Martyn Bryant's Travel Stories

A couple hours in Toronto Bus Station

2010-07-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

By the size of my bag, Max thought I’d just arrived from the north, the backcountry. His world of gold prospecting, still alive in his mind, projected on to anyone with a large backpack. I could have been one of them, perhaps carrying a map, a compass, and a fishing pole.

He’d graduated college in meteorology but soon realised his passion lay in finding gold; a life of trekking, geophysicsing, staking claims, and the occasional profits. The guitar was his friend; the great folk songs of the American railroad gave solace to his lonely life in the wilderness. At times music made way for poetry and at times poetry made way for music and at one point, inspired by train whistles alone, 2000 pages or poetry was crafted.

Toronto wasn’t his home, that’s where the talent shows where. At 78 YouTube was his outlet. “Click on the photo of me in the red shirt, that’s how to find my most popular video.” He’d self published poetry and was looking to professionally record his songs. His wait was for a bus to take him home to his daughter and her upcoming tented wedding. He gave me his name to search in YouTube and he joined the bus queue to get a window seat.

The man beside me: kid? Man? My age? Not too far off, had spend one day in Toronto; the wrong day, and he wanted out. Searched four times, two black t-shirts confiscated by the police, a keen but harassed observer of the protest, stressed and overwhelmed he took refuge, after a teary eyed self-introduction, within the porch of nearby family.

On consideration he decided to leave Toronto after one day, the porched family gave him a ride to the highway at Yorkdale to thumb his way to Montreal. Four hours later, which included a tropical downpour, the same which caused my bus to hit a pickup in heavy traffic, he gave in and made his way to the Toronto bus station to buy the first bus ticket since leaving Florida two months prior.

Hitching and freight train hoping to Texas, The Dakotas, Chicago, Detroit, and now police ridden Toronto; crew change log now stolen and a freight train arrest; a hammock fashioned out of a ripstop woven American flag; Chasing racoons out of his hammocks trees; his recent realty.

Time to join the line for the bus.

Two young kingstonians were buzzing. Photos, videos, every other word they used was “arrested”. They lived off the protestors’ energy for three days and were coming down from the high very slowly, a hash pipe easing the transition into the rest of their summer.

All very interesting.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBtU4LRT1Cw)

Just as good as home, if not better - A kitchen Party in Miramachi, New Brunswick, Canada

2009-11-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

We were each sat in an inflatable ring on the shriek and groan inducing icy cold water of the shallow late summer Miramachi River, New Brunswick, Canada. The suspended bums, of my fellow maritime road trippers and I, were intermittently whacked by concealed rocks for a very long uncomfortable hour until we were pulled out by sadistic Steve the proprietor of the backside freezing business.

That evening we warmed our cockles in the charming and cozy old home of the parents of a friend of ours in the beautifully poetic sounding town of Miramachi, a collection of small historically Scottish, Loyalist, Irish, Acadian and Mi'kmaq (Aboriginal) villages alongside the Miramachi River. We were royally welcomed by the petite and softly spoken Mother who was born and raised in Miramachi and the warm and sociable Father, a man from Newfoundland with many tales to tell.

After a wonderful dinner we were shown by the father to the well worn cupboard in the basement where sat, next to some drying unidentified jerky, his dusty collection of jarred preserved exotic foodstuffs lived. Each jar had been prepared in a way which he had been taught as a child in Newfoundland. They contained rabbit, moose, bear, tongues of various varieties and an offensive smelly feet smelling jam made from cloudberries, a berry that we were told only grows in mosquito infested swamps of Newfoundland. We said "you're too kind" and "you don't need too" a number of times but after each different jar was shown to us it was in turn added to a bag for us to take on the road. The jam was recommended to be served with a specific tinned heavy cream so of course we got a couple of those too.

Later on, and after several people claiming they didn't play or didn't any longer play an instrument, a couple glasses of wine was all that was needed for guitars, hand drums and various shakers from Cuba to make their way out. We had several hours of enjoyable entertainment where everyone took part in the songs that ranged from, traditional Newfoundland folk, to classic rock to modern popular music. A merry son who had been losing picks from some exuberant strumming (a pile was forming underneath his chair) picked up a Toonie (a Canadian two dollar coin) at one point, after losing yet another pick, and on one particularly enthusiastic strum lost that inside the guitar itself putting an end to that song. He attempted to finish the song but because of the spontaneous laughter that ensued he couldn’t.

At 2am on the way to bed we passed the piano where we discovered two previously shy musicians.With a little encouragement this turned into another hour of entertainment before we finally retired.

We woke in the morning unfortunately having to leave; we had found a home from home. We said our goodbyes at which point we received all manner of return invites, phone numbers of people to meet further on our travels and were sent on our way to Prince Edward Island with sustenance of nuts and chips for the road. We all left knowing we had had a truly unforgettable experience with a wonderfully hospitable couple. I hope to return.

Since then the courage to try jam has only been mustered, I recommend it.

The Shrouded Cliffs of Sunshine

2009-11-09T17:34:00.000-08:00

In the middle of February I attended a particle physics conference in Banff, Alberta, in to present the results of the work I had done towards my Masters degree. However, no one is really kidding themselves about the real reason that they are going to in Banff in the middle of winter. Banff was founded within the towering Canadian Rockies where TransCanada railway workers could stop off to enjoy the natural springs but nowadays, during the colder months, Banff becomes a bustling winter sports mecca.

I arranged the trip so I would have two days of snowboarding, followed by two days of conferencing followed by a further two days snowboarding. My adventurous friend Brad, who wasn't attending the conference, tagged along to take advantage of my free accommodation. We had explored new snowboarding terrain in British Columbia’s Coastal Mountains together and would now start to probe the offerings of the Canadian Rockies.

I awoke early for my second day snowboarding knowing we would be going to Sunshine Mountain. Sunshine Mountain is famous for it extremely challenging terrain and champagne powder where nobody follows the trails; they simply make their own imaginative route through trees and bowls of snow hoping they will emerge again close to a chair lift for the ride back to the top.

After a relaxed breakfast I discovered after passing some excited skiers in the hotel lobby that 30 cms of fresh snow had fallen over night. This changed everything into a frenzied rush to round up our snowboard gear, take the shuttle bus to the mountain and rip up the fresh powder like people possessed. I was so excited during the rush that I almost got angry by having to wait for more than about 10 seconds to brush teeth, to find gloves, to pinpoint clean socks, to wait for the bus or to line-up for a day ski pass.

Mid morning whilst riding up the Standish Mountain chair lift we decided we would like to make the connection to get to the bottom of the continental chair lift, which is an inter-provincial lift that starts in Alberta, briefly passes into British Columbia and then returns to Alberta. This route was essentially treeless and looked as if it started with a steep descent followed by a long flat section. Suspiciously, there was only one successfully created snowboard track along this flat section. That snowboarder must have hurtled down the steep section to make it through the flat without having to un-strap and start the arduous trek through the deep snow, something that every other rider has failed to accomplish.

We knew we were going to have to commit and go for it even though we didn't know the true nature of the terrain. Ideas of total commitment like this in the past had mixed success. I had known friends completely lose skis, wrap themselves around trees and on one occasion fall perilously through a hole in to a flowing spring creek below. We were going to have to be very alert.

The chair lift reached the top of the mountain; we dismounted, strapped ourselves in, set off and started to gain speed. Brad bravely went ahead with me following. Momentum would be precious by the time we got to the flat section so we didn’t make any turns to conserve it.

All of a sudden Brad had completely disappeared.

There didn’t seem to be anything he could have gone behind. I checked my speed immediately and advanced with caution. The light was poor and there wasn’t much contrast to see what exactly was ahead. Eventually I got to the edge of what was a cliff with about a four metre drop. I assumed Brad was at the bottom of it, somewhere within the large cloud of snow his impact had created.

My panic increased as the snow settled, Brad eventually appeared at the bottom of the cliff laughing. The sheer depth of snow at the bottom had made the absolutely painless yet quite disorientating tumble quite fun. I made my way to the side where I was able to un-strap and slide myself down to him. In usual crash fashion, his hat and goggles needed to be found and lots of snow had made it down his jacket.

We spent the rest of the day getting the nerve to fly off some more cliffs to make the most of on the soft landings that were available. We made videos of these like we were daredevils. That was easily the best day of the season.

The conference was a success too.