It was my second Friday in Revelstoke and my sister and I have made some plans of going to the Hotsprings. But as I already experienced, plans change. Instead of enjoying the Hotsprings we got a phonecall on Friday at 8:45 pm from a local company that has some firefighters working up at Williams Lake. One of their trucks broke down and they needed an intact truck there by Saturday 6 pm. My hosts and I quikly packed a few things together and set out for Williams Lake. I was suprised that everybody was in such a hurry but I did not know till then that you need 6-8 hours to travel 500 kms in Canada.
Our journey was pretty exhausting for my companions because they already had a full day of work behind them. I was really excited about seeing new sides of Canada but, you know it was already night and I have to admit that Canada is not very adventurous in the dark, on the highway. So while one of my friends could get some sleep on the backseats, the other one was driving and I tried my best to entertain them and make this trip a little bit more comfortable.
We made it and arrived in time early in the morning. The firefighting camp up there was huge. I have never seen that before. About 500 firefighters were still asleep as we finally could turn off the truck. Everything seemed to be well organized: There were special tents for the kitchen, first aid and signs where you are allowed to park or not. Every car entering the camp has a number on its front window so that the securities know, if one car is missing after a day of work. There are so many people to cook for and I have to say that the breakfast was not very delicious. Still tired, we picked up the firefighters and brought them to the actual place they were deployed. That took a long time on the gravel road. Surprisingly I could not see any fire. After the firefighters got dressed and got their instructions we left to pick up the broken truck to get it fixed.
The impression I got from firefighting is that you have to be very patient and that you should not have a problem with long times of waiting- because the period from starting at the camp till the actual work begun, took us probalbly 3 to 4 hours.
After we found a garage and a spare truck in Williams Lake, we three started our way home at lunchtime. And although I was still very tired I saw some sides of Canada’s on our way back. We crossed Cache Creek and Kamloops and finally arrived 24 hours after we started, back home in Revelstoke.
I think I made a typical Canadian experiences this weekend and there are some things that I should not forget to mentioned, because one thing I noticed is that these huge road trains are driving so fast that it scared me and that after overreading my entry I noticed that I call Revelstoke already as a kind of “home,” which is quite funny I think.
