Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

LC^3T: Thunder Bay – Winnipeg

Batteries are drained: mental along with phone and music. I bought the wrong batteries for my iPod range extender, but may be able to correct the error when in Winnipeg.

I am meeting my cousin there, which should permit a shower, decent food, and mental refreshment.

I have been looking places up on Wikipedia as I pass through. You don’t learn much about them in a few minutes through a bus window. Bus stations, I can report, are highly uniform in content and appearance.

LC^3T: Sudbury – Thunder Bay

Most of this span will happen in darkness, with sunrise just a couple of hours from Thunder Bay.

So far, all the buses have been completely full, though nobody I have spoken to is going as far as I am. About a day from now, I will enter Manitoba for the first time.

The AAA power source for my iPod is working well, and I have finished more than 1/3 of a book.

Monbiot speaking in Toronto

On November 28th, British journalist George Monbiot will be giving a talk in Toronto: “Countdown to Copenhagen: Who in Canada is Killing the International Climate Treaty?” The event is partially sponsored by DeSmogBlog.

Monbiot is a good writer and strong climate change campaigner. I suggest those in Toronto consider attending. I once saw him speak at Oxford’s Environmental Change Insitute. I also reviewed his book on climate change.

Date: Saturday, November 28th
Time: 2:00 to 4:00pm

Location: J.J.R. MacLeod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, University of Toronto
1 King’s College Circle, Toronto

Admission: suggested donation of $10-$25. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

Seating is limited; come early to guarantee a seat.

Greyhound ticket to Vancouver booked

While it has been surprisingly difficult to acquire credible emissions figures for rail and bus travel, it does seem as though the bus is by far the least emissions-intensive way to travel long distances. It will also mean two more days in Vancouver, compared with taking the train. As such, I have booked two three-day journeys to and from Vancouver:

  • Ottawa, ON – 10:00am December 19th
  • North Bay, ON – 3:20pm
  • Sudbury, ON – 5:45pm
  • Sault Ste. Marie, ON – 11:55pm
  • White River, ON – 4:15am December 20th
  • Schreiber, ON – 6:40am
  • Thunder Bay, ON – 9:20am
  • Upsala, ON – 12:05pm
  • Dryden, ON – 1:45pm
  • Kenora, ON – 4:00pm
  • Winnipeg, MB – 6:50pm
  • Brandon, MB – 2:10am December 21st
  • Virden, MB – 3:35am
  • Whitewood, SK – 5:50am
  • Regina, SK – 7:20am
  • Swift Current, SK – 11:25am
  • Medicine Hat, AB – 1:45pm
  • Calgary, AB – 6:00pm
  • Golden, BC – 10:30pm
  • Revelstoke, BC – 11:40pm
  • Kamloops, BC – 2:35am December 22nd
  • Vancouver, BC – 8:30am December 22nd to 6:30am January 7th
  • Kamloops, BC – 11:35am January 7th
  • Revelstoke, BC – 3:25pm
  • Golden, BC – 6:30pm
  • Calgary, AB – 10:45pm
  • Medicine Hat, AB – 3:30am January 8th
  • Swift Current, SK – 7:20am
  • Regina, SK – 10:55am
  • Whitewood, SK – 2:00pm
  • Virden, MB – 3:35pm
  • Brandon, MB – 4:50pm
  • Winnipeg, MB – 8:30pm
  • Kenora, ON – 12:45am – January 9th
  • Dryden, ON – 2:45am
  • Thunder Bay, ON – 8:20am
  • Schreiber, ON – 11:45am
  • Sault Ste. Marie, ON – 7:10pm
  • Sudbury, ON – 11:50pm
  • Ottawa, ON – 7:05am – January 10th

The only long stopovers are 1:45 in Sudbury, 1:10 in Thunder Bay, and 4:40 in Winnipeg on the way out – 1:16 in Calgary and 1:45 in Winnipeg on the way back. This will be my first time ever in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The journey will take some preparation. I will need to bring most or all of the non-truck stop food I want to eat. I will need reading materials and lots of headlamp batteries. I will need a system to run my iPod off AAs, since there is no assurance of electrical outlets on the buses. Other necessities:

  • Excellent earplugs
  • Some sort of eye-covering mask
  • Changes of clothing
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Water bottles
  • Backup headphones?

I probably need other things I haven’t thought of yet (leave comments). There will be little point in bringing a laptop, since there isn’t enough space on a Greyhound to open my 14″ iMac. I will have to rely on my phone and digital camera memory cards.

This will be quite the epic journey, though the payoff of sixteen days in Vancouver is worth it.

[Update: 6 January 2009] A series of updates from the Low Carbon Cross Canada Trip (LC^3T) are online.

More camera and travel issues

Earlier today, I got my Rebel XS back from Canon. Apparently, they had to replace one of the circuit boards to deal with the infinite loop the camera got itself into at the Fill the Hill event. Unfortunately, whoever did the repair managed to disable my on-camera flash in the process. I had little choice but to send it back to Canon immediately, since my one-year warranty will be up in a few days.

Henry’s says they will definitely lend me a body for the family reunion in Vermont, since I bought their three-year extended service plan. I just have to hope I get the camera back before December 19th, when I will be leaving for Vancouver. I really doubt Henry’s would lend me a body for a whole month, but it would be really intolerable to be sans-dSLR during my first trip to Vancouver in two years. I am told that ‘re-repairs’ are generally faster than ordinary repairs. That’s a bit comforting, though it is unnerving to know that cameras are broken often enough during the repair process for the Henry’s staff to be familiar with the statistics. What ever happened to quality control?

As for the mode of travel, I am leaning warily towards the bus. It’s a lot faster and cheaper than the train, and 1/5 of the emissions of flying. On the ‘sociology of travel‘ side, nothing shows commitment to climate change mitigation more than extending the length of your journey twelve-fold, in order to decrease the associated emissions by 80%. Well, I suppose the only thing that would would be avoiding the journey entirely, and passing the time blockading nearby coal power plants instead.

Re-pondering a low-carbon cross country voyage

I am delighted to say that I will be able to take the time from Saturday December 19th through Sunday January 10th off work. Naturally, the thing to do is go to Vancouver, as I was unable to do over the summer.

Options:

Train

  • Comfortable, can walk around
  • Reasonable chance of getting some reading and other sorts of work done
  • Probably access to an electrical outlet
  • Probably half to 1/3 the greenhouse gas emissions of flying
  • Takes four days
  • Leaves three times a week: Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday from Toronto and Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday from Vancouver
  • Expensive: $1,100 for a non-refundable ticket
  • Note, if the Sierra Youth Coalition still has a 40% discount, that is a more reasonable $660.

Bus

  • Pretty uncomfortable
  • Not much chance of getting anything done – little space for books and/or laptop
  • Probably no access to an electrical outlet
  • Even fewer greenhouse gas emissions
  • Takes three days
  • Seems to leave every day
  • Cheap: $224 for a ticket that can be changed for a small fee

The train would certainly be much more comfortable and romantic, but is it worth paying nearly five times as much (and two extra days) for?

As a follow-up question, why are our trains so slow and expensive?