It’s been two years since I drove across Canada, all 7,700 kilometres from St. John’s to Victoria. Finally, the book that came from that journey is being published this month, and people keep commenting on the strength of its timing. The Trans-Canada Highway is such a Canadian symbol, they say – this is a great time to write about it. We need to know more about the things that define us, and this year, people are seeking out those stories. Elbows up!
The stories have been there for years, of course, and I’ve been telling them since I first drove the length of the highway in 2012. I was born on the day the highway was opened, in 1962, and it just seemed like something I had to do when we both turned 50 years old. I learned of the original adventurers who tried to drive across Canada before there were even roads to do so, and I was enthralled. Their stories were tucked away all over the place, separately in archives and old newspapers and their own dusty books, and I knew they deserved to be brought together and told as part of the early account of the Trans-Canada Highway.
After that first drive, I wrote a short book about the highway but it was just a compilation of blogs from the road that I’d already published at Maclean’s magazine. The stories in Canada’s Road, published by Dundurn in 2013, were engaging enough but they were still scattered and told in brief. I always knew I should go back and do the job properly. That happened two years ago, when I found the time, and the funds, to make the drive again and dig deeper into the research.
And now, The Drive Across Canada is published and its long-lost stories are told properly as a matter of public record and can, perhaps, add a little to our national pride. For me, as an immigrant who came to this country from the U.K. 45 years ago, it’s my way of giving something back to the country that’s been good to me. It’s my way of saying thank you, and this year, more than ever, Canada needs to be able to fly its flag proudly – to remind Canadians of why this is the best country in the world, linked by a highway that connects us all.