Tales
When Roxanne’s 2007 Volkswagen aged, progressive friends implored, “never buy another internal combustion engine [ICE].” In early 2022, we began our transition from ICE to electric vehicle [EV] by placing a deposit on a Mini Cooper SE. War and pestilence have changed everything. No longer could we visit a car dealer, drop off a…
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Kluane National Park Interpretive Center Yukon, August 2021 For Kim Henkel The reason you’re in my office has got nothing to do with the fact that you and your friends are camped in the bush at the edge of the parking lot and using the washrooms. Or with the herd of donkeys grazing…
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The Pacific Crest Trail, described by Wikipedia as, “a long-distance hiking and equestrian trail closely aligned with the highest portion of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, which lie 100 to 150 miles east of the U.S. Pacific coast,” had lured me. I hadn’t intended to hike the PCT on my own. My…
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It has been 15 years since I wrote about sex in the tent, a newspaper article that was printed across Canada except for a few places where editors claimed that “the local men wouldn’t like it.” Here may be the reason why some men wouldn’t like it. It is summer. You and your partner…
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Cuevos de las Manos is a UNESCO protected archeological site bordering Francisco P Moreno National Park in Argentina’s Patagonia. To get there I caught a local bus that rambled along the dusty road from Puerto Moreno, an isolated village about a 150 kilometers in every direction from nowhere. During my three-hour trip, the only visual…
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I won’t keep you in suspense. I climbed Peak Lenin, 7134 meters to the summit. I’m not sure if that number means anything, so let’s try to put it into perspective. No, it’s not Mount Everest at 8848 meters, but its high, nevertheless. It’s almost a kilometer higher than Mount Denali in Alaska. It’s higher…
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When Dave King arrived in Prince George in 1973 to work the for forestry service as a biologist, he had a pet Raven that he took everywhere. He took it to work where it squawked when Dave had to answer questions to those far less knowledgeable than himself about forestry in the region. It pecked…
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Carellin is an urbanite, much happier in a pair of Miz Mooz New York City boots than any first-rate Murrell Hiking Runner even if Murrell offers modern glowing colours. But her nine-year-old daughter, Clover, isn’t aware of high fashion yet. She’s interested in everything including hiking, school and friends. Clover did her first hike…
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I burned my purse with my bra back in the ’70s, replacing it with a daypack. I also shifted from high-heeled shoes and tight dresses to jeans and hiking boots. I had two kids at the time, one on the hip and the other in hand and trying to stick diapers, face cloth, toys, bottles,…
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John and I were leaving the cemetery in Cienfuego, Cuba when the cemetery attendant told us that the 55-year-old trade embargo against the Cubans had just been buried by the Americans. The attendant rejoiced, as did many locals who dealt with tourists because tourists brought in the much-needed foreign currency. But many locals we came…
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I first saw Charles sitting on his backpack, snuggled between a bunch of Nepalese peasants in the back of an old, beat up, Indian-made truck. He looked out of place with his creamy white skin and in his sparkling white shirt, his leopard-skin silk scarf, his designer, button-down jeans and his brown felt fedora. …
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