Taking history for granted

We arrived in Trail yesterday after another epic drive of 11 hours from Vancouver. This time, the scenery was relentless, mountain after mountain, forest after forest, lake after lake and river after river. This kind of scenery makes a long journey of this length fairly easy to cope with. We headed up Route 1, via Chilliwak and Hope, where we turned right on the Route 3 that leads up through the mountains to Trail via, Manning Park pass, Alison Pass, Princeton, Bonanza Pass, Kerimeos, Osoyoos, Bromley Rock, Midway, Grand Forks Christine Lake, Nancy Green, Rossland and finally Trail.

We arrived at Dave and Merna's house in the evening and promptly sat down to a sumptuous meal. Then I crashed out for the night. Today I got in touch with my feminine side, much to my brothers disgust, and went for a haircut, shave and pedicure at the local hair salon.

One thing I have noticed since being in Canada and visiting relatives is that they value their heritage much more than we British do. Maybe we do take our roots for granted, possibly because we have such long family lines that go back to the dark ages. Here in Canada, everyone seems to know their lineage from the point of their ancestors arriving in country right through to the present day and proudly show you pictures of Great Auntie/Uncle or Grandparents, arrived in this or that year, and staked this or that claim.

Maybe it's because they want to set the baseline for this fairly new nation, and by talking about their ancestors, they are establishing a credible beginning that will be recorded for millenia. Either way, it was quite sobering to have my second cousin Laurie, tell me about my family tree on this side of the pond with so much detail. It was very good of her to draw me a family tree and put them in perspective with the family we have visited and stayed with so far.

I asked my Mother to describe the German side of my family and she could barely remember her father's name.... but then she can barely remember where she put her false teeth. :o) some work to be done on that side of the family tree me thinks...