The Trips that weren't

My summer work term is almost done and I find myself dreaming of another grand adventure before returning to the books. Before I could think clearly I turned to Kayak.com (for all my flight planning needs) and started plugging in locations. Looking at the flight prices, the destinations, the layovers ... the shit I would get to fly over!!! I could go to Dublin? Paris? Casablanca?
Reality soon set in, realizing that I really don't have the time or the money or the people to go to any of these places. It reminds me of how much time I spend dreaming of conquering new territory. With that, I present the trips that weren't.

1. Greenland
What I wanted to do:

I really wanted to friggen go to Greenland. This is probably one of the ones I worked the hardest on.
Greenland is literally just a quick swim away 230KM (land to land) from Canada to mainland Greenland. So as you can clearly see above, I would bus to Montreal and then get a flight to either Labrador City or Iqaluit (Whichever is cheapest) where I would take one of those charter planes that take all the people that want to visit Greenland to the beautiful territory.

The Problem
There aren't charter planes worth of people who want to visit Greenland. As such, there aren't charter flights to Greenland. In fact, there is no way of getting from Canada to Greenland. None. Nothing at all. Here's what I would have had to do.

Bus to Halifax, take ... hang on ... take Iceland Air to Reykjavik (Capital of Iceland) and then take Air Iceland (note the subtle change in airline company) to Greenland. The awkward thing is that the flight from Iceland to Greenland is as expensive as the one from Canada to Iceland. Also it only flies every two days. WHY IS THERE NO DEMAND TO GO TO GREENLAND!!?

If you google "Ferry to Greenland" the second link is this one where a guy asks if there is a ferry from Nova Scotia to Greenland. One helpful response on the same page is "The old ferry didn't carry vehicles, and you had to wear a hat with horns sticking out, and carry a battle ax. It's damned unfortunate that there isn't a ferry today, considering the staggering amount of business and social interaction between the thriving metropolitan areas of Greenland and northern Newfoundland."  (there's no such thing as a stupid question). That being said, there is no ferry from North America or Europe (or Asia surprisingly) to Greenland. I thought I remembered finding one when I made my MS paint picture but I guess not.

Lastly, the only real "feasible" option to get to Greenland is to take a cruise line from Iceland or Norway. Apparently cruise lines have been in and out of the market for years. The popular line now is the Hurtigruten (I feel like if I were a bullie I would threaten people with hurti grutens). I looked at that for a bit, but this doesn't really look like my idea of a cruise:

Woah... this isn't where I parked my car

Also, $5500.

Canadian Bussing Extravaganza

The original plan for my cross America bus trip was for it to be across Canada. I think the real reason I deteriorated away from this plan was because of the NHL playoffs and my chance to see the Predators play. 

The trip took many different forms, but the one stood out as being way more awesomekward than the rest

What I wanted to do

Bus from Fredericton to Montreal to Ottawa to Thunderbay to Winnipeg (take a train to Churchill and back) to Saskatoon to Edmonton to Yellowknife to Whitehorse to Dawsons City, to Kamloops to Vancouver and fly home. 

This was going to be awesome. I was going to discover Canada and the bus would take me through many little towns and I could really get to know the country I live. Also, while I am doing it, why not just nip on up to Churchill Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world. 

The Problem

That's not how busses work. Mostly. Also taking a train to Churchill is a bitch. The route I would have to take only had 1 big difference. Can you spot it? 

Yeah you can't take a bus from Yellowknife to Whitehorse. You would have to double back down to Edmonton.  One of the most fun things about planning my bus trips was just looking through all the itineraries and seeing just where the heck the bus would take you. Examine this portion of the trip from Edmonton to Whitehorse for example: 

Edmonton -> Whitecourt -> Valleyview -> Grande Prairie -> Dawson Creek -> Fort St.John -> Wonowon -> Buckinghorse -> Fort Nelson -> Toad River -> Watson Lake -> Whitehorse. Or on a map: 

And that's probably about 30% of the stops. The rest are listed but there are no breaks. It's simply to drive into town and check out the gas station and see if it's still standing. 

To be honest, parts of me think that's pretty sweet. Check out all these little communities in a way you never would. But there is something about three days on a bus that just doesn't work for me. Further, they schedule if for you to arrive in Yellowknife at 11 PM and in Whitehorse at 4:25 AM. What am I going to do until Sunlight? Play a lose-lose game of try not to get knifed? 

Finally the last snag is that the train to churchill and back takes three days. Which is just really too long. I mean it would be sweet to do, but it's a trip on it's own. You don't simply ride a train for three days to step out into downtown churchill, squint your eyes to find a polar bear and then leave disappointed. 

Discovering Newfoundland & Labrador

I've flown to St. John's for soccer nationals once but I really didn't get to see the island of Newfoundland or any of Labrador. So I devised a trip that I knew would be amazing. It would be hard to see all of Newfoundland in the 8 day time period I was planning. But surely I could see a lot of amazing stuff. 

The Plan

First and foremost, the plural of ferry is ferries, not ferrys as my ms paint job suggests. Secondly: Fredericton to North Sydney, take the Ferry across drive up the NFLD Pinky to cross the gulf of St. Lawrence on another ferry and then drive up to Labrador City, down to Baie Comeau where I would take yet another Ferry and head back home. 

I wasn't disillusioned on this one: I was going to drive it. You can't do Newfoundland and Labrador on a bus. And I mean that literally: There is no city-city bus service there. I thought this trip was pretty reasonable. Until I started to look into it.

The Problem

Most of the Labrador highway is made of gravel. I didn't know a lot about the drive. I asked some questions on a forum because I knew it was a pretty deserted area and was worried about gas. Here are a couple of quotes from some of the feedback: 

"girlfriend's sister and boyfriend drove from Lab City to Grand Falls-Windsor in the middle of Newfoundland and that alone took around 3 days"

"There are flatbed tractor trailers loaded high with logs and a good rule of thumb for the entire route is to assume these trucks own the road. In essence, they kinda do as there are spots where they simply can't stop for you even if they wanted to."

"this road is surprisingly straight BUT there are several dips that will take you by surprise if you go too fast. Seriously, I've gotten a Dodge Neon airbourne on that [Paved] road and it wasn't on purpose"

Rental companies don't actually allow you to drive their cars on them. And although a somewhat short distance, driving apparently takes forever. Further, sections of the highway will be randomly closed/washed out. They also strongly suggest against driving at night since moose love hanging out there. Big moose too. 

Urg. Why can't they just pave all the roads in the country? Low population or not, what exactly is the government even spending it's money on? This is garbage. 

Thanks for the read!

Photo Sources:

http://www.scantours.com/greenland.htm

http://chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.com

http://www.artistic.ca/dteed/labrador.htm

ttp://www.gov.nf.ca/

http://www.globosapiens.net/jorgesanchez-travelogue/