The kindness of strangers: Pulling up at the right motel saved a long-awaited canoe trip

CBC Radio One's The Early Edition is asking listeners to share their stories of kindness from strangers for a series that runs on Thursday mornings.

This week's story begins when Raymond Desjardins' car broke down on his way to a five day canoe trip in Bowron Lake Provincial Park.

Dear stranger,

My friend and I had just set off from Vancouver to do a five-day canoe trip in Bowron Lake Provincial Park when we met.

We'd been planning the trip for quite a while reservation at the park need to be booked months in advance, I'd taken some time off work and my friend was squeezing in the adventure the weekend before university classes started.

We were about eight hours into our drive to Bowron Lake, which is southeast of Prince George in B.C.'s northern Interior, when our car broke down.

Luckily, we were just outside of a small town called Wells which has a little restaurant and motel where we met you. We walked into your motel and asked for help calling a tow truck.

You gave us the number of a mechanic in town who could help us out. We called him, butas it was quite late, decided to sort out the car the next morning and so booked into the motel.

It turned out our car issue wasn't a big deal to fix, but the mechanic needed to order a part that would take a few days to show up.

At that point, we figured our trip was cancelled. If we were going to finish in time, we had to leave that very morning and the lake was at least another hour away.

When we mentioned the change of plans, you insisted that we not miss our trip.

You offered to drive a two-hour round trip to drop us off at the lake, coordinate with the mechanic to fix up the car while we were gone, and then pick up us after we finished canoeing.

It all happened very quickly and, suddenly, we were back on track for our trip and heading out.

I remember as you dropped us off at the lake, you even handed us a bag of fresh, homemade cookies to take along. Everything you did to help us was just unbelievable.

It was gorgeous, amazing trip that never would have happened unless you'd come along and helped us.

I'll never forget your kindness; it's people like you that make me want to go out of my way for others who are travelling and in need of help.

Thank you.

Yours,

Raymond Desjardins

If you have a story about the kindness of strangers, emailThe Early Editionat earlyed@cbc.ca.