by Chris Cowland –
As you snuggle down in your first class airplane seat with a glass of red wine in your hand, it is hard to believe the origin of the word “Travel.” It actually comes from the Middle English “travailen,” meaning to torment or cause pain, based on a Latin torture instrument called a “tripalium” which had three sharp stakes on its end. My travel experiences, on the other hand, tend more towards their linguistic roots.
Back in England in 1979, I had met a Canadian girl in London, and she persuaded me to marry her and move to Canada. She spread some beautifully coloured postcards across the table, featuring the Rocky Mountains, Lake Louise and Banff National Park. I was blown away, and we were married the following year. I asked her what town we were moving to, and she said she was from Winnipeg, which conjured up snuggly memories of my childhood Winnie the Pooh stuffed toy.
At my going away party, one of the accountant partners asked me where I was going, and after choking on his gin and tonic, he relayed to me that he had visited that Canadian office, and in his opinion: “if ever an enema had to be administered unto the world, Christopher, it would be done via Winnipeg.”
I didn’t quite get his meaning until we arrived at Winnipeg Airport on March 8, 1980. I had not brought a coat, and my father in law warned me that it was -32° outside. “No problem, you mean 32°F above, don’t you?” With my moustache defrosting in the car, I asked my new wife if we would be driving past those lovely lakes. With a languid wave of her hand towards the West, she said: “They’re out that way.”
Within two months of arriving, the temperature was 80°F (above!). It gets hot in town, so many Winnipeggers own cabins in the nearby lake country, and in those days you could pick up something really nice for about $40,000. We ended up buying 2.5 acres and a small abandoned fishing cabin on an island about five miles from Clearwater Bay in Lake of the Woods. Over the next years, we would spend every summer there with our kids and the pets.
The two-hour drive from Winnipeg to the lake was quite pleasant, except for the time when our dog found a skunk just as we were returning home. However, we then moved to Saskatoon, and Toronto two years later, and then Sidney. A 30-hour drive with four kids, two dogs and the cat in a loaded-down station wagon can be a challenge.
We learned a lot over the years. You do not feed all the leftovers in the fridge to the dog the night before you leave. Barely off the ferry, the dog began whining, and it practically exploded when I stopped by a patch of grass. Then he ran off to get a drink in a ditch, which had two inches of water on top of a foot of putrid mud. Two hours of skunk scent paled in comparison. And never bring a cat along unless you have a cage with a litter box (don’t ask).
It has been a long and somewhat tortuous series of travel adventures over the years, but at least I finally got to see Lake Louise!
