I started my adventure to Canada in their summer of 2014 with the intention of staying the winter and then heading to Central America in the following Spring to learn Spanish and be with Sofia in her homeland. I landed in Calgary, Alberta and was given a lift to Banff by a mate from university who was staying there at the time. I had been on the Olanzapine depo for about 6 months now and had gone from about 90 kg to 120 kg, my personality and social skills had deteriorated significantly, to the point where I would almost sit entire conversations in a group setting and not say a thing the whole evening. My mate tried to integrate me into the local scene, but it just didn’t happen. On top of this I couldn’t find accomodation and was paying expensive nightly rates at the YWCA for a dorm room of about 8 beds, where I slept most of my days, and spent the long afternoons reading by the local river.

Although I found a job reasonably quickly bussing tables at the Old Spaghetti Factory, I knew my situation was not financially viable long term. So I decided to make my way to Whistler, British Columbia, a place I knew well from my time as a lifty during the 2010 Olympics, and where I would have accommodation and an established friendship group. My mate gave me a lift to the highway and with a trusty cardboard sign I hitchhiked my way across the two provinces.

The first person to pick me up was a young fella probably a bit older than myself that had been living and working in Edmonton and was making it back to his home town in Kelowna where he was going for his sister’s wedding. Hitchhiking has its obvious risks but I feel as a 120 kg bloke those risks are mostly negligible, and the community of hitchhikers is great. However, hitchhiking is largely luck, and is left up to the power that be. As I haven’t kept in contact with anyone in the community. It is not too far for my mind to stray that the drivers are interventional agents or alternatively blessings. I jumped in the car and we chatted for a while undergoing the usual pleasantries, I was stoked to learn that he was going to Kelowna as this was a significant chunk of the journey that I was sure would take many stops. We chatted further and he shared his love of skydiving, after about an hour he pulled over, gave his mum a call for a status update and showed me a few skydiving videos, he then pulled out a pipe, had a pull and then offered me some. I was hesitant on two fronts first of the driving safety of the situation but grateful for the lift and comforted by his nonchalant attitude as if this was a regular thing for him, secondly I was a bit hesitant as I don’t commonly smoke the stuff and I was warned by Doctors back home to stay away from it. I threw caution to the wind however not wanting to be impolite and continued on with a one in all in attitude.

Shortly after this he decided to show me the track “Addicted” by Bliss n Eso, which had been, and still is, one of my favourite tracks in the years prior. This jump started my chemically induced creative paranoia. I started to wonder why he was showing me this track? Was he trying to tell me that he knew something about me and that maybe he had been put there to safely get me across Canada whilst extracting information from me?

I don’t remember much of the drive after that, and while I was trying to be vigilant for both road safety sake and my own paranoia. Eventually, as nightfall came I drifted off to sleep under the reassurance of his driving and the effects of both the Olanzapine and the THC. When we arrived in Kelowna it would have been well past midnight. I don’t remember getting there but he woke up in a spare bed in his house. I assume by his manner that he had been up quite a while, it was probably about 10 am. He woke me up and told me to have a big pull of the pipe, I complied and after which we went out and had breakfast at a local perogie place. I bought him breakfast as a thank you but didn’t eat much myself as I was trying to save cash. From memory I think the conversation was pretty limited, due to both my inebriation and guarded paranoia. Following this he took me to the Kelowna look out and showed me the city including the tower he wanted to base jump off. I think the friendly hospitality was that of a local trying to show the best time to a visitor of the country, unfortunately though I was just too paranoid and out of it to appreciate it. He then dropped me off at a local hostel where my paranoia was really kicking in, I checked in, struggled to make it up the stairs with my luggage to my room, and once there, hit the sack and quickly fell asleep.

I stayed in Kelowna for maybe a week, during which time I caught up with an old mate from school, however as I noted in Banff my social skills weren’t the best and I was never really close with this woman. So I headed on with the rest of my journey getting picked up by a bloke with a shaved head in an oldsmobile, conversation was good and we drank slowly along the way. He was traveling to Victoria, so he dropped me off at a sky rail station along the way.

I don’t remember how I made my final leg of the journey from Vancouver to Whistler, I suspect I would have stayed with a family friend for a night then caught the bus up. However, once there I was quickly welcomed by old friends and reintegrated into a great community. I quickly lined up a job doing lift maintenance, and was given a lift pass to access the Bike Park. During my first Whistler summer in 2010, I was still a struggling uni student and didn’t have much money behind me, thus I bought a bottom of the line hardtail mountain bike. It was alright for blue runs and maybe even black runs, but I was young and dumb and was trying to keep up with mates on double blacks, I did the rock rolla on “detroit rock city”, an obstical that some of my mates avoided. I was leaning back fearful of going over the bars and once I hit the ground transition with no rear suspension my feet slipped forward off the pedals and impacted the ground tearing my right ACL and menisci in the process. 

This time round I was going to take things a lot slower, I bought a good dual suspension second hand bike, and only ran blue runs to build up my skills, endurance and confidence. I ran “crank it up” which is a flow run with jumps, several times over the course of a couple of days, on this run there was a box that you jump onto and then off, there was a little jump before it that I alway bypassed however. I was starting to get comfortable and came home on the third day telling my flatmates so, on the fourth day things didn’t go so well for me, I decided to hit the little jump before the box and hit the box with such speed that I nearly cleared it. I clipped the end of it though and was sent over the handlebars head first into the flat ground. Typically I like to think I have a high pain tolerance and don’t make a big deal of things, when I tore my ACL for the first time I made it all the way home to my second level apartment with my bike and didn’t go into town to see a doctor until the next day, when I tore it for a second time playing rugby I walked myself off the field and made little of it. However, in this biking accident I couldn’t do anything but lie there screaming. This lasted probably about 10 seconds which is a long time in the middle of a Whistler bike track, eventually I pulled myself together and dragged myself and the bike off the course. I didn’t want to say it at the time because I didn’t want to over exaggerate the issue, but I was pretty sure I had broken my collarbone. Unlike the first time, I was older and wiser and didn’t play the tough guy, I waited for the Whistler medics to arrive who then took me to the hospital, where it was confirmed my right collarbone was indeed broken. I came home in a taxi and a sling and my flatmates laughed joking about how well I was going.

I was due to start work that week but lost the job due to my inability to work, so I lied in bed all day recovering and not doing too much. During my recovery, I managed to get a one year contract in North Vancouver working as an Engineer as per my professional experience. So I moved down to Vancouver to start my new venture, finding a small flat in a retired couples basement.

The work was good, it was the same software and required the same expertise as my Australian work, however the methods used in Canada were slightly different. Thus, there was plenty of learning on the job required, which I enjoyed. Furthermore, the work environment was like that of a close family and I quickly settled in amongst a professional cohort and peers whose company I enjoyed.

It was around this time that I stopped taking my monthly olanzapine injection.