“Now and then in travel, something unexpected happens that transforms the whole nature of the trip and stays with the traveler.”
Paul Theroux
I was young, owned a car, and had never been to Canada. Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, celebrating Canada’s Centennial, was shattering attendance records for world’s fairs and it caught my fancy. Photos showed an innovative site located on artificial islands in the St. Lawrence River with forward-thinking modern architecture like Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome and Habitat 67, Moshe Safde’s revolutionary housing project. The expo also promised modern and fun urban transportation. A brand-new Metro connected the city with the islands. Once you arrived out there, you had a choice of the Expo Express, a steel-wheeled train that shuttled visitors between venues, a monorail, pedicabs, and boats gliding the canals.
I decided to drive to Montreal from New York City and convinced my friend Marian to come along for a long weekend adventure. We squeezed into my low-to-the-ground, yellow MG, two-seater convertible and headed north early one morning. It was a great day and we enjoyed having the top down, even though it scrambled our hairstyles. We breezed across the border because, in that era, a passport wasn’t necessary. The lack of sufficient legroom that caused my clutch-pressing left foot to cramp was the only drawback to the six-hour drive.
In Montreal, we found an inexpensive hotel. I was happy to find parking because we wouldn’t need the car to get to the Expo islands. We were looking forward to using the new Metro in the morning, but timing, as they say, is everything.
Up early, we waited at the Metro stop for a long time. More and more people joined us. We eventually learned that there was no service because employees of the Montreal Transportation Commission had walked out on strike at midnight. We were among thousands of commuters and tourists stranded at bus and Metro stops throughout the city. People were anxious to get to the Expo and began hitching and sharing rides. Since drivers seemed accommodating and there was a sense of shared camaraderie, Marian and I followed suit.
That ride ended up being the thing I remember most about the trip. We had front-row seats to the political differences between the French and English-speaking citizens of Quebec. Our driver and a fellow passenger had opposing views on whether or not Quebec should become independent from Canada. The debate see-sawed between French and English and lasted all through the slow ride in bumper-to-bumper traffic until we got to the drop-off point for the island. I didn’t understand all of the French words, but I got the gist and it was fascinating.
I’m pretty sure we enjoyed visiting many of the expo pavilions celebrating Man and His World, but none of them are remembered as vividly as the unexpected ride-hitching experience.