Two diamonds, 5,515 kilometres
MARK RICHARDSON/TORONTO STAR
The roads cleared and smoothed as soon as Mark Richardson crossed the 60th Parallel south into Alberta.
The Mission: To carry a pair of one-carat diamonds, worth more than $10,000 each, from the sub-arctic Barren Lands to the Toronto auto show, 5,515 kilometres in total.
The Vehicle: 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel, Overland edition.
The Reason: To give the diamonds away as prizes in Wheels' Canadian International AutoShow contest.
Why drive? Well, why not?
Northwest Territories
(818 km across)
The highway around Great Slave Lake was often snow-covered but sprinkled with sand, so that the Goodyear Fortera winter tires on the Jeep slipped only a little around corners, always in a predictable way.
Just as well, of course. There are no services for hundreds of kilometres, and my Rogers cellphone couldn't find a signal to call for help. Traffic was light, too: about one truck every 10 minutes or so; some pickup trucks, and only two cars in the 300 km down to the ice bridge crossing of the Mackenzie River.
That's where I refuelled at the diesel pump, and soon after, the check engine light came on. But nothing seemed amiss with the Jeep. Probably just the fuel cap. I figured I'd give it a while to see if the light went out on its own.
Besides, the nearest Jeep dealer was another 300 km away, either doubling back or pressing south. The road at Enterprise was wide and clear of snow, so I picked up the pace.
"Where are you off to in such a hurry today, sir?" asked the RCMP constable when he pulled me over.
The Toronto auto show, I told him, to deliver the Jeep to the Wheels booth. I didn't mention the diamonds. The officer perked up. "You've got a good vehicle for the drive," he said. He checked over my licence and paperwork, and wished me well for the journey.
He was right. The $56,745 Jeep was comfortable and, more important, it was sure-footed. On the ice roads north of Yellowknife (see "Lifeline to the Far North," Wheels, Feb. 7), the road engineer had advised locking the truck's differential, so that all four wheels would always be driving, but the Jeep was too smart for such tricks.
The differential would only lock in low-speed mode; at regular speed, it would choose its setting automatically. Did it work? The truck never lost control of its wheels and never slipped, other than a couple of steerable, Zamboni-like slides on bare, wet ice.
If it could look after itself on lake ice, the Trans-Canada should be a cinch.
Alberta (1,241 km across)
The roads cleared and smoothed as soon as I crossed the 60th Parallel south into Alberta. The speed limit increased, too, to 110 km/h. This made the Jeep's comfortable cruising speed of 120 km/h less illegal and more relaxing.
The Mackenzie Highway runs vertically through the top half of the province, with little but trees for scenery. I drove on into the darkness and discovered the magic of the Jeep's self-dimming lights.
With the lights set to "auto," sensors on the front of the vehicle detect oncoming headlamps and dip the high beams, usually from far enough away that the other vehicle would not be bothered by the brights.
This is not an excuse for ignoring the dip switch, for trucks approaching from around a curve in the road would not activate the automatic dip until a bit too late, but it is a safeguard against forgetting and dazzling oncoming drivers. As well, the sensor was sensitive enough that it would not allow the brights to be used approaching vehicles too close from behind. It should be compulsory on all vehicles.
I stayed the night at Peace River and drove the next day to Edmonton, where trees gave way to prairie and the routine of farmland.
The check engine light still stared at me and I looked for directions to the local Chrysler dealer in the Navigation system to get it looked at, but then the light turned itself off when I stopped for fuel. That saved a few bucks worth of engine diagnostics.
Saskatchewan (841 km across)
There's a quick route across Saskatchewan, taking the Yellowhead trail through Saskatoon to just west of Winnipeg, but I wanted to visit Regina, where I worked in the late '80s. More importantly, I wanted to buy fuel at the Corner Gas station in Rouleau.
Somewhere along the way, my youngest son's school secretary called me on my cellphone to "discuss his behaviour" at school that day. Reception was crystal clear. I spoke to her through the Jeep's Bluetooth connection. She had no idea I was outside of Moose Jaw, not Milton.
The Corner Gas station was a disappointment, though. It's not real, for a start. It's a building made specially for the TV show and barricaded over now that shooting is finished. No fuel, no food.
Fortunately, the Jeep's diesel consumption was 10.8 L/100 km (26 m.p.g.). It can drive more than 700 km on a tank of fuel, more than enough to take me on through the flattest section of the prairie ("On a clear day, you can see the back of your head"), past Regina and onto the eastbound Trans-Canada Highway.
At Grenfell, the service station attendant said somebody had cut the air hose two days before. "For siphoning gas, we think, even though it's so much cheaper now."
I was planning to stop for the night not far away at Brandon, Man., but the fuel cap on the Jeep doesn't lock. Anybody can flip it open and siphon its fuel, even with the truck locked solid. This is a serious oversight that forced me to park for the night right outside the security of the motel's lobby.
MANITOBA (512 KM ACROSS)
I pressed on east, relying on the Navigation screen to find me a decent cup of coffee at Starbucks in downtown Winnipeg. (Key in "Favourite Places of Interest" and "Coffeeshops" and it'll point the way from across town right to the front door.)
I was really appreciating the Jeep's sound system by now, an upgraded entertainment unit standard on the Overland.
CBC radio was playing a song by the Weakerthans with its chorus of "I hate Winnipeg" over and over as I cruised though town, but out on the highway, movies were a better bet.
Passengers in the back seat could have flipped down the screen and watched a film, but on a long, long drive, I was content just to listen.
It would have to be a dialogue-driven movie that I knew intimately, to imagine the images as the sound blasted through the cabin. So Pulp Fiction won out, taking me past the flatlands and back into the forest.
Ontario (2,103 km across)
Still two more days to go, and the progress slowed as the speed limit dropped to 90 km/h. My cellphone lost reception again.
Just east of Thunder Bay, the Trans-Canada becomes the only road in the country to link West with East. For a few kilometres, there is no northern alternative – not even a logging road – and the only other roads that cross the continent are south of Lake Superior in the U.S. If you want to stay in Canada, you must take this stretch of highway.
And that's where Terry Fox's memorial is, at the point where he abandoned his Marathon of Hope in 1980. I parked the Jeep beside his statue in the morning for a moment of contemplation.
These days, it's simple to drive halfway across the world's second-largest country. You settle back in the Jeep and follow the computer's voice directions until you need to stop for fuel. Lock in cruise control, set the lights to "auto" and dock at enough drive-thrus along the way – and you could be anywhere, following the scenery through your window's screen.
But this is a vast land that was impossible to drive across just a hundred years ago. Never forget that.
As I cruised on southeast toward Sault Ste. Marie, through slowing snow north of the big lake and finally onto the three-lane expressway into the GTA and Toronto's Convention Centre, reflecting along the way on Terry Fox's achievement, the simplicity of the drive in the Jeep seemed all the more remarkable.
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Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. Email him at mrichardson@thestar.ca
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