The Martlet

I stand at the edge of the roadside, patient, my thumb directed confidently skywards. I am perched on the precipice of possibility. Freedom. The road extends enticingly. It pulsates with promise. Everything I need is in a pack resting at my feet. Liberty. The opposite side of the highway beckons, teasing with the allure of an alternate destiny. All that stands between me and changing my fate is a dozen steps and a dashed yellow line. Independence. I can feel the desiccating prairie wind stumble with heat stroke through the shimmering waves, rising from the baking Saskatchewan asphalt. Then again, I may be mistaken. Perhaps what I hear is the rustle of leaves from the New England maples that border the lazy, rolling roads of Vermont. Or maybe I am seeing the sun-soaked surf in the distance, interrupting my Vancouver Island vantage point from the towering coastal range of mainland British Columbia. Not that it matters. I am hitchhiking, and the journey is just as important as the destination.

introduction

I first became hooked on hitching during a trek from Lloydminster, Alta., to Boissevain, Man. I was 18 and a greenhorn through and through. My first ride of the day took me clear across the prairies — to within a half hour of my ultimate destination — in four fifths the time it would have taken me to drive, for free, including a meal and good conversation. I even had a nap. That was all it took. I was a full-blown convert.

But this type of scenario, I realize, is becoming increasingly rare in modern Western times. Hitchhiking appears, for all intents and purposes, to be on the decline. Besides the ubiquitous rows of ski-bums around mountain towns in the winter, and the liberal sprinkling of fruit pickers in the Okanagan summer, the practice seems to be on the wane.

As an avid hitchhiker myself, I am perplexed to no end by hitchhiking’s fall from grace and its stigmatized reputation in the West. Sensationalization and hyper–risk aversion are making it increasingly taboo nowadays to thumb one’s way around.

Despite the abundance of benefits — and acknowledging the recognized risks — hitchhiking is falling into a spiral of self-fulfilling decline, as collective societal rejection pushes it to the fringe. Normalization appears to be the only remedy for the ailing form of travel.

Ultimately the question to ask is: where have all the hitchhikers gone?

history

Hitchhiking has been known by many names. It has been referred to in the English language alternatively as autostop, thumbing, tramping and hitching, depending on where, when, and with whom would-be travellers have chosen to flex their solo opposable digit. While the upraised thumb is something of a universal symbol for hitchhiking in the West, elsewhere in the world the extended index finger or even an outstretched hand is considered an effective substitute.

Hitchhiking has existed for as long there have been adequate roads and enough vehicles to fill them. The origins of the modern-day practice are speculated to date back to the turn of the 20th century, with the spread of the automobile and the ensuing proliferation of paved roadways.

Perhaps originally practised predominately for short-distance, utilitarian purposes, thumbing took on a widespread requisite role in the 1930s as often the only means of transportation available to the hosts of unemployed travelling Westward during the Great Depression. This diaspora along the famed Chicago-to-L.A. Route 66 was captured in John Steinbeck’s 1939 fictional masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath.

The mid-century romanticization of hitchhiking was perhaps best captured by Jack Kerouac in his iconoclastic classic, On the Road. This beatnik centrepiece immortalized travel for the sake of travel, and posited hitchhiking more as the avenue for adventure.

Even interstellar hitching has been postulated, by Douglas Adams’s much loved cult classic, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Clearly hitchhiking holds a firm place in our collective consciousness. This still fails to address the disappearing hitchhiker mystery.

decline and risk

Statistically speaking, one of the greatest risks we face everyday is simply stepping into a vehicle — any vehicle. Statistical data is otherwise, however, virtually mute on the subject of hitchhiking, both in relation to its frequency and the hazards associated therewith. Lying outside the mainstream and extremely inconvenient to analyze quantitatively, it is exceedingly difficult to gauge the practice in its contemporary context, let alone how it has changed over time.

From an anecdotal standpoint, it seems clear that hitchhiking as a means of travel has been steadily atrophying over the past quarter century. For earlier generations, thumbing down to San Fran’s Haight-Ashbury was by no means an outlandish proposal. Catching a lift home from a neighbouring prairie town or spending a summer or gap year tramping across Europe was arguably as common as bunnies at UVic pre-2010.

This earlier romantic idealization has given way to suspicion and doubt. Nowadays, it is possible to drive the entire length of the Transcanada Highway without seeing a single roadside thumb. But why the change? Where have all the hitchhikers gone?

One oft-cited accusation is that hitchhiking simply isn’t as safe as it used to be. And yet this argument appears to originate from a general sentiment of growing crime and danger in the world, which is more often than not a product of media sensationalism than a view based on actual reality.

We typically receive only negative coverage of hitchhiking, which further contributes to its stigmatization. In spite of the countless positive thumbing experiences, it is only the rare horror story we read about in the newspaper.

It would behoove any responsible advocate of hitchhiking to make clear the dangers of thumbing a ride from strangers. Is there risk associated with this less-than-orthodox mode de voyager? Absolutely. But, as with any activity in life, the issue becomes one of risk management. After all, people have been known to lose their heads on a Greyhound bus.

While I would fall short of recommending without qualification hitchhiking to a solitary female, if common sense is applied and risks are appropriately mitigated, the positives of hitchhiking far outweigh the detriments.

positives

Hitchhiking has so much going for it. If discretion and common sense are exercised, it can be an exceptionally positive experience on a number of different levels. Conveniently, we can organize its slew of benefits into three broad categories: environmental, economic and social.

Like carpooling, thumbing minimizes unnecessary and wasteful overlap in transportation. It involves a traveller occupying a space that would otherwise be left vacant. With hitchhiking, driving suddenly becomes a form of pseudo-public transportation, with the all the associated benefits of transit, albeit on a smaller scale.

Economically speaking, hitchhiking provides the obvious advantage of a free ride to those either unable or disinclined to afford their own way. According to a more academic economic perspective, it introduces an alternative and consensual avenue for the redistribution of wealth — ad hoc social equalization at its finest.

I would argue that the most significant benefits of hitchhiking, however, relate to its social impacts. In an age of travelling in self-enforced isolation, with commuters tuning out of their immediate surroundings by tuning in to their respective gadgetry, hitchhiking provides a space for the increasingly rare chance at random social interaction.

Beyond your own prerogative of accepting or declining a ride (which can and should be exercised as freely as necessary), you as a hitchhiker cannot control who stops for you. As opposed to a risk, this travel quality can be considered an incredible opportunity. Instead of our habitual and normally subconscious practice of surrounding ourselves with people who share our world view, thumbing offers us unfettered exposure to entire cultures, subcultures, religions, occupations, etc., with which we would otherwise have no reason or opportunity to interact.

I find it unfortunate that our social interactions are too often restricted to “socially appropriate” contexts. Without a clear reason to engage, random, unprompted mingling usually makes people suspect. Perhaps in part because of its amorphous and unconventional nature, hitchhiking turns these prescriptive social norms on their head, creating a novel and refreshing space for otherwise “unjustified” dialogue and exchange.

The prospect of organic, non-paradigm reinforcing interactions provides a fantastically effective way of being exposed to alternate views and different lifestyles. Such contact reminds us of diversity and consequently breeds tolerance, allowing us the chance to be more cognizant and perhaps more accepting of the world around us, in all its (un)conventional manifestations.

This principle has led to the enrichment of my own life on numerous occasions. I have been picked up by Quebecois separatists and granny-great granny duos, I’ve learned of the stages of the apocalypse from an Islamic fundamentalist and helped a truck driver unload pallets of potato chips. I have been introduced to the intricacies of the commercial fishing industry off the West Coast of North America and learned of gay culture in puritanical Pennsylvania. It is uncanny the number of occasions I have found a common connection with my ride, no matter how far afield my travels have taken me.

An additional quality of hitchhiking, that is as convenient as it is marvellous, is the fact that, by necessity, your ride wants to pick you up. They want you to be there. Otherwise they would not have stopped.

This filter characteristically pre-selects for interesting conversations. Although to be fair, these “exchanges” can at times be somewhat one-sided. In fact, the “free ride” concept of hitchhiking is usually a bit of a misnomer. Instead of hard currency, your “fare” is normally conversation, which usually equates to a lot of listening.

Following on over a half decade of thumbing, my preconceived notions of the “stereotypical ride” have been anything but reinforced. I have caught lifts from the standard truck driver on numerous occasions, but more often than not the face(s) greeting me from my roadside vantage point are those of a footloose couple of retirees or a young family, of a single mother with children or a pair of wayward hippies.

Hitchhiking challenges are conventional understanding of the world in more ways than one.

legality

One question often faced by thumbward travellers is that of legality — where is hitchhiking even allowed? Unfortunately, the answer is often less than clear and can vary depending on the type and size of, and even location, on a road. The ambiguity is further deepened by the issue of enforcement. Anti-hitchhiking laws are simply not enforced in some jurisdictions, despite the presence of prohibitive legislation on the books.

For example, hitchhiking has been made illegal within particular municipal boundaries, on the 400 highways of Ontario, and in certain areas, presumably deemed higher risk, such as the Rogers Pass and the pan–Vancouver Island highway. Some provinces seem to allow thumbing from on-ramps while not on the actual roadway proper.

Of particular interest is the manner in which hitchhiking is prohibited. Instead of persecuting the actual hitchhiker him/herself, in Canada it is typically the act of picking up a hitchhiker that is outlawed. Standard highway signs read “It is illegal to pick up hitchhikers” or “No hitchhiking. Pickup is illegal.” Ironically, I’ve been told by drivers on occasion that they are more inclined to stop upon seeing a hitchhiker standing beneath such a sign. It would appear to strike a chord in those keen on thumbing their noses at the establishment.

While reassuring for anyone trying to thumb a ride, this legal posturing is hardly conducive to the proliferation of the practice.

initiatives/jurisdiction

Notwithstanding its prohibition in certain contexts, particular forms of hitchhiking have been institutionalized to good effect across British Columbia. For examples, “Casual Carpooling” — essentially hitchhiking with fixed points of pickup — has been implemented on numerous Gulf Islands. Pender Island initiated the practice in the mid-2000s, with Mayne Island quickly following suit.

A similar albeit less formal system exists on Haida Gwaii. For example, immediately outside the Masset airport can be found a bench and an oversized, carved thumb, giving travelers the chance to rest their legs as well as their digits while waiting for a pick-up.

Hitchhiking has been employed in creative ways to raise funds for various charities. Link Community Development in Europe organizes an annual Morocco/Croatia Hitch to fundraise money, while a hitchhiking competition is hosted by Viva Con Agua every summer to raise awareness about the lack of potable water worldwide.

conclusion

As less and less people engage in the practice of hitchhiking, a self-fulfilling prophecy begins to occur. Thumbing is pushed to the fringe and as a result only the fringe population is left to engage in it. This further reinforces its status as dangerous and outside-the-mainstream. What is necessary is a sea change in public opinion. This can only be achieved through normalization. The more that mainstream society indulges in the practice, the more accepted hitchhiking is bound to become. Perception becomes reality. Even if only one mind is changed at a time, every positive impression left by a hitchhiker on a driver is a step in the right direction. Ultimately, this article is not an epitaph, it is a manifesto. It is a call to thumbs. So go ahead — be safe, and give it a shot.

Oh, and don’t forget to bring a towel.