A few days work in Canada

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EX-PAT BRITISH TRUCKERS (INTERACTIVE)
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For those of you thinking of coming to Canada, here’s a little taster of how things are over here.

Day 1. I left our yard at Steinbach MB for a delivery to Wabowden in northern Manitoba.

500+ miles later I arrived on site, not the cleanest of places!

Then it was off to The Pas MB to load a load of lumber for Neepewa MB, I loaded this & parked for the night at Swan Lake MB having covered 700 miles today, had a burger in McD’s & hit the sack, a pretty boring day really, there’s not a lot to see up in the northern part of Manitoba.

Day 2, I left Swan lake & went down to Neepewa where I tipped & reloaded for Winnipeg.

After tipping in Winnipeg I went back to the yard & home for the night

Day 3, I came in to a pre-loaded trailer, 1st drop Prince Albert SK, 2nd North Battleford & 2 in Lloydminster.

I parked outside the job in Prince Albert & had a lie in as they didn’t start until 8am, tipped their bit & headed down towards North Battleford, had a bit of breakfast in a roadside cafe in the middle of nowhere then set off again.
After north Battleford I went to Lloydminster, got the final 2 drops off then sucked up some diesel in the Petro, had dinner & a shower in the Husky truckstop & headed to Glaslyn SK to load the next day for Boussainville, just south of Brandon MB

Day 3, This is what I loaded, nasty horrible stuff that moves all over the place, every hour I had to get out & tighten my straps again.

After another uneventful day I got to the delivery & parked for the night, i went for a Chinese Buffet & sunk a few beers before hitting the sack.

Day 4, I got the big pencils off & headed up to Brandon for another pre-loaded trailer & then the fun began!

if you like this & want to see the rest of the trip let me know & I’ll put it on for you, I ended up in BC, a nice run over the mountains.

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Go for it Mercman!

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Keep it coming Mark, good read

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Great pics and good diary, :smiley: would love to see more.

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Ok, here’s the next bit.

Day 4 continued, I arrived at the collection in Brandon & found this waiting for me.

4 sheets (tarps) & a lot of sweat later & it looked like this

After that a well needed shower & dinner at a Husky again! This time in Brandon.

Day 5, was a pretty boring run through the Prairies in the rain.

Day 6, I left Cochrane early enough to make it for my delivery time of 1400, I run on Manitoba time & BC is 2 hrs behind so it was daylight when I finally dragged my sorry ■■■ out of bed, I fuelled up & headed into the mountains, passing some interesting places on the way.


I got held up for 20 mins while this mess was sorted out

Then it was back to getting the miles done, sometimes a lot slower than others, the next pic will explain why.

You don’t go flying down here when you gross 100000lbs, decent engine brake or not, I then managed to drive past a Husky Truckstop & I have a picture to prove it! This is the one at Sicamous BC.

I tipped at this place, the steel was for a new building at the site of a new Saw Mill, they still float the logs down the river here in the traditional way.

After that i headed about 300 miles north west to Williams Lake BC to collect some empty ATV crates, again I parked at a Husky, it was raining again & dark so no pics.

Day 7, After loading the crates I headed soth west to Pemberton BC, this is close to Whistler & the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I went through THE most beautiful country I have EVER seen today, I’ll let the pics do the talking.

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The snow started, it didn’t settle on the road thankfully, as you can see I haven’t got any weight on & there’s some real steep hills over this way, this next pic tells you how severe the drop, I’ve been over Cenis & the like & they’re like bowling greens compared to this, I was too busy concentrating on staying on the road to take pics but I managed to get one of the sign at the top.

After that I got to Pemberton, picked up a couple of Snowmobiles for Edmonton AB, then went through Vancouver to Langley & Chilliwack where I collected more empty racks, I then headed down Hwy3 which runs parrallel to the US border, there’s a few hills along the way as the following pics will testify.



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Day 8, I had parked the night before outside the collection in Oliver BC & put my toilet roll in my fridge & went for a curry, there’s a big East Indian population in BC as well as the Native Indians that are everywhere in Canada, only one lot know how to cook up a decent ruby though & I was glad to see the sight of Turban wearing locals! I loaded a tractor that was going to Calgary & withs windows down headed up through Kelowna to Hwy & the Rogers pass which looked like this when i got there



After that it was a good run down to Calgary where I got the tractor off & went to the Flying J for the night.

Day 9, from Calgary I went up to Edmonton to tip the sleds I loaded in Pemberton, from there I headed home, stopping for the night at the Flying j in Saskatoon, where I made a complete pig of myself at the Flying J buffet, had a shower & hit the sack.

Day 10, an easy run back to the yard, 5600 miles in 10 days, all legal, I had a good nights kip every night & a decent dinner in my belly every day, I only saw one act of bad driving & that was the idiot who managed to fall off a perfectly straight road in the daylight ( the blue Volvo) pretty much an average trip this side of the Atlantic.

I’m living the dream…

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Some of that scenery is gorgeous. Looked like a very interesting drive, or is it that ive driven on the A34, M3 and M27 today so anything would look better than that lol

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When I was over there in 2007 I took the same route, started at 100 mile house and drove down to Vancouver. I agree the scenery was some of the best I saw in 2weeks, down between Clinton and Pemberton it was almost desert like and the rivers were crystal clear, took some great pics, a lot from the same places you did.

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id come drive over there just to have that volvo

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gogzy:
id come drive over there just to have that volvo

I’d want the model above that one, but that’s just bein picky… :laughing:

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Great pics Newmercman, brought back memories of last year working for Larks out of Portage la Prairie, but I have to say I’m glad to be back here.
Keep posting the pics, some of the 11 or 17 Northern Ontario in winter would be good, if i could work it out I’d put some of mine on.

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Nice diary Mark.
From reading it all, it seems that you are enjoying your self over there.Some beautiful scenery, don’t get that on route to Doha !!
Except for Turkey.
GS

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Thanks, Mark I have just read Both of your
write ups about your trip and found it to be
excellent with brillant pictures to boot,when
do we get the next one ,

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Thanks for your comments lads, don’t worry there’s more to come, you’ll just have to give me a couple of weeks to get some decent miles done.

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cracking diary, great read and pics mate.
volvo looks nice. how do you rate it, any big differences? (apart from the bonnet, and living space.)

10 mile hill sounds fun :open_mouth:

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The Volvo is just like any other Volvo from the drivers seat, except for the bonnet, It’s got the D13 Volvo engine @ 485hp so it goes well enough, it rides well as it has air suspension on the front axle & the cab is big enough, there are 3 bigger cabs that you can get on a Volvo, but as I said it’s got enough room to move about in & decent storage space, it has nice big windows & mirrors compared to the yank tanks & it’s in a different class to the Kenworth I used to have. I like it & it even looks ok in that nasty Big Freight green!

10 mile hile is fun, at the bottom it gets all bendy, a bit like coming down the French side of Mont Blanc, there are plenty of scars in the road from where people haven’t made it, there’s a reason that people crash here but it’s only a certain type of driver that does normally & I’ll appear racist if I tell you!!

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great pictures ther nermercman[got the name right this time]
a marvellous change from doing european work.
you have done it all now.
whats the driving hours like?
are they as keen as in europe.
how many a day etc?
do they split hairs over minutes like vosa do?
enjoys your job,it looks great …greg

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Hello Greg,

Where you been hiding mate?

Driving hours are pretty good, we run on a log book which is good, you can’t take the complete ■■■■ as you have to log your fuel stops, border crossings & anytime you run over a scale 100% accurate, there are scales all over the place but they’re not always open, so you can deduce from that what you want!

We can drive 13hrs a day in Canada & 11 in the USA.
70hrs in 7 days in Canada, 70 in 8 in the USA
We have to have 24hrs off in any 14 day period in Canada but as long as you don’t exceed 70 hrs in any 8 day period you can drive 365 days a year in the USA.

If the speed limits allow you can do 770 miles a day in the USA on paper so there’s no need to fiddle the log books, that’s plenty enough for 1 day! Almost London to Milan!

The Police don’t take any notice of you as long as you’re not being a complete lunatic, they leave it to the DOT at the scales.

And yes, I’m having a great time thanks, best thing I’ve done since the old days when we used to have fun doing the job.