The full reopening of the U.S./Canada border meant as much to me as anyone.
Being a dual citizen, I truly feel completely at home in both countries, well, until someone starts talking about Canada’s sometimes mystifying politics — for instance, in British Columbia, liberals are actually conservatives, and members of the New Democratic Party are the actual liberals.
One of the last times I was in Victoria, I was sitting in a sports bar called The Sticky Wicket. Off in a corner on a small TV, there was some college basketball game featuring the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the nation at the time (I wish I could remember who it was, Duke vs. Virginia or Villanova). Behind the bar, there were a dozen of so giant flatscreens, each one showing a different live hockey match. And with a Canadian-sized pint in front of me, I looked up and literally said out loud, “I’m in Heaven.”
I feel like a limb has been cut off for the past 18 months. I have extended family in both Victoria and Vancouver that I haven’t seen in nearly two years. In fact, I feel like I have extended family in virtually every town west of Winnipeg. I have a big family, and a bunch of people in my family have big families, so I ended up with more than 60 first cousins and probably a couple of hundred second and third cousins, which, in Canada, is just another cousin.
My mom would always get mad at me whenever I vacationed in Canada and while driving to either Banff or Jasper, I didn’t visit some obscure cousins I barely remembered from my childhood. In her generation, going on holiday meant visiting relatives. We didn’t sightsee, we didn’t go on tours, we didn’t go on cruises. We didn’t stay in hotels or eat in restaurants. We stayed with family and we ate their food.
I could have visited Canada months ago, but I found some of the border rules confusing and was nervous about how difficult it might be to return to the U.S., so I preferred to wait until the U.S. border was fully opened.
The biggest hassle now is that PCR test, which means I won’t be jumping over to Canada casually yet. I’m planning a New Year’s Eve trip to Victoria, visiting a cousin’s microbrewery and finding some new pubs I haven’t visited yet. I’m hoping that by then Canada may relax that PCR test requirement. If not, I’m more than willing to get it, but it’s just an extra hassle.
Again, I made reservations for a vacation in Banff this summer, hoping to climb a pair of mountains just north and south of Lake Louise. Already I have to start about losing weight and finding ways to get exercise in the cold and the rain. These are a pair of beasts with unpredictable weather, much more treacherous than the broiling hot Misery Ridge hike I did this summer in central Oregon. I’m making reservations to return to Whistler in late summer so I can go across the Cloudraker Skybridge, something I have always wanted to do.
Now, at least, I feel like I can make plans.
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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at plabossiere@peninsuladailynews.com.
