Weblog: Arrived in Prince George
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First, some administravia. I have re-activated my mobile phone. My new number is +1 250 552 9265. You should be able to reach me directly until the 31st. After that, I will be difficult to reach for a month. I might be able to check my voice mail periodically, but don't count on it. E-mail is a definite no. Snail mail sent to the address in my contact info will reach me, so, it's sad to say, snail-mail will be the fastest, most reliable way to get in touch with me. Also, I may be away until early November, not early October as I originally thought. Now, on with the show...
Yesterday, after a quick stop in Vancouver at MEC for a few last-minute supplies I headed for the bus station, and after a short wait, boarded the bus at 5:45pm. The bus trip was the usual: long, uncomfortable, and uneventful. Why is it that if I'm riding a noisy city bus in the middle of the day I start nodding off right away, but in a quiet, (relatively) comfortable, night coach, I can't get to sleep? I would have preferred to take a day bus in order to see the scenery, but in the end the inconvenience of having to spend a night in Vancouver, and then an extra night in PG at my own expense, made me decide not to. I finally arrived in PG at about 6am.
It turns out that there was another guy on the bus that was coming to PG for the same reason I was, although I only found this out in the bathroom at the PG Greyhound station when he asked someone where the university is (we are to meet at the university). We dumped our packs in the storage lockers at the bus depot (why do they put the biggest lockers at the top?) and headed for Tim Hortons (aside: PG seems to have a lot of Tim Hortons. You could say that of all of Canada, but PG takes it to another level).
By this time it was about 7am, so I figured that a good way to get to know the city would be by finding a geocache (GC6690). This multi-part find took me to Connaught Hill, which gave a good overview of the city. I started heading back to where I thought I started, but ended up in a totally different part of town. This city confounds my usually good sense of direction. For one, there are no landmarks that you can see from everywhere, but I've done fine in such cities before. A guy I talked to later at a bus stop mentioned that he found the same thing when he moved here many years ago. He's always had a good sense of direction, but it doesn't work here. It seems to be that way for a lot of people. In any case, when I went into 7-Eleven to buy a map, I asked the counter girl where I might be able to find a bus schedule and where the public library is. She had no idea. I don't think I've ever met anyone whe doesn't know where their town's library is.
The closest thing on the Island to the atmosphere of PG is Port Alberni. As far as I can tell, the city has no real centre (but maybe I haven't come accross it). The people are very friendly, and I was constantly getting into conversations with random people on the street (a marked difference to back home, but maybe it's because I tend to get less introverted when I'm travelling alone). One of the more startling things in the city is the talking crosswalks. When the walk signal turns on, the pole says something like "you may now cross the street," and then goes into the usual "chirping" you hear in other places. A mostly blind man at the bus stop told me this talking was put in place at the insistance of the CNIB.
People tell me that theft is a huge problem in PG recently. Also, violent crime is on the increase, with fifteen violent robberies so far this year vs. only two last year. The bus system is okay, but apparently getting much worse. Due to lack of funding, transit is not doing as much maintenance on the busses as they used to, and as a result they break down all the time. You may also heard of the huge budget crises that the school district is facing, with many schools being closed. There seems to be a feeling of a city in decline, with blame placed squarely on the Campbell regime. Someone said that it is because the city is "beyond hope," but he meant that the provincial government doesn't care about any place in B.C. that's further from Vancouver than the city of Hope.
Once I got my bearings, I headed to the library to seek out Internet access and get a library card. I went to a few different Rogers dealers to get my phone switched over, but all of them were out of SIM cards except a Wireless Wave branch that had just opened. So now I have a library card and a local phone number, which almost makes me more established in PG after a few hours than I was in Parksville after a year.
That done, I caught the bus to UNBC to check in. During training we're staying in the student residences here. The campus is quite small; smaller than the Camosun Interurban campus. It's pleasant and modern since the university has only existed since 1990. Each of the residences is like a shared apartment with four separate bedrooms and a shared living room, kitchen, and bathroom. Two friends, one from Quebec City and the other from Winnipeg, had already checked in. One of them has been brushing for the last two years, so he has lots of good advice, and I will pick up some extra stuff before we head into the bush because of that. Unfortunately, UNBC feels kind of isolated because of the infrequent bus schedule. There are no busses at all after 5pm.
At 8pm, there was a meeting for all the brushers and the supervisors. There look to be about 30 of us in total, and I'm guessing that about halff are francophone. Maybe I should have brought French lessons with me instead of Spanish! More people may show up on the 30th, because the herbicide/fire suppression training we're doing right now is optional (but we get paid for it if we pass the tests). I hadn't brought much food with me, so after the meeting, a few of us got a supervisor to take us into town to get groceries (the francophones were more concerned about getting some alcohol).
It looks like I won't be in PG as often as I had expected. I will be leaving for Ospika, ten hours north of here, on the 31st, and will be there for about a month. I'll have to make extra certain that I have everything I need with me, because there's no going back to town for supplies if I forgot something. This is shaping up to be more of an adventure than I had anticipated.
Posted on Mon, 26 May 2020 at Prince George, BC, CA (altitude 805m) (map/google earth)
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