A voice in the wilderness

On a solo road trip in the Rockies, Nicholas Roe discovers he's not alone.

I was driving through the Rocky Mountains thinking about nothing much except whether to have another mint when a disembodied voice said, "Let's take the next left to Athabasca Falls ...". I did as I was told, took the turn and trotted off to see the waterfalls, as commanded. When I came back to the car, the Voice told me to drive on, adding, "Hope you didn't get too wet!"

This is the intriguing world of GyPSy, a device that is changing the face of drives in Canada and spreading to other parts of the world. Using the same direction-finding technology that powers satnavs, this gizmo - using a box stuck to my windscreen - considers which tourist route you have chosen, gives directions to your ultimate destination, comments on sights you pass, offers historical background and local stories, suggests where to take photographs and proposes side trips - from which it will guide you back to the main road.

I had picked up the GyPSy at Calgary airport from a woman at the tourist office who explained how to link it to my hire car's radio. As I nosed into the airport traffic, the Voice spoke to me with a sense of command that was to dominate the next 800 kilometres. In a drawling, down-home Canadian accent that changed personality and even sex during the following days, it gave me alternatives. Did I want to drive to Calgary? Turn right. The Rockies? Keep going.

As unseen satellites monitored my progress, the Voice then began a periodic commentary on my journey, offering stories that were at times accurate to within metres. During a tale about the history of horse-riding on these prairies, for instance, I found myself driving past fields full of the beasts. When I got my first sight of the looming Rockies, I'm told, "Those mountains'll be with us for the next few hundred kilometres!" On I motored.

I had decided on a four-day journey from Calgary to Banff, then north along the lonesome Icefields Parkway to Lake Louise and Jasper - one of the finest drives in the world - then east to Edmonton. Admittedly, my entry to Banff that first night was awkward because I had to remember that the Voice was not actually God and did not know which hotel I was planning to stay at (I had to stop and ask). But next morning, as soon as I started driving again, it gave me choices. Did I want to go to Lake Louise? Head straight on. Calgary? Take a right. Or why not just mosey around local high spots for a while?

I let it take me to the sweet isolation of lakes close by, where I walked a couple of trails. I took its advice and boarded Banff's cable car, soaring to the heights of the Rockies for views beyond description. Afterwards, the Voice asked if I would like to go to Lake Louise now. Turn left on the Trans-Canada Highway ... there you go.

So it went. The Icefields Parkway, an engrossing, 300-kilometre wilderness route past hanging glaciers and immense peaks, took me steadily north. It was here that the Voice made itself especially useful, urging me to get out of the car from time to time, something easily forgotten on long drives.

So up Johnston Creek I slogged for one sweating hour, past limestone rocks carved by eons of river run; into picnic areas where squirrels bustled; and to the snowfields of the Athabasca Glacier, where I walked on glinting ice.