British Columbia, Canada

It took me until July 2019 to make my first ever trip to North America. My reading during 2018 took me through guidebooks to British Columbia that featured both the city of Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Given how much I already had learned about these, they seemed appropriate places to start for an introduction to Canada.

Vancouver itself had so much to offer a passing wanderer that it might have been hard to get out to other places and I based myself there anyway. Even so, I did venture as far as Squamish and Victoria, the capital of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. There also was a lot more to learn while there such as how to get and dispose of bear spray together with overcoming a fear of those and other wild animals to hike through nearby forests.

My stay was only for eight days, but a lot was packed into those and this still allowed for some acclimatisation because of the long journey by plane and the very different time zone. The weather was warmer too though the surroundings reminded me of Scotland in their own way. Sunshine predominated without the extreme heat and electrical storm activity that beset Canada’s eastern provinces.