Travel Experience: Driving in British Columbia

Early snowfall

“It is snowing!”

Visiting Surrey, B.C. in the mid seventies and accustomed to winter driving, I was excited and not concerned about a bit of snow. I had places to go and things to do. To me, they were urgent. High on my agenda was photography.

From the motel cabin where I was staying, I could see the parking lot covered with snow, but not the highway at the top of the hill. Had I been able to see it, I would never have tried to go out.   

Still snowing, it was actually quite picturesque, as I cleaned off my car. I decided to take some photographs of the snow, later on.

Heavy snow hung like soft, white blankets weighing down the bushes and huge, tree branches. The weather was quite mild and the snow was wet. It glistened with rainbow colors, reflecting the sun rays peeking out from under the dark clouds.

Tackling the hill to the highway seemed no problem as I was driving a full-size car with good snow tires, which normally handled heavy snow very well. It merely slid around a bit. 

Cautiously pulling out on the highway, as another car graciously waited, I suddenly realized I was not going to go very far. Neither was anyone else, as there were miles of vehicles trying to move in both directions. Most of them were just inching along the highway. 

At first, I wondered if there had been an accident because of the huge volume of traffic backed up on the highway. Several cars were off to the side of the highway, but it did not appear that had been any accidents. 

There were no ambulances, tow trucks or police vehicles in sight.

Chatting with several people who were standing on the side of the highway, it did not take me long to learn that the town of Surrey, on the British Columbia mainland, was not equipped to handle sudden, early snowfalls. Their highway maintenance facility was accustomed to coping with massive amounts of rain, not mini-blizzards.

This kind of a traffic jam seemed senseless to me, as there was less than half a foot of snow. For someone from Ontario that was not a lot, but it was wet and slippery. The snow was perfect for anyone wanting to engage in a snowball fight or build a snowman.

I soon realized I should not have gone out on the highway at all, but once I was on it, it was too late. I was in the traffic and could only move forward along with the other vehicles.

I spotted several men pushing and turning their cars around. That seemed futile too, as even if they did get their vehicles moving, there were too many cars ahead of them to go very far in either direction.     

I followed the rest of the cars, moving several feet at a time, hoping that there was going to be some kind of a traffic miracle and that the highway would open up.

That did not happen.

Finally, after driving about an eighth of a mile, I could see that all of the traffic was at a complete halt. I got out of my car and waited, along with many others doing the same thing.

“Ma’am, let’s turn your vehicle around, so you can go back to your motel.”

It was the man in the car behind me who had waited while my cared pull out of the motel parking lot.

“I think that might be a really idea!”

“It is too bad that there aren’t more people who can do that. Most of us are here for the duration.” 

An hour or so later, with his help and that of a number of other men, I turned my car around and inched my way back to my motel. I carefully slid my car down the small hill into the motel parking lot, very thankful to be home. Not everyone was that lucky.

By late afternoon, all of the snow had melted.

Such is one of my early experiences while driving in BC.