If he got all the way across Canada, he must have discovered their secret national sport!
I discovered it while participating in medieval re-creation events many many moons ago, and the secret was unlocked for me by a Canadian friend. See, hockey's just not the only major sport up there...if you live in Canada and have a car, you speed and tailgate. If you live in Canada and don't have a car, anything outside a bus route means thumb out. That means the hidden national sport of Canada (at least southern Canada) is the hitchhikers out there trying to get the speeders to slow down. The true secret, as unlocked by aforementioned Canadian friend while he was between owning cars, is this: light a cigarette. He got 300 miles in less than 11 hours on small roads, because he said every time he gave up and lit a smoke someone would pull over and tell him he could have a ride if he'd put it out first. He got from Maple Ridge, an eastern suburb of Vancouver, to a site near Clinton, BC on a cigarette and a half.
SHAME on any of my fellow Americans who mangled the poor thing. Not cool, guys!