When traveling in the north country you are
constantly converting things. It might be kilometers to miles or it might be liters
to gallons, or gallons to liters. A sign warning you about a corner might show 50.
Now when that is in kph is actually supposed to be a 35 mph corner. That’s a much
different speed which can make things exciting! Also, it is really
odd to see the speed signs that read 100! That would be in kilometers per hour.
Now in miles per hour, that is about 65. To add to the confusion, the paths we
have been traveling go back and forth between Alaska and Canada, sometimes both
within one day. We often ask each other, “What country are we in?"
Fuel
is a whole different issue in Canada. How many liters you may ask go into a
gallon of fuel? Well, now that’s my job. We keep track of our fuel consumption,
so Pat hands me the receipt and I multiply the liters by 0.264. That gives me
the gallons purchased, so I can calculate the miles per gallon. (This big truck
and camper has been averaging about 12.5 mpg.) You need to know what mileage
you have been getting to know if you have enough fuel to get to the next
station. There have been times on our trip when the gas stations are about 300
miles apart. Miscalculate and it’s a LONG walk, especially when there are very
few travelers who might come along to assist you.
Another
issue with fuel in Canada is that the pumps up here require you to enter the
dollar amount you want to purchase, even if you are using a credit card. This
gets confusing. You have to know how many gallons of fuel you need, and then
you convert that amount to the liters needed, and that is multiplied by the
price of fuel, which finally determines the dollar amount you need to select. Whew!
There have been a few times when the guess was missed, and the truck
wasn’t filled. One really annoying time was a guess that $200 would fill the
tank, but it didn’t. So, an additional amount had to be selected and then it
only took about 2 liters more to fill the dang tank.
Now we can also talk about that dollar amount. The fuel is in Canadian
dollars, so in American dollars it is a bit less. For example, that $200 in
Canadian dollars was only $152 in American. When we’ve had those larger fill ups, we do
the conversion to take the sting out of the sticker shock. Fuel prices up in
Canada have run anywhere from $5.40/gal in American to $8/gal in American.
We are glad when we roll back into Alaska where fuel tends to be between
$4.00/gal and $4.50/gal in American dollars. In addition to lower costs, when
in Alaska we don’t have to do any conversions! Yeah!
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