Canmore, Alberta Part 1: Into the Mountains

I've just left MacGregor, Manitoba, where I was forcibly inducted into the rodeo, and I step out of yet another Tim Horton's restaurant into the blazing Canadian summer to stand by the highway with my thumb out. It's a good day - within half an hour of taking my spot I'm picked up by John in his ancient white school bus. John is thin, looks slightly like Malcolm McDowell, has a black sarcastic wit and knows an enormous amount about trees for some reason. "That there's a spruce, we got four different kinds of spruce in this country. That's oak of course, scrub oak - wherever you see that you dig down, it's got this big taproot, and you'll find water." "Oh really? Interesting." He turns to me with a scowl "No, it isn't."

He drops me in Brandon, where I end up stuck on the shoulder for four hours, my enthusiasm slowly trickling away in the brain-melting heat and my thumbing arm eventually so tired I have to prop the elbow up with my other hand.

Finally, after a half-hour Tim Horton's break to cool and regain morale I return to the fray, and within 10 minutes I am rescued by Jean-Renaud driving a classic Vanguard Chateau campervan - actually a modified Ford with, among other things, a solar panel on the roof which allows the appliances to run without draining the battery. Renaud is an electronic engineer from the east coast of Quebec but he recently moved out to Alberta, like many others, to benefit from the new oil rush which is pushing work and wages through the roof. He's now training as a carpenter, and making several times his old salary already.

He's small and birdlike, with very short-cropped slightly greying black hair, a thin stubbled chin and small round glasses with clip-on shades. He has a strong Quebecois accent (although his English is very good) and a very gallic set of mannerisms - he waves his long knuckly fingers about as he speaks, makes expressive shrugs of his whole upper body while his pale grey eyes go wide behind his glasses, and he has a habit of pausing to think of a word with his mouth open and his pointed tongue sticking out, making him look more like a bird than ever. He is also, (as I find over time), kind, unfailingly honest and straightforward, a natural philosopher and deep thinker, a man who cares deeply about peace and understanding between people.

Renaud is going all the way to Calgary and a little beyond, I'm overjoyed to hear. We very quickly find agreement on almost all levels of social, political and psychological debate, as well as a shared interest in the way machines and people work, and we joyfully explore our areas of shared interest, talking faster and louder and interrupting each other more as the campervan rolls through the roasting prairieland of Manitoba. As we cross into Saskatchewan we move onto environmental issues, global warming, war and peace, and when we stop for dinner we are already moving on to food.

Renaud tells me about his beloved home food of the east coast - salt cod, prawns, crabs and lobsters simply boiled in salt water (he tells me a secret I've never heard before - the water must have the same salt concentration of the lobster's home waters or it will lose flavour). We also find a shared love in my favourite slow-cooked tough cuts, which his mother used to cook to perfection.

It's late by now, so after filling up the Chateau's mammoth fuel tanks we head just a few blocks down to the town campsite, a rather over-civilised but beautiful line of tightly-packed designated spaces with a pool and a washroom block. The camper only sleeps one, so I spread my bedroll under a tree, hang my mosquito net from a branch above and sleep in the warm night. It's very pleasant until it turns out that the site is right next to (literally - there's only a hedge in between) a very busy railway line. A train passes at least once an hour, shaking the ground and sounding like the Apocalypse, accompanied by the hooting of different-pitched horns on all the engines (some of these trains are up to 200 cars long and have 3 or 4 engines). Sleep is limited.

The following day is a long ride - the heat is still oppressive, and one of the few features the Chateau is missing is A/C. Keeping a liveable temperature requires constant speed and careful manipulation of various vents and windows. But the conversation's good and we're making steady miles toward Calgary. The dead flat land of Saskatchewan begins to slowly undulate, and prairie dogs begin to show up on the yellow grass hills, and sometimes perked up on the shoulder like little hitch-hikers (or flat on the road like little furry pizzas).

Midmorning we pick up another hitcher, a genial Stoner/Jock crossbreed called Paul Gerard Kenneth Hollohan (he insists I give his full name) with a biohazard tattoo on his neck and constellations on the back of his calves, a rock dude beard and the boundless energy of a 6-year-old.

Calgary is almost entirely gridlocked, and throbbing with noise and heat. We crawl through traffic for almost an hour before dropping Paul at an intersection - he doesn't really seem to know where he's going but seems confident that going left will get him there. For the short while we spend in the city I don't see anything to distinguish it from any other town or city we've passed through, except for the jam-packed traffic which Renaud says is all the consequence of the crazy rush of people to the province and the city.

But as we begin to reach the outskirts, something is very different. One moment we are moving slowly with the other traffic on a level road, the next the road drops away in a long gleaming curve and on the horizon, below the ranks of perfect white clouds against the deep blue sky, is a sillhouette of deeper purplish blue - the Rockies. We're cruising at speed now as the traffic spreads out, and Renaud turns up a rock station out of Calgary. ZZ Top blast out "Sharp Dressed Man" as the mountains loom closer and closer.

The road is going up and down in long curves over the foothills, and every time we come over a brow the mountains are bigger and clearer. They slowly go from indistinguished blue outlines to huge masses of grey and white rock, carpeted with evergreens, impossible in relation to the flatlands we've just left. And we go up into them, the road curving smoothly round their feet, turning slowly past startling blue lakes, the mountains slowly encircling us until there's no horizon, only Rockies and the sky.

Canmore, where we shortly arrive, is a mountain town in a long valley which has caught the fever of the Alberta oil rush and is busily turning itself into a millionaire's getaway. Renaud points out the brand new big-money hotels, shops and flat, including the one he is working on, a huge complex with windows and eaves pointing in all directions - they've added a storey while he's been gone. It seems half the town is under construction, everywhere there are sandy yards with prefab frames going up. It's all in a faux-European-ski-resort-style, which is at least in keeping with the rocky peaks surrounding us.

The town is swarming with people, mostly on foot - shops and facilities are mostly clustered quite centrally. There's a large temporary population of skiiers and hikers, Renaud tells me, but most of all Canmore is full of temporary workers; many of them Quebecois. They come across the width of Canada to work in hotels, restaurants, cafes, shops, and to catch their own little bit of the oil rush. Construction is probably the biggest source of work, a constant vacuum drawing in workers from across the country. If you can hold a hammer and turn up for work two days in a row, you can make serious money here. But the cost of living is rocketing as the town becomes whatever it's becoming, to the point where the people building it can't afford to live here.

Many of the Quebecois workers and a few others live on the municipal campground, (which is where Renaud keeps the Chateau), in tents and makeshift shelters, along with a small shorter-term community of ski bums and hikers, again mostly French-Canadian. As we roll into the campground (known as Wapiti Tents) it becomes instantly apparent that Renaud is a celebrity here. There are cheers and waves from all sides, cries of "De retour!" The campground comprises a large dusty yard, with a big open-fronted shed on the left lined with kitchen facilities and lockers, and a long trailer on the right which contains the office and washrooms.

Behind the trailer is a lean-to with a huge pile of logs and chopping block and a little further down is a communal firepit. Beyond the yard is the shortterm camping field, dotted with clumps of trees, tents and trailers, and to the left is the longterm camping area, locally known as Quebectown. It's mostly a network of tarpaulins, tents and nets strung between the dense trees.

The population here consists largely of the Quebecois segment of that very distinct youth-hostelling generation, identifiable around the world (although rarely in such large numbers) - the new flower children. They are uniformly young (18-24), tanned, in perfect physical condition, and eerily good-looking. Clothing: Lots of loose cotton in tribal or aboriginal prints, jeans shorts, endless Teva sandals and battered trainers. Braided wristbands and bandannas are not just accessories but badges of membership for this constantly-moving, relaxed, positive tribe. Most surfaces in their vicinity for long are painted with simple animal and plant designs and collages, hand and footprints in multiple colours are popular.

Intellectually, indepth analysis is less important than a general peace-love-eco-freedom philosophy, but there are many crossovers with eco and political activism groups. Dreadlocks (for both genders) and scrubby chin-only beards proliferate. For pastimes; most play instruments, guitar and drums (especially tribal and indian drums) are most common. Many spend time on crafting activities like braiding and painting, facilitating the tendency to decorate themselves and their environment. Sports are popular, the more competitive ones less so, ones with minimal equipment like frisbee or hackeysack the most widely-practiced. They are always soft, gentle, friendly, always touching shoulders and arms, making eye contact, exchanging gestures.

Here at Wapiti they are interspersed with their predecessors, the original hippie wanderers, now working as carpenters, drywallers and technicians in the Canmore construction boom, and saving for the perfect retirement in B.C. or home in the other provinces (where they have any longterm plans). They are uniformly bearded and moustached and often still longhaired, burnt red-brown by the sun, lined, tattooed, dressed in denims and t-shirts over narrow rock-hard labourer muscle. They drift easily between dirty jokes, travelling stories, poetry and song and local gossip, and they mingle easily with their younger counterparts.

We join the group at the picnic tables in front of the shed, and Renaud is instantly the centre of attention, the focus of a dozen rapidfire French conversations, I listen and pick out the odd word, and Renaud translates whenever he gets the chance between sentences. Once they figure out that I am english-speaking, those who can talk to me too, asking about my journey and telling me about the town and their exploits. Surprisingly many Quebecois speak only French, I discover, and language is a major problem for many of the economic migrants here in finding work.

Finally the group begins to split up and I fetch my gear from Renaud's camper. I'm here on my own terms now, and it actually stumps me a bit - for so many days I've been working to somebody else's schedule. I find a spot under the trees with a view of the mountains, and lay out my mat - I don't have a tent any more and it's a balmy night tonight, but I make a mental note to pick up a light tarpaulin for less friendly weather - drop my rucksack and I'm left with nothing to do.

I wander around aimlessly for a while, still stunned by the presence of the mountains on all sides, altering scales, distorting the landscape. The campground is swarming now, but the language barrier and the fact that everyone here knows each other already, plus my tiredness from last night which is making me a bit blue, make me feel uncomfortable joining them. I settle for sitting by the fire pit, just watching the fire as it gets dark and exchanging a few words with those who come to cook food or just sit.

It's a McDonald's burger and fries for dinner (a McD drive-through is just opposite the campsite and everyone here drinks their coffee constantly, or at least drinks out of the cups - alcohol is technically forbidden here, but the police turn a blind eye if it's not in identifiable containers) and I settle in early. Unfortunately sleep is difficult when a serious musical session strikes up about a hundred yards away and continues till gone 2am.

I wake and rise in unexpected cold, shake myself awake and walk straight up to McDonald's for a restoring coffee. As I come back outside the full panorama of the Rockies spread all around me strikes me slightly gleefully insane, and I have a small fit of disbelieving giggles which restore my good mood.

Now I'm wrapped in my fleece, my feet are propped up before the firepit, the air is just starting to warm up and I'm wondering what to do with the day.