moving on from Nelson

I pulled into Nelson once again this morning, after camping the past three nights at another free campground, Six Mile Lakes campground, just a little ways northwest of Nelson (although I got there from the other side, from the Slocan Valley). I was going to come into town yesterday, but then I noticed there seemed to be an awful lot of people around for a Monday morning, and asked someone and it turned out, as I was wondering, that it was a Canadian holiday, B.C. day, and things would be closed. So today I pretty much did a whirlwind of errands, and am now all set to leave town. I still haven't received my SIN card, but I arranged to have it forwarded to the post office in Jasper National Park (in Alberta, but right on the B.C. border), where I'm planning to go from here. I was thinking of doing some more wwoofing around here after camping the past week, but thinking about it, that's just putting off making some money, and there isn't much of the summer left.

So after doing assorted reading and some internet surfing, Jasper sounds great, and it's also where someone I met in Asia recommended as a good place to spend the winter skiing and possibly working at a ski resort, which is sort of what I had in mind for this winter. There is actually a little town (called Jasper) inside the national park, and it sounds like there are lots of work opportunities around there. So I'm basically just going to head up there, explore the park for a few days and then start asking around and see what might be available in the job department. If it's anything like Denali Park in Alaska, then they will be looking for people to finish out the season, who can stay longer than other folks. I'm also planning to stop through Banff National Park and check it out. But it's supposed to be busier and more touristy, so for the time being I won't plan to spend much time there, but who knows. That pretty much covers things for now, I'll be hopping in the trusty Toyota (which I just got an oil change for, seems to be running pretty good, and it got me up a bunch of gravel roads) and heading out this evening, most likely staying at another free campground along the way. It's not really all that far, so I'll easily be getting to Banff tomorrow and then may stay there a night or two. I'm not sure about internet access after this, hopefully I'll find something up that way, I imagine I will.....