A few days in paradise with Brian

Some cities are not the most beautiful. Edmonton, for example, is such a city. Flat, sprawling, cool, quickly built. There are a few nice corners near the river and initiatives to make the city more livable but yes.

Sometimes cities are more beautiful because of the people who live there. For us, that's also Edmonton. I met Brian in 2016 during the last week of my one-year-stay in Canada. I was sitting in Tim Hortons coffee shop writing a blog post. I was full of experiences, my wallet was as flat as a pancake and I was practically just waiting for my flight back to Germany. Suddenly someone asked me what I was writing and how long I'd been on the road.

This had happened several times before, especially with my backpack I always attracted attention. Brian, a retired teacher and principal, had just finished a road trip with friends across Canada. They started in Edmonton and made it all the way to St. John's, Newfoundland, from where he would fly back home.

The fact that he approached me in particular shows how bored he must have been by then. We chatted, and I found it particularly interesting that he had spent part of his career as a principal in the far north of Canada. He asked me where I was going to sleep and, as I was more or less pushing around (I had actually planned to pitch my tent in a park), he invited me to stay in the AirBnB he had booked. This was the beginning of a few great days in St. John's with Brian, during which we went to the George Street Festival and the Quidi Vidi Regatta, among other things. Normally that would have been it. You meet great people, spend a few enjoyable days with them and then have to move on, slowly consigning them to oblivion. But not with Brian.

He continued to accompany me throughout the next years of my life. We were in contact sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly and kept each other up to date. There were my new studies, friends, new hobbies, my first jobs and strokes of fate. Brian was always with me at a distance. I might even admit here that he corrected one or two English-language texts ("Wow, your English is so good"). I came back to Canada in 2019 and was able to see him again. Now, eight years after our first meeting at Tim Hortons, it was that time again.

After the last few days in the dust of the Trans-Canada Highway (well, Bedford had bought us a motel and brought us to Edmonton at the speed of a Formula 1 driver), the made-up bed in the living room overlooking the North Saskatchewan River Valley in the heart of Edmonton was very soothing. After relaxing from our exertions and even seeing the Northern Lights, we were ready to delve into the Life of Brian.

Eight hours' drive north of Edmonton, Brian's sister lives on a large farm. This was our first stop on our road trip through Brian's past. I grew up in the country too, but practically never came into contact with farmers, except when we had to fetch the soccer from the cornfield behind the football pitch, always in fear of being turned into bread by a combine harvester.

In High Level, we were therefore introduced to the world of farmers at full speed: Giant fields, giant machines, giant plots of land, giant collection of animal traps (?!), plus an airstrip on every plot. High Level wasn't a big place, so every neighbor was a cousin. Brian's cousins had just finished harvesting, so they had time to show us the machines. And as there were three unused small planes in the hangar, we suddenly found ourselves in one of them and a little later on a sightseeing flight over High Level, thanks Kyle!

Brian told us that his father emigrated from England and was given a huge piece of land, which he first had to clear. Not with today's modern equipment, but with an axe and a horse. He himself grew up on a farm, but inherited two left hands. Fortunately for all farmers, he then moved to Edmonton to study to become a teacher. Nevertheless, he impressed us with his accumulated half-knowledge about harvesting.

A few days later, we drove another eight hours to the now really far north. The drive itself was a highlight: bison along the way, different levels of vegetation, including burnt forest landscapes, some of which were still smoking from the wildfires, which are normal, but have been intensified by climate change.

At 62 degrees latitude lies Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories, population 25,000. Brian worked there as a teacher and principal. We stayed with his wonderful teacher friends, who had some funny and exciting anecdotes to share. They also had the best apartment in Yellowknife and an unforgettable view of the town and Great Slave Lake.

After studying in metropolitan Edmonton, why does one move to Yellowknife and then to other completely remote communities and live and teach there for decades? Brian tells us that he was attracted by this remoteness. We can understand that. There's something exciting about ordering your food for the winter in spring and then having to frantically swap with your neighbors when you've miscalculated again. Or when everyone in the village knows each other so that the children are called to dinner via a Facebook post.

Brian also told us about the difficulties in the northern communities, where the majority of the people are indigenous and the system in Canada has historically often suppressed the culture of the First Nations. We also visited one such indigenous community on our way. In Fort Providence there were a few run-down houses, next to a few nicer ones, which are inhabited by the "people from Ottawa", who "maintain order" there for a short time with lavish salaries. We find this topic so complex that we want to write a separate blog post about it.

On the way back, we stopped in Manning, where Brian grew up, stood at the grave of his ancestors, briefly met his childhood friends and then visited another school in the beautiful Peace River. Brian had also worked here as principal and had employed the current head, who then showed us around the school together with a former pupil, now vice-principal.

It was a time like paradise for us. Not just because Brian, generous and selfless as he is, paid for everything, but because the experiences are something you can't book on TripAdvisor, nor have such a personal connection as through our friendship with Brian.

What touched and inspired us incredibly is how much Brian's friends mean to him. He practically dedicates his life to his friendships, especially now that he's retired. He has young friends that he randomly approaches in Tim Horton's coffee shops, aspiring musicians that he buys their first CDs and ships them to Germany (😉), and friendships from his childhood and early working years that show as much trust and care as they did 50 years ago.

Now we are on our way to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Brian insisted that we take his car, we would "take a trip off his hands" as he was planning to visit a few friends in Vancouver and in between anyway. The fact that he selflessly put his credit card in the car so that we wouldn't use our own money for the gas shouldn't really come as a surprise...