mike · s · lecky · esquire

It's our first day hiking north off the Trans Canada and we've got 800 kilometers between us and a bed and real food. Sarah hopes we can make it in one day but I'm skeptical now that we're off the main highway. After cleaning up in a truck stop bathroom we start our longest walk of the trip, north up the no. 2 trying to get out of strip mall and big box store country and onto real highway. We catch a few short rides and then a third takes us an hour or so north and drops us on the far side of town in a good hiking spot but we realize that we're now on a secondary highway and we're getting a lot less traffic; about a car every 45 minutes. We eat lunch here, finishing the last of our bagels.

Later in the day we're picked up and driven through a forest fire. Trees are all stripped naked and burnt black;deaf and dumb. A forest of telephone poles. It goes on forever and ever on either side of the highway and you can see for miles through the lack of branches.

A few rides later we're in a big rig being driven by an old man. His skin is dark and tough, pulled tight over his forehead and cheekbones. He waves to a passing trucker and I notice hishand is crippled. Twisted into a knot shaped to the fit of the wheel. In the back with Sarah is his grandson, fat with braces and holding a small white dog.

He takes us through the Peace River valley and it's stunning. Miles and miles of flat and straight and then you goup a hill and then you're there. Green hills on either side of the river and the sun is sitting behind the bridge. "Downtown" sitting at the foot of the river and houses climbing up the hills behind. Then across the bridge, past the Tim Horton's and Canadian Tire and it's prairie again. The whole thing is just a memory.

The old man drops us off at the next crossroads and we're there for quite awhile. The sun isn't setting but I'm getting tired and I want to give up. All we have for food are the cans of beans and ramen we can't cook. We're hungry and things look bleak and then around the corner comes a young guy in a brand new Jeep SUV. He's got highlights and lowlights in his shoulder length hair like he's David Beckham.

Beckham drives us all the way to Manning which, while it doesn't mean much, does mean that we can get some hot water to cook ramen and some Pepsi to mix with the Fireball I've been hauling in my bag since P.E.I.. We eat, get mix, chat up locals and then crash on some park benches to drink whiskey. I drink lots and Sarah doesn't. I feel bad. We talk alot and swing a little and then pitch the tent behind an Anglican church. It's our first night in the tent and we cuddle some and go to sleep. The next day we'll make it all the way to High Level.

Here too. Fortunately I have a huge house with old floors and old friends and new ones drinking and spilling and crashing around. Let it rain rain rain rain rain.

Last night Dustin and I walked to Hastings to see Robert's art show then downtown to Karlene's video zine then back to the Burbon to see Jaws then back downtown to Celebrities to dance, which you couldn't really do because of all the people and all the walking. Afterward I walked home alone and was glad I don't still live at Main and 33rd.

HOT WATER MUSIC - CHARLES BUKOWSKI
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS - AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
LESSONS IN TAXIDERMY - BEE LAVENDER
THE SAME WOMAN - THEA LIM

Only the Bukowski really excited me. The other three had merit but I wasn't crazy about the prose, for different reasons.