone to introspection. Tend to romanticize things. Ponder our great good fortune. Wonder about the big picture, think about politics. My head is swimming in Tragically Hip lyrics – I’ve swapped Ontario’s Bobcageon-style anthems for the David Milgaard story and sundown in the Paris of the prairies – and I can’t help but wonder: would I go insane out here in the middle of February? I start musing aloud, hoping for a little husband-and-wife conversational to-ing and fro-ing while the kids saw logs in the back. Instead, Doog nips that in the bud with a running commentary on … roadworks and earth-moving machines.

“Honey, did you see that? Over there? I used to drive one of those in Perth. My God, they’re AGGRESSIVE machines! Look at that – there must be 100 guys working out here. Holy shit! Bloody amazing. Hey, pull over here and we’ll cook up some beans.’’

Not for the first time do I ponder how two such very different people can co-exist, for the most part, so very happily....