Maggie Thom's Blog - Posts Tagged "journey-across-canada"

In Captured Lies you get to journey across Canada as the story progresses. So I thought I'd showcase some of the places in Canada that you get to visit as you read through the enovel.

The story really starts out in Eastern Canada, in Ontario but you are soon on an airplane flying west. So I decided I'd start your journey in the west, Calgary, where Bailey's mom lives and where a good part of the journey begins. Bailey has just lost her mom, so flies in from Victoria and stays at her mom's house in south Calgary, while she deals with the lawyer, the funeral and discovering that she is being followed.

If you don't know much about Calgary it is a beautiful city that has two rivers running through it - the Bow River and the Elbow River. Sadly this year they were very destructive to the heart of Calgary, flooding and destroying so many homes and creating hardships for so many. (I wrote about some of what was happening, you can check out more here: http://wp.me/p2ydBl-rZ)

Calgary started out as a fort in 1875. As you may know cattle were a big part of their industry in the early days - thus 'cowtown' was born and is something they still live with, even though it has a little over one million residents and no cows in sight except for the Calgary Stampede Days...
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I started to introduce you to where you travel in Canada in my suspense novel, Captured Lies. Last week, we started in Calgary, which is essentially where the story really gets going. Bailey and Guy leave Calgary at night, as they are being chased by a man who is intent on killing Bailey. Only she has no idea why. She is trying to travel back in time to places that her and her recently deceased mother, lived when she was a child. As they moved a lot and usually on the street it was really tough for Bailey to figure out where she needed to travel to, to get answers.

She heads to Jasper but her goal is really Valemount, BC. (we'll visit her next week).

Jasper, Alberta is one of the most beautiful places in Canada. I love the mountains so I might be a bit biased but it is absolutely stunning. The first recorded visit to the area was that of David Thompson ( a great name if I do say so - my maiden name - no I don't think he's related), in 1810. In 1813, The Northwest Company built a settlement which became known as Jasper House, which was then abandoned in 1884. In the early 1900's the government established Jasper Forest Park which became Jasper National Park in 1930 (http://jasper-alberta.com/default.asp...).

In Captured Lies, you take a drive up Highway 93 to Jasper, sadly they do it at night so they miss...

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In the journey across Canada through my first suspense novel, Captured Lies, you leave Jasper, Alberta and head to Valemount, BC. It is a small secluded place but is incredibly beautiful, nestled between the Rocky Mountains, the Monashee Mountains and the Cariboo Mountains. It is a popular place for summer or winter outdoor activities – hiking, fishing, snowmobiling, heliskiing, whitewater rafting – some of the popular adventures and reasons people visit.

Valemount was really discovered in the mid 1800′s, when people were passing through going from Ontario to the Cariboo Gold Fields. Once the railway made its way through the area in the early 1900′s, Valemount became a railway station in 1928. Today there are over 1000 residents who call it home. (To learn more: http://www.valemount.ca/History.htm and/or http://www.valemount.ca/Infos.htm)

So in Captured Lies, Bailey really has no idea why she has to go there she just knows that there is some answers. She is using her vague memory of when she was five and some clues her deceased mom left her. Guy and Bailey stop at a gas station right on the highway outside of Valemount and that is when Bailey takes off. Guy follows her to an old, abandoned Cabin. It is there that she finds a few clues from her past. It is also where one of the men trying to kill her catch up to her.

I had the pleasure of spending a summer there many years ago with my family. We rented a cabin a few kilometers from Valemount. We were lucky enough to be there for the Salmon run. Now that is something to see. Where you see all the splashes in this picture are the salmon. I’ve never seen so many...

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Last week you visited Valemount, BC, a beautiful hidden Canadian gem.

In Captured Lies, Bailey and Guy have had to leave there really fast as the bad guy has found them and is intent on killing them.

So Guy and Bailey head to Edmonton, another place that Bailey had lived as a child. I'm not sure I mentioned this before but Bailey lived on the streets and on the run with her mom. Bailey never really knew why just that sometimes her mom would come and pull her from school in the middle of the day and she'd never see it or the friends, if she'd made any, ever again. By returning to Edmonton Bailey is hoping to find some answers maybe by tracking down some of the people that she remembers. She knows the odds are pretty remote that any of them are alive.

So how did Edmonton come to be? In 1795, the Hudson Bay Company built a fort on the edge of the North Saskatchewan River, which was name Fort Edmonton. It is suggested that it was named that after Sir James Winter Lake, the deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company who came from Edmonton, in Middlesex, England.

The fort was known for trading, dispatching brigades to remote outposts, planting food and grain crops in the spring, harvesting them in the fall, and hunting and fishing to obtain meat for the fort's inhabitants. In the 1840s, with the arrival of Methodist and Catholic missionaries, things slowly changed. The Methodists built a church outside of the fort walls in 1870 and started really the city of Edmonton.

With the gold rush in the 1890's many people stopped in Edmonton on their way north. Then the railway arrived in 1902, providing an easier means of travel to the remote area. The biggest change happened in 1947 when black crude oil (or as some called it black gold) was discovered just southwest of Edmonton near Leduc, the city benefited greatly and grew exponentially after that...
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