Local adventure tourism entrepreneur Jim Coffey just got back from a gruelling four-day road trip across North America in order to get back home to the Pontiac after travel advisories issued by the federal government urged Canadians abroad to come home.

Coffey, who owns Esprit Rafting in Davidson, usually spends his winters south of the American border in the town of Jalcomulco, Mexico, where he teaches water rescue and leads rafting tours.

But with the government’s plea for Canadians to return home – and the fact that Jalcomulco is a tourist town, making it a potential hotbed for infection – Coffey decided to pack his van and hit the road for the long trip back to Canada.

“I realized that my little villiage in Mexico was like a sitting duck,” he said of Jalcomulco’s potential for exposure to the virus. He said the village was about to host the biggest tourism weekend of the year.

Additionally, the fact that his rafting business is in a precarious situation made the decision to come home that much easier, Coffey said.

So he packed up the van on March 25, crossed into the United States on the 26th and made it home safe and sound on the 28th.

While four days alone in a van would even be gruelling for the most introverted among us, Coffey at least had company in some form.

Since he teaches water rescue, Coffey has a life-size mannequin used to demonstrate water rescue techniques. So, for the duration of the trip, Coffey’s mannequin was perched in the co-pilot seat, eliciting at least a few double-takes along the way.

“He doesn’t say much but he’s a good travel partner,” Coffey said with a laugh. “Many people around the world know him as Bruce, I don’t know how he even got the name.”

While Bruce may have raised a few eyebrows, it made border crossings interesting, Coffey said.

“Whenever I get stopped at the border or get stopped in Mexico at police checks, they would look at me twice and start laughing,” he said.

While Bruce’s presence in the passenger’s seat was good for a few laughs, his prominent position was also a practical decision since it meant Coffey didn’t have to haul Bruce off the back seat when ever he wanted to sleep.

The road trip also gave Coffey a unique view of how authorities are reacting in several countries.

In particular, he said he was surprised by the cavalier attitude of the U.S. border guards.

“I was shocked that neither of the U.S. border had gloves or masks,” he said. “It was just like business as usual.”

He said with the lack of traffic, he was through the Mexican border faster than he ever had.

While on the road, Coffey did his best to not leave the van at all. He ate the food he brought with him and slept in the van. He only had to leave to fuel up and use the washroom.

While the highways weren’t completely empty, Coffey noticed that he was one of the few vehicles that wasn’t an 18-wheeler.

When he did stop to refuel, Coffey said it seemed there was a much more casual response to the virus in the U.S.

“From what I could see, which was only really at gas stations, very few people seemed to be taking any particular precautions,” Coffey said

He said it was a stark comparison seeing the juxtaposition between the U.S. response and the one here in Canada.

“I have a very strong appreciation for the efforts that are being made on multiple levels here in Canada,” he said. “When I got to the border in Canada, they were firm, friendly and fair with me. They asked me about symptoms, they asked me to go to a special quarantine area where I had a conversation with our health department.”

While he’s relieved to be home, he now has to take on another stressful task in the current climate – managing his tourism business.

“What I offer, and what most tourism offers, is social proximity,” he said.

So, Coffey has had to get creative. He’s dropped the requirement to pay a deposit for those booking tours at Esprit. He’s also going to offer gift cards which will allow cash to come in the door during a trying time. And when things get back to normal, he’ll be offering new tour packages with all the bells and whistles.

He’s even offering some discounts that people are refusing to take and instead paying full price. Coffey said that extra money will go to events geared to front line workers.

But in the meantime, Coffey is limited in terms of how much he can do given he’s under quarantine until April 11. But he says if he has to spend two weeks cooped up somewhere, there’s no place he’d rather be.

“There are very few places that I can think of as good to be as where I am in Davidson,” he said. “We’re isolated in a place where there’s at least 100 metres to where the next person would be, it’s beautiful – we’re watching the ice melt and the geese have just arrived.”

As Jim Coffey drove from the small village of Jalcolmulco, Mexico back home to the Pontiac, he at least had some company in the form of Bruce, his water rescue mannequin.

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