Chris, Zeus and I traveled 9,812 kilometers this summer, at least if Google Maps is to be believed. If I was able to accurately add up all the side trips the total would no doubt approach or perhaps exceed 11,000 km.
Over the course of three days this past weekend I personally added more than 3,000 additional kilometers returning our rental car to Salt Lake and then flying back to Seattle before ultimately returning to Victoria via high speed ferry. In order to diversify the mix of transportation methods employed this summer I fit in a few hours on a sailboat on Bear Lake between the drive and the flight, though I have nothing to show for it beyond a bad sunburn, some fond memories, and the addition of some sailing terms like "jib" to my vocabulary.
The flight to Seattle retraced from 35,000 feet much of the highway I had driven at a far more leisurely pace heading in the opposite direction less than 48 hours prior. After reaching Boise, Idaho in just over 20 minutes I began to follow the flight information provided on the small screen mounted on the back of the seat in front of me more carefully. The planet seems small indeed when in a little more than two hours you've covered a distance that just 48 hours before took about 13 hours to cover, and not much more than a century prior would have taken weeks or even months. It is remarkable that in a little over three months Chris, Zeus and I crossed the Cascades, prairies, and Rocky Mountains twice (first in Canada and then again in the US) and a large portion of the Canadian Shield once. Is it any wonder the struggles of the pioneers or explorers like Lewis and Clark seem nearly as much ancient history as the Babylonians?
Even more remarkable is the fact Chris and I, to say nothing of our dog, are beings of incredibly modest means. In fact, modest means is overstating it. Yet here we are having just completed approximately 11,000 kilometers of travel including most of the readily available means of modern transportation at human disposal. Some would see this fact as an indication of human progress. Regardless, I'm certainly glad we had the ability to take the opportunity to set out across Canada.
Unfortunately, this smaller more accessible planet of ours has somehow reinforced the impression we live on a planet of nearly infinite resources instead of teaching us our place in the universe is even tinier and more inconsequential than our ancestors sailing the seas on small slow moving boats or crossing the New World via horse drawn wagon thought it was. A hundred or so years ago we thought the world had infinite wealth because it was so big. Now we take the speed and relative ease with which we can encircle it as an indication our ancestors were right. Flying through a warming atmosphere over all too visible clear cuts, strip mines, and ribbons of highway seems to have done little to change human attitudes toward the limits and fragility of this tiny blue ball.
Regardless, our personal travels are over for the time being. It will probably be a while before we set out across Canada again, let alone visit Europe, the Australian outback, or the Amazon rainforest. Like the planet we have only limited resources, and even the accessibility afforded by what is almost certainly the tail end of the modern industrial age takes more resources than we currently have at our disposal. If all goes well we'll be content to just take our time letting our roots sink into the soil of Vancouver Island for a while. Next summer will, at best, probably see only weekend excursions into the woods and followup blogs about large slugs, mushrooms, tall trees, wildlife, and the biodiversity found in the intertidal zone between forest and sea.
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