And off we go!

Alright, let’s get this started! I’ve been in Canada for just over a week, but have only just arrived where I will be spending the first 6 months or so- the delightful little mountain town of Jasper, right in the heart of the Rockies. I’ll probably just be finding my feet here for a week or two, so I’ll work through the journey and the time I spent in Vancouver. Everything should sync up eventually.

So, to keep it simple for starters, the flight! Heathrow to Vancouver via Reykjavik.

Image courtesy of www.gcmap.com

Sadly, no time during changeover to see much of Iceland, but the views I had on the flights over were absolutely beautiful. The long, shallow black beaches of volcanic basalt sand were hypnotically tranquil, as were the slow waves that rolled in on them.

Flying on from Iceland, it was fascinating to watch the sea shift from dark slate grey, flecked with floating ice, as it slowly froze over. Then, as we reached the coast of Greenland, and the sea ice gave way to the peaks of islands, rising and merging to form a coastline, then mountains, which in turn were subsumed under snow. How well the impressions I had of the land from the air matched up with the reality of the geography I’m not sure, but it looked absolutely stunning.

The process then reversed on the other coast, peaks emerging from what looked like a great plain of snow, then sinking down beneath sea ice that stretched through to the other coast, broken in places by narrow bands of dark sea, or swirled into strange peaks and spirals.

The flight over Canada mostly crossed a region called Nunavut (pronounced as none-of-it, apparently, since that’s what’s there (actually a transcription of the native name for the area,)), and having flown over a fair portion of it, I can vouch for the fact that what we passed over at least was overwhelmingly nothing but rock and snow. There weren’t even any trees for the first hour or so. Eventually, we dropped below the treeline and in to the Rockies, and indeed negligible sign of human habitation until we arrived in Vancouver.

I haven’t quite pinned down why exactly, but I also haven’t had all that much time to think about it, but I found the landscape of Nunavut to be deeply compelling. I haven’t wanted to go exploring somewhere more since the jungles of Cambodia. Something to do with the fantastically bleak starkness and bleakness of it all, I think. I doubt that I will make it out there this trip, but we shall see. I will certainly take the opportunity should it arise.

Vancouver from the air

Vancouver airport welcoming comittee