Under leaden skies, I drove through British...

Under leaden skies, I drove through British Columbia’s Mackenzie Range, past gray cliffs, towering Sitka spruce, pounding waterfalls, somber fiords. My tiny red car struggled up the grade, and the road seemed to stretch to infinity in front of me and spring from infinity in the rearview mirror.

As the windshield wipers slapped percussively, the radio played a tune by Canada’s native daughter Joni Mitchell, her plaintive voice piercing the gloom:

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling,

traveling, traveling, traveling

Looking for something, what can it be?

For all I knew, I might have been driving my life away, circling in an endless asphalt figure 8. No other cars were in sight, and I wondered whether there was just me left in this world now--me, the mountains, the road and this song. Against a backdrop like this, your whole life can spin out before you, and to the beat of the wiper blades, I replayed the events of the past and questioned the path of the future.

I was on a lonely road, and I was traveling along Highway 4, looking for something--a town called Tofino. On Vancouver Island’s northwestern shore, Tofino is reputed as a center for whale watchers, and since we don’t have whales in the Northern California town where I live--at least not the aquatic kind--I thought it might be nice to see one.

But soon after I left Victoria, I began to realize that what I thought to be a simple journey of 185 miles was going to be nothing of the kind. It was May, and the snowcapped mountains were shrouded in fog and constant drizzle. The scenery looked more like rugged Alaska than the gentle hills I’d anticipated.

Outside Port Alberni, a sign said it was 53 miles to the next gas station. I was on a lonely road, and I was traveling. As I drove, I thought about why I had left my husband and comfortable home to endure the discomforts of bad weather on strange, remote roads. The story I told myself initially was that I was searching for whales. But during the hours spent alone in the car, I realized that the whales were only the latest excuse for my restlessness.

All my adult life, an insatiable curiosity has propelled me toward the next home, the next job, the next trip. It’s as though, when I was born, some cosmic joke flung bits of me around the planet, and I’ve been on a lifelong scavenger hunt to find those parts of my psyche that lie outside this sack of flesh and bones.

When I reached Tofino, things began to look up. The sun was shining, and I cheerfully set about looking for a room. Because it was the off-season and the middle of the week, and just about the end of the road in western Canada, I assumed I wouldn’t have any problems. Wrong. Tourists from Britain and Germany had also come to see the whales and were crawling in every corner of this tiny town. And they had booked ahead.

Finally I nabbed a vacancy at a rundown motel on the shores of Duffin Cove. The room was furnished in early Salvation Army chic, rather like my college apartments. As I stepped onto the threadbare Astroturf covering the balcony, the view took my breath away: a sheltered cove with surf crashing against rocks and tiny wooded islands just offshore. I took advantage of the motel’s rather odd choice of outdoor furniture and plopped down onto a dusty pink velour armchair. The cushion produced a sound like a duck call.

I stood up and tried again.

Quack!

Trying to remain motionless so I wouldn’t agitate the chair, I listened to the pounding waves and soaked up the seascape until the sun set and the night was black. I felt the tension from the long drive start to seep away.

When the chilly evening air finally forced me back into my room, I paced round and round the coffee table. I could feel all the familiar signs--agitation, boredom, restlessness. It’s always the same. When traveling alone in remote areas, I can gorge myself on beautiful scenery all day. I can hike, fish, swim, chat in shops, visit the one-room museums. But what’s there to do in the evening? The same mysterious compulsion that propels me on the road won’t leave me alone at night. Keep looking, an inner voice says. Right now you may be missing something.

I circled the room, trying to keep myself from going out, but soon I was bursting through the door like a werewolf on a full-moon night. Within minutes I was sitting at the Blue Heron, drinking a beer and staring out at the docks. The place was nearly empty. Where were the other tourists?

Slowly, I suspected I’d entered some time warp to the ‘70s, an era I barely survived the first time around and was not eager to chance a second. The low-budget, pale oak furniture had rounded corners so that if someone passed out suddenly and came into contact with a chair arm, he wouldn’t lose an eye. The waitress wore a miniskirt and knee boots with platform soles and three-inch heels. My ankles wobbled in sympathy. Posed at the bar, she bobbed to the Bee Gees.... “Uhhhh, aahh, aahh, aahh, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.”

I once had a Chihuahua that howled in agony every time the phone rang. Disco music has that same effect on me, and when I heard Donna Summer grind into low gear and start panting the 16-minute intro to “Love to Love You Baby,” I bolted for the door.

The smart thing to do was try to enjoy my ugly room. Instead I sped down the road to Ucluelet, a town about 12 miles south, where, I’d read, there was a cozy pub. I envisioned a seaside haunt with mullioned windows, a roaring fire and cold ales.

But at 10 p.m., Ucluelet was clearly shut down for the night. Consulting the map, I set off on another attempt at finding a picturesque pub. Soon blacktop gave way to gravel road that led into a dark forest. Could this be the way? Perhaps it’s only a brief jog through the woods until I come out at the docks?

The rain was streaming down now, and my visibility was limited, but I could see that the road had narrowed to two cow trails. Trees on either side had been sheared off, leaving jagged stumps like barricades. My imagination produced a variety of images that leaped at the windshield--Kodiak bears, Freddie Krueger, sasquatch. I looked for a safe place to turn around, afraid I would blindly back over a tree stump, when my headlights flashed upon a poster with a bold headline nailed to a tree: BLASTING SCHEDULE.

Now the familiar bargaining began: Oh, dear Lord, if you will please let me get out of here alive without puncturing all four tires, I will be good. I will go straight back to my room and read Gideons’ Bible from cover to cover. No more drinking and carousing for me!

The Lord came through, but then extracted his price. As I lay awake all night in my room wading through Genesis, my next-door neighbors conducted an excited play-by-play of “Matlock” in Hindi, punctuated by frequently flushing toilets.

I vowed Day 2 would be better than Day 1. I would find a new hotel, then shift gears and focus on the thing I had come for: communing with nature. Sometimes the ability to appreciate the quiet joys of the wilderness takes a while in coming.

At 1 p.m. I boarded the Leviathan with a dozen German tourists, a handful of Brits, the captain and first mate. The crew loaned me a yellow rubber slicker with a hood as the rain continued to fall. When the captain pulled the throttle and we roared off into the icy wind toward Grice Bay, I congratulated myself on the one good decision of this trip so far--choosing to ride in a covered cruiser rather than an open-air Zodiac raft.

Spring brings the migration of gray whales along the Pacific coast. Their 10,000-mile journey from Mexico to the Arctic is the longest of any mammal, but from March to September some whales choose to stop in the shallow waters of Grice Bay and feed on ghost shrimp.

Within 15 minutes three of the behemoths were gorging alongside our boat, oblivious to our cries of excitement. They seemed to have no fear of the boat whatsoever and made no attempt to leave. In fact, as the captain pointed out, whales are as curious about humans as we are about them. At points Grice Bay is only 50 feet deep, allowing the whales to spy-hop. They pushed their tails against the ocean floor to lift their heads out of the shallow water-- to look at us .

While in Tofino, I noticed that Canadians seem to consider whales a superior life form--similar to extraterrestrials--who have graced humans with their company. After my brief whale encounter, I had to agree. I was enchanted by the overtures of these giant mammals to introduce themselves, and longed to reach out and touch them.

From the deck of the Leviathan, I also saw bald eagles perched in the tops of trees, their white heads gleaming against the green leaves. Awestruck, I watched one glide over the water, spreading its majestic wings to seven feet. Born in the U.S., I had to come to Canada for my first glimpse of this American icon.

The next day I hiked through the temperate rain forest of Pacific Rim National Park. The rhythm of walking through the primeval wilderness and the calling birds and rustling leaves slowed my anxiety about seeking and getting and being and having until it faded altogether.

In the evening, I stood on the deserted shore, watching the majestic ocean slip beyond a horizon painted purple and gold. In places like this, you can see how terms like “land’s end” came to be. You can believe that myths about sasquatch aren’t really myths, and you can feel part of some great master plan instead of just another solitary aspirant adrift in a sea of miserable wretches. For the moment, my searching ceased, replaced by a deep satisfaction.

I was alone but no longer lonely.