Day 10: Cycling in Time and Place (Enderby to Revelstoke)

May 19, 2014

Return of the wacky here with Smokey the bear. Plaque said the guy who created this was going for the weird as a tourist attraction. Honest fella.
Return of the wacky here with Smokey the bear. Plaque said the guy who created this was going for the weird as a tourist attraction. Honest fella.

Cycling through a lot of similar scenery got me thinking about our perceptions of time and progress. On a map I can show you the progress I’ve made, the line from where I started to where I am now. However, in terms of experience that progression is a lot murkier. While the town names change, my knowledge of the hills, curves in the road or really of the places themselves in their infinite variety is nonexistent. I wonder and thrill at the sights as they roll by but there is a sense in which I feel like I’m spinning my wheels in the same place. I have no prior experiences of these places to mediate my move through them. Eventually, I’ll shift gears and be in a different place but the progression isn’t particularly linear. A lot of it has to do with the pace of cycling. There is a gravity-like pull from the places that I don’t think is the same in car.

Another aspect is the disintegrating of time on the road. I have gadgets to tell me what day of the week, what time in the day, or when in the month I am. But that information doesn’t mean all that much. Much more important are the sun and the rumblings of my stomach. All to say, ideas about the revolutions or cycles of life and meaning is starting to make a lot more sense.

Craigellachie. Location of the last spike in the steel band across the nation
Craigellachie. Location of the last spike in the steel band across the nation
Craigellachie
Craigellachie

Today, I passed Craigellachie. The location at which the last spike was driven in to link Canada by rail in 1885. The rail line represented a line of steel from sea to sea that John A. MacDonald, them prime minister of Canada, believed would tied the country together. Little tied British Columbia to the newly form Dominion of Canada on the east coast so he was probably right. I was gratified to see that the museum posted some information about the Chinese labour the railway was built by, including the deplorable conditions and discrimination. I’ll return to this history further along my trip as this legacy extends out.

Craigellachie has also become a bit of a tradition for cross country cyclists. The place and what it represents has an affinity to our own quest and dream. While a different era and purpose, traveling from sea to sea continues to entice and promise adventure.


Road Report: ~ 116 km
I returned to the TransCanada highway today. Generally smooth sailing expect the various bridges built in the 1950s. They have no shoulder and only one lane in each direction so you wait on the side until the lane is clear and then dart across. It works fine but gets the heart pumping.

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