Jean and I are newbie road-trippers. Last summer, we strapped our kayaks to the roof of our car and set out to Lake Superior from what was once our cottage on Georgian Bay which the pandemic had transformed into our ‘sanctuary-home’.
At least that’s what the real estate people call it.
On fabled Highway 17 from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie and points northwest, COVID had closed most motels and restaurants. Provincial campgrounds were packed, though, and we’d wait for Good Luck to bless us with a cancellation so we could pitch our tent for the night.
This year, the world is open and we’ve expanded our road trips. This time we drove from Vancouver north to Smithers, and from there east to Jasper, then south to Banff.
We’d seen not a single forest fire, nor whiffed even a scent of smoke along the way. In fact, the skies were not smoky all day.  As we drove into Jasper last Friday evening, large crowds packed the streets, bars restaurants. Most of these people weren’t masked. We found this odd and disturbing because, while there were no fires, something else was raging through both BC and Alberta – the Delta variant. Did these people not get the news?
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