Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels, and Counterculture in Canada

345 Pages·2018·19.616 MB·English

by  Linda Mahood

Thumbing a Ride

LINDA MAHOOD
Thumbing a Ride
Hitchhikers, Hostels,
and Counterculture in Canada
© UBC Press 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without prior written permission of the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Mahood, Linda, 1960-, author
Thumbing a ride : hitchhikers, hostels, and counterculture in Canada / Linda Mahood.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-7748-3733-0 (hardcover). – ISBN 978-0-7748-3735-4 (PDF). –
ISBN 978-0-7748-3736-1 (EPUB). – ISBN 978-0-7748-3737-8 (Kindle)
1. Counterculture – Canada – History – 20th century.  2. Hitchhiking –
Canada – History – 20th century.  3. Hippies – Canada – History – 20th century. 
4. Youth hostels – Canada – History – 20th century.  I. Title.
HM647.M346 2018 306’.1 C2018-900992-6
C2018-900993-4
UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our
publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund),
the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences,
through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
A reasonable attempt has been made to secure permission
to reproduce all material used. If there are errors or omissions they are wholly
unintentional and the publisher would be grateful to learn of them.
Set in Goudy Sans and Minion by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd.
Copy editor: Robert Lewis
Proofreader: Helen Godolphin
Indexer: Cheryl Lemmens
Cover designer: Jessica Sullivan
Cover images: front, Rita Daly (left) and Barb Sneyd hitchhiking outside Moose Jaw,
Saskatchewan, 1972 | photo by Patricia Daly, courtesy of Rita Daly;
back, Kelly Ziolkoski waiting for a ride in 1976 | photo courtesy of Kelly Ziolkoski
UBC Press
The University of British Columbia
2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
www.ubcpress.ca
To my son, Jack Satzewich
We had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
– Jack Kerouac
Urban Legend: The Disappearing Hitchhiker
Told by Tanys Howell, 16, Toronto, 1973
Well this happened to one of my girlfriend’s best friends and
her father. They were driving along a country road on their way
home from the cottage when they saw a young girl hitchhiking.
They stopped and picked her up and she got in the back seat.
She told the girl and her father that she just lived in the house
about five miles up the road. She didn’t say anything after that
but just turned to watch out the window. When the father saw
the house, he drove up to it and turned around to tell the girl
they had arrived – but she wasn’t there! Both he and his daughter
were really mystified and decided to knock on the door and tell
the people what had happened. They told them that they had
once had a daughter who answered the description of the girl
they supposedly had picked up, but she had disappeared some
years ago and had last been seen hitchhiking on this very
road. Today would have been her birthday.
– Quoted in Edith Fowke, Folklore
of Canada (1976), 265
Contents
List of Illustrations / ix
Acknowledgments / xi
1 Get Your Motor Running: Risk, Ritual, and Rite of
Passage Travel / 3
2 Thumb Wars: Adventure Hitchhiking / 25
3 Rucksack Revolution: Quest in the Age of Aquarius / 63
4 Cool Aid: The Transient Youth Movement / 101
5 Crash Pads: Blue-Jean Bureaucrats versus the Canadian
Youth Hostels Association / 135
6 Head Out on the Highway: Stories from the Trans-Canada
Highway / 173
7 Car Sick: Hitchhiking Dos and Don’ts / 205
Conclusion: The Vanishing Hitchhiker Eulogy / 239
Notes / 249
Index / 317

Illustrations
3 / Hitching in Saskatoon
25 / Hitchhiking back to Edmonton after climbing to Morro
Peak, 1961
38 / Early youth hostel in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies,
Priddis, Alberta, 1940
41 / Valeen Pon travels the hitch and hostel way, circa 1953
43 / “Having a Cup of Coffee before Leaving,” Bragg Creek hostel,
August 22, 1959
44 / “‘L.A.’ Was the Cry of Two Hiking Vancouver Girls,” circa 1924
63 / Hitchhikers from Toronto and British Columbia taking a break
near Winnipeg, 1970
69 / A few of the 55,000 attendees leaving the Strawberry Fields Rock
Festival, Bowmanville, Ontario, 1970
87 / “After you’re through with the Army of Transient Youth ...,”
cartoon, 1970
101 / The Battle of Jericho, October 15, 1970
120 / People forced out of the Jericho hostel before the statement to the
press from the Vancouver Liberation Front, October 1970
124 / The Battle of Jericho, October 15, 1970
128 / The Battle of Jericho, October 15, 1970
135 / Elk Island hostel spring work party, 1974