Road Work

We slept in a parking lot across from a church in Lake Cowichan, British Columbia, and moved to a nearby park when it got close to service time. A 1988 Dodge B250 camper van isn’t exactly inconspicuous, and I didn’t want anyone knocking while I edited stories for Nunatsiaq News, the paper of record for Nunavut and Nunavik, in northern Quebec. I felt particularly greasy and bohemian that cloudy August morning. After I spit toothpaste into a sink that smelled faintly of the dal makhani I ate the night before, I typed away at a suburban picnic table in light blue Crocs, grey sweatpants, and a faux Patagonia fleece from Cusco, Peru.

In the van, my girlfriend received a notification from Parks Canada that lifted my spirits. A site in the Green Point Campground at the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, a hundred kilometres away near Tofino, had become available. Why, I could go for a little surf, I thought. I’d tried before, in Raglan, New Zealand. I had been good enough to stand but bad enough that I couldn’t remain standing for any meaningful amount of time, and when I fell I dreaded the swim out more than I looked forward to the rush in. Circumstances had since changed. Now I lived in a van, so by unwritten law I had to shred the gnar at least once. My girlfriend fired up the engine as I moved back inside to continue working.

I’m what you might call a digital nomad, though that term typically refers to someone who leaves their country for another one. This year, my nomadism has been more of the elbows‑up variety. I’ve overnighted beside a sports complex in Surrey, on a residential street in Victoria, and off the Bow Valley Trail near Canmore. I’ve awoken to a herd of elk barking in Banff and to a man repainting a Shoppers Drug Mart parking lot in Rocky Mountain House. I’ve edited articles about goings‑on in Iqaluit while I’ve been outside Walmarts in Sault Ste. Marie, Portage la Prairie, and Brooks. Having closed my laptop, I’ve stampeded in Calgary, eaten Nanaimo bars in Nanaimo, ridden gondolas in Squamish, and paddleboarded on Lake Louise. I’ve watched seals bathe in the Strait of Georgia and humpback whales breach in the Inside Passage.

Most often, my office is the passenger seat. It swivels to face a slim folding table that was custom-made out of three-quarter-inch finished plywood — just one of several upgrades some good buddies in Windsor helped me complete a few days before we pushed off in June. The most daunting task was bolting and wiring two 200‑watt solar panels to the plexiglass roof, which scared the hell out of me. I was born to a radio host and an aesthetician, so, when it came to the literal nuts and bolts of the facelift, my hands were good only for cracking the beers, picking up the pizza, and covering my eyes. However, my electrical diagram was golden. It took two months of studying 12‑volt systems for me to confidently advise where the 40‑amp fuse went (between the 60‑amp MPPT charge controller and the positive busbar) and how to link the three 100‑amp-hour LiFePO4 batteries (in parallel, not in series).

It’s one thing to say you’re going to accept a remote job, give up the lease on your apartment in Toronto, rent a storage unit, buy a camper, and drive it across the country. It’s another thing to do it. That requires wishful thinking and demands pure stupidity. Often enough, I ask myself, Why? Why, as a twenty-nine-year-old writer in this economy, would I spend many thousands of dollars on a depreciating asset and notorious gas guzzler, especially after Trump and Co. bombed the Strait of Hormuz? Why eat oven-roasted turkey sandwiches every day? Why find a new place to sleep almost every night? What I remind myself is that I’ve got a penchant for adventure. What I tell myself is that such an opportunity will likely never present itself again.

The posted speed limit on British Columbia Highway 4 past Port Alberni, where I took over at the wheel, is eighty — although hardly a kilometre passed before some hairpin turn required me to halve that. Behind us formed the “conga line,” as the previous owners of our slow-moving rig put it, and by the time we had marched through the Sitka spruce and western hemlock toward Long Beach, the tide had receded. Salty pools had formed. Purple starfish slouched and anemones swayed. Mussels grouped together on intertidal rocks, and the ocean spread out over the sand like glaze on a doughnut. I took a dip. The sun set on the northern oasis in spectacular, technicolour fashion.

From the Long Beach Surf Shop the following day, my girlfriend and I rented eight-and-a-half-foot foam boards, which we shimmied over our bed and on top of our kitchen counter. I wrestled into my wetsuit in the Cox Bay parking lot and packed cranberry trail mix in the same bag as my beach towel. For the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I understood what it meant to truly catch a wave. They appeared like mountains behind me before I glided securely in their pocket, like a baby kangaroo. I was so compelled by one such moment that I fist-bumped a teenager, into whom I nearly crashed.

That evening, I downed a Surfeza at the Tofino Brewing Company, ate a bowl of chicken chili, and knocked out. The next morning, I flicked on the Starlink, sat down in my office, and went back to work.