THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 31, 1950
When former Vancouver Sun columnist Jack Scott died in 1980, his one- time colleague Pierre Berton called him “the most graceful writer I have known.” Scott’s Our Town column anchored The Sun’s local section in the 1940s and ’ 50s — his folksy approach made him the most popular Sun writer of his era, maybe of all time. The Sun’s owner/ publisher Robert Cromie certainly must have liked Scott a lot, because on May 31, 1950, Scott talked Cromie into sending him on the mother of all road trips: a cross- Canada drive with his family in a woody wagon, towing an Airstream trailer. “Nearly everyone these days seems to have an urge to escape from the routine of day- to- day living,” Scott wrote at the outset of the journey. “We’ve had applications from more than a hundred would- be gypsies to join our expedition, from baby- sitters to cooks.” The opening- day photo showed Scott, his wife Grace ( who he called “Brown Eyes”) and their daughters Judy and Jill, taking in the view at Brockton Point before heading off down the TransCanada Highway. Standing in front of their handsome woody wagon, the Airstream and a totem pole in the background, the family looked like the model for an allCanadian family. Scott shot the rapids near Revelstoke, hung out with mountain goats in Lake Louise, and almost melted in the sweltering heat of the Prairies. He complained about the poor roads in Saskatchewan, talked to farmers about a flood in Manitoba, and fell in love with Quebec City. It was the kind of trip everyone dreams of making, but can’t, because it takes an eternity. It took Scott four months to make it across the country to Peggy’s Cove, N. S., where daughter Judy poured a bottle of water from the Pacific Ocean into the Atlantic. The plan was to sell the trailer and drive quickly back across Canada, but there wasn’t a big market for trailers in Halifax in October, so Scott and family turned south to continue his travelogue for Sun readers through Boston, New York, New Orleans, San Antonio and Phoenix. Unfortunately, Scott caught viral pneumonia in California. When the family limped back to Vancouver in mid- December, they had travelled 28,140 kilometres in seven months, enduring 16 flat tires ( 12 on the car, four on the trailer) along the way.