The Mad Act of Hitchhiking

Despite my mother’s pleading messages asking me not to hitchhike, I had to experience it. At least once. With the horror stories of Ivan Milat in the back of my mind I grabbed a piece of cardboard and a sharpie and set out to the highway.

The night before I had been imagining (or mentally rehearsing to please my parents ears) finding a cool young couple who I’d drive with the whole way from Banff to Jasper and part as good mates, alas dreams don’t always come true.

The first hour of the reality consisted of me standing at the on-ramp outside of Banff at 7am: one thumb in the air, my other hand grasping the cardboard sign, a half-hearted grin on my face, sweating balls from the heat. For an hour and a half.

I tell you what, I have never seen so many people driving past laughing to each other (and I used to walk to school in the Radford school uniform everyday).

Finally though, I struck gold. The inside of a car has never been so appealing to me in my life. The man inside was super nice, he worked on the roads and engaged me in an awesome convo about what it’s like to have that as a job. After 15 mins of driving he says to me, “Sorry I just need to take a detour down this side road, it’s part of my job.”

I don’t know how much you know about Ivan Milat, but this charming road worker who needs to take a detour (down Belangalo Road) paralleled Milat’s tactics to a tee. I quickly checked if there was a hidden rope, duct tape, a knife, a gun etc and held my breath.

Of course not every nice road worker out there is a Milat copycat so I was fine and he shortly drove back onto the highway. The guy (I think his name was Matt) and I continued to chat and the kind dude actually drove me all the way up to Lake Lousie then said see ya. I quick went to the bathroom to clean myself up and grabbed some food then wandered back over to the on-ramp.

On the walk back I ran into two French chicks who raised my hopes, saying “You may wait for ages but the ones who stop will be worth it.”

20 mins later a cool chick gave me a quick ride up to the Jasper exit where I only had to wait 5 mins for the next lift. A truck pulls over and the driver says, “So you want to ride with the bottle man?” and chucked my bag in the front while I pretended to know what that meant. Turns out his job was to collect the recyclable bottles from campsites along the highway.

We’re bumping along the road with him mumbling bits and pieces about the scenery and stops at Bow Lake for my tourist snaps and so he could have a dart.

On returning to the car I find myself in a sticky situation. Now if you know me I’m not one to wisely pick my fights. I’ll mouth off anyone if I think my view is morally better and it can get me in easily avoidable situations (e.g. I was fired from a job because my boss didn’t like me telling him about why gay marriage shouldn’t be illegal).

So you have no idea how hard it was to keep a sock in it when this guy started bad-mouthing the Filipinos and Muslims for coming to his country and stealing his retirement money, and the First Nations people for being lazy (and these are the nicer edits for what was actually said). Alone-female me had to hold on to my tongue for dear life as it was ready to arc up at the dude. Thankfully the trip was soon over and I got out onto the side of the road with my bag and sign yet again.

A recently retired couple dropped me an extra half an hour up the road to Saskatchewan Crossing at which point I was beyond exhausted. I asked around for a ride for a bit then headed to the motel to ask if there was a bus. With the next one arriving in four hours and without a guaranteed seat I thought I’d try my luck for a bit longer.

I went hung out at the exit of the pit stop and parked myself on a boulder while waiting. Car after car passed and my smile kept slipping because I was so exhausted. It had taken me about four hours to do less than a two hour journey. A man smoking a dart by his car chuckled at me and called out to not stop smiling. I managed a laugh.

Five mins later and the guys wife comes back to the car, they exchange a few words and the boot is opened. He says, “Well come on then.” I quickly picked up the level of wit that was expected from the conversation and oh boy, the next four hours were brilliant. We stopped for every scenic view, each tourist hub and the darling humans took me out to dinner in Jasper as a parting gift. They were reluctant to leave me as the friend I was meant to stay with was still off the radar, as they had become my adopted aunty and uncle.

As my mum put it ‘5 out of every 6 hitchhikes are fine’, so I’m glad I only needed the five lifts.