I am insane. The ferry I was going to take to the capital of our 49th state has burnt down (I am not kidding) leaving me with nothing better to do then to follow in the footsteps of the gold rushers and attempt the trek on land. Back in the 1880s tens of thousands of Americans, equipped with a pick ax and dreams of gold laden tundra rushed the Canadian border on their way to the promised riches of the frozen north. Needless to say most of them never made it. Eventually our friendly neighbor to the north got sick and tired of paying to ship their dead bodies across the wilderness back to the US and came up with the one-ton law. From now on you had to show the border guards at least one ton of equipment and supplies or you could not cross into Canada. Pacific rim cities like Seattle sprang up virtually over night to meet the new demands for supplies, but that is another story. Today the law is still in effect, only you can get away with $500 in cash in place of the ton of equipment. Driving through the barren landscape that makes up this armpit of the universe one has to wonder at the audacity of those dreamers making the trip on foot. I would have never ventured outside the interstate highway system if I bothered looking at a map of Canada (which I forgot to pack) before heading off. A poorly written paragraph in a AAA book made me think the trip was 1500 kilometers, which is not very far. As it turned out it’s not kilometers but miles and it’s not 1500 but 3000, which is very far.
Ho well, if Jack London can do it, so can I.
Zeev