Buy a junker Van and drive across Canada! Treasure hunt road trip!

hey guys so this week is gonna be a real adventure I ended up buying some stuff two provinces away so if you can imagine it's 1,500 floggers probably over a thousand miles away from here I have a pile of antiques it needs to get picked up normally I have my driver deliver them for me but unfortunately not available right now so I started looking at what the cost would be to get these items brought in and it turns out it's gonna be probably about $1,600 a ship so I came up with a plan and that plan is I'm going to buy a vehicle like give myself a $750 budget I'm going to go buy a vehicle in Manitoba I'm gonna get a temporary permit to drive the fact that I'm gonna bring it back all the way through Manitoba back to Edmonton here and I'm gonna try and find antiques all along the way so this is going to be next week I'm gonna be doing this so I'm gonna do little videos it kind of keep us up to date but the search begins now to try and find a vehicle that's gonna work out so maybe picking a van or a truck so let's see what I can find in my $750 price range because that way the band won't cost me anything more than the shipping and yeah so bear with me on this trip is gonna be an adventure so stay tuned for the trip that will take you all across Canada here on this adventure but let's start by finding a vehicle hey everyone so today I start looking for my mystery van I'm trying to find one in Winnipeg Manitoba I'm gonna start there and drive my way all the way back to Edmonton which is about 1500 kilometers but first I need a vehicle to do it in so I am now looking to see what I can find out there so I've kind of gone through I'm going on some search engines here seeing what's for sale in classifieds and the pickings are a little slim I give myself a budget of 750 dollars and I'm hoping I can find something that's a gonna be able to fit a bunch of stuff in the back of it but be also be reliable enough to make it back on the journey without breaking down so this is the trick there's been a lot of stuff that's like $500 $600 but it's really beat-up in really bad condition so which is kind of be expected for that price I have to try and maybe spend you know get close to that 750 range to find something that maybe is somewhat roadworthy so again the goal is I find this vehicle I get a permit and I Drive it back so the search begins so let's see what I can find online classifieds I found a few likely vehicles one I was interested in was a cargo van for just $500 I thought it'd be great to have lots of space to carry stuff on the road but he said it probably wouldn't make the trip and that could mean disaster so after phoning a few more ads I finally landed on one that looked pretty good a Dodge Caravan low miles one owner vehicle and is mechanically excellent its only downfall is some rust in the rockers but that won't matter for this trip so I'm gonna reach out and see if they'll move on their asking price at the thousand dollars so I can stay on budget okay so this is really good news talked to the owner he's gonna be available the Friday that I fly in so I'm gonna fly in next Friday and I'm gonna meet with him and pick the van up in his house so throw my plate on get my insurance on it and start driving it back home so yeah the adventure begins and as for the van we agreed on a price is $650 that's $100 on your budget so now moving into the third phase and that's gonna be planning the flight because I'm using travel points and trying to keep the budget low I'm gonna be booking a flight that's really early in the morning on Friday so I have to be on the flight by 6:00 a.m. which means I have to be up for him or 30 in the morning to get the airport on time thankfully I've got a great father-in-law who's offered to drive me out early in the morning and I'm really thankful because well that would suck so I'm gonna be out there nice and early I'm flying West jet I love flying West yet they're always friendly never had a problem so going out on West jet and it's gonna be a great trip I'll be flying from Edmonton to Winnipeg there I'll pick up my van check some stuff around the Winnipeg area and then head out on the road to Yorkton from there I'll head up to Saskatoon and check some sights along the way and then beeline back home for Edmonton hopefully before the Sun Goes Down okay so I'm gonna be traveling pretty light so I'm just bringing this one backpack inside of it I'm gonna have a change of clothes for a couple days toothbrush that kind of stuff and in this bag which I'm gonna put in there it's gonna have a tarp and some tied ons in case I get something big or heavy so I can protect the interior or cover up some stuff in the back that should be enough to kind of keep me going I'm sure that's gonna look really funny when I take it through airport security I'm sure we'll get a flag for carrying a tarp and random stuff who knows but yeah so that's it basically the rest is all gonna be going from my bag to a van full of stuff so a quite little journey here so 5:30 in the morning heading out to the airport with my father-in-law Dave we're pretty well ready to go I got my backpack I got my lucky red Chuck Taylors on and we're gonna head out to the airport so off on my journey arrived at the airport safe and sound and on time I'm traveling light so there's no check baggage so this should be a breeze so inside the terminal just got through security not that long ago the only problem had was my bag was my old-timey razor but thankfully as I showed in another video the razor blade comes out of these so I was able to keep my razor which I would have been bummed out about because this is a really good one with its adjustable so I get to keep my old razors so I'm at the airport just waiting for my plane so hopefully I'll be going down and get another plane within a couple minutes except wasn't thinking that they would confiscate the razor but not the tarps and the tie-downs and all the other random stuff I have in there so at least I didn't have to go into security and have the rubber glove treatment so I'm just gonna get ready to board my flight and then off I go so made it to Winnipeg just landed now to find a cab and go pick up the dead [Music] step one is complete I got my van just picked it up and let me show it to you it looks like it's gonna be a good vehicle for what I need it for for this trip so uh so this is a 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan se I bought it from the original owners it has some rust that's probably the worst thing about this whole van is that it's got some rust on it so it doesn't look pretty mechanically though it's only got 127 thousand kilometers the interior is like in mint shape so it'll make a comfortable ride on the way back had to make the tough call in terms of what I was gonna do for storage space here unfortunately I don't have room to get the I don't have a room to get my stuff in here with all the seats so I'm gonna try and keep the back two seats here the buckets and I left the third row seat behind so now it's just got this big cargo space back here which will hopefully be full as we go along my worry is fitting that big gas pump in here is I don't even know if I'll be able to keep these two back seats here but I'm gonna try so first impressions of the van interior is excellent so I mean I'm gonna feel very comfortable driving in the van for sure the engine seems to sound pretty good starts right up so mechanically I think it's gonna be alright so I know it's kind of a beater when you buy $650 bad but I decided I didn't matter what the rust for me as long as it mechanically make it they're just fine so I'm gonna start heading down the road and so transmission shifts good no weird noises the tires all looked like they were in good shape so I think this van I'll just do it I think this van will do just nicely so now off to make my first stops of my adventure so I've gone up just a few minutes for picking up my van and I spot this now I wish I had a trailer with me I might actually sell to stop and talk to the guy it's a Volkswagen van but it's the truck version it's a quad cab split window very early vehicle pretty cool and rare I mean the fact is a split window it doesn't even look all that rusty so I might knock on this guy's door and see if he wants to sell me the same can't stop in Winnipeg and not take a trip to Mike's general store just located off of the corner of major Drive in st. Anne's so really cool shop you can tell from the outside he's gonna have some neat stuff indoors so I'm gonna go in and have a browse around see if there is see but my real trip is go to a guy's house this afternoon just out of town but just thought I'd stop here and show you a cool shop so just left Mike's was able to pick up a few cool cans a really big porcelain Robin Hood flower sign in here or a couple Canadian Pacific stever ship posters that are original and really cooled erector set so got some cool stuff so now I'm off to cattle company antiques let's go check so this is the second stop on my journey today again cool old building this used to be a electrical transformer building the brand power lines out of it they've converted it into their house on the right and then the business here central so I'm going to inquire about some of these signs of course but I'm gonna go and check and see what I can find unfortunately none of those cool signs were for sale but I'm gonna have a look around anyway so the inside is pretty packed a lot of the stuff looks to be vintage some of the signs unfortunately a reproduction but there's gonna be lots to dig through lots to look out for sure [Music] so right now we are driving down river road which is probably one of the most scenic little roads that runs north of Winnipeg I'll just pan over so you can see there we run directly next to the river there's gonna be lots of cool great old historic houses along this road and from what I recall there was a really neat antique store just at the end of the road too so the cool thing about River Road is there's a crazy amount of nice vintage historic properties this is taro house which is really nice estate there's another great old place big stone house probably been there since the 1800s when the fur traders used to use this river you can see the proximity to the river it's just right over it so it's gonna be time to stop for lunch I'm gonna stop at the famous Skinner's hot dogs located right by the bridge of Lockport so I'm gonna go in and grab a dog so scooters has been in business since the 1920s and the decor and here really hasn't changed much probably since the 60s with the vinyl booze and the jukeboxes it's a really cool place to visit if you're ever in this area so after a quick bite to eat it's time to hit the road and follow up a lead I've got just outside of town in Bossier Bossier Manitoba is located about a half-hour to 40 minutes outside of Winnipeg it means lovely place to live it was founded mainly because they had sands and silica and they used to make glass bottles and the Glass Works factory still remains to this day and has deemed a historic site in Manitoba so just on the other end of town in Bossier as the gentlemen I'm meeting with this morning he's got an old porcelain Pepsi sign not sure what else he might have he said he's got some other old stuff so I'm gonna go have a look and see what there is to see cuz you just never know until you follow these leaves [Music] so I arrived on site and he had tons of stuff not just signs but antiques old cars like this Cadillac limo he had herses motorcycles pretty much anything you can imagine was sitting out here at this property old skid dues he even had the very first kid who ever made out there this is a Mach 1 Mustang it was super cool unfortunately buried this old airport limousine Chrysler 300 just really really neat stuff this fan this paranoia van was used in a movie back in the 70s I said well custom motorcycle lots of digging you know every building was basically full there was lots of outbuildings there was just tons of stuff to go through a lot of it is crammed in but if you look around there was old cans and all kinds of neat stuff so I managed to pull a few things out of this building and I kept wandering it around to find some more ok so so far I've been in town it's 3 o'clock now I've been in town just a couple hour well I guess about five hours or so and I've found some cool stuff kind of hear it rattling around in the back there was that a guy's place earlier I went there cause he had a sign listed online turned out he had a scrapyard and all kinds of stuff ended up with some cool sirens like police sirens and lights one really cool chrome one that's like about that big has a light built into it under siren which is pretty neat I've got some old coke sign 7up signs it's all kind of stuff so now I'm just kind of cruising around there's a couple of state sales nearby I'm gonna stop that and they'll hit a couple other antique spots and see what I could find so that's the update so far I just got back into town back in a Winnipeg promote the country picked up a van full of cool stuff I'm gonna head to the forks and see what the antique mall has and if there's anything cool there so often on my way over to the forks and uh oh you've a little too were there once a thriving rail yard and transfer station just adjacent to the via rail station we're old Canadian Pacific station the forks has now become a great place for arts and crafts and antiques and anytime there's something cool happening when a peg it seems to be happening down here see all the old the power stations and cool old buildings so I'm gonna head inside the forks building here and check out what they have in the basement which is an antique mall there's anything called this game so in the basement of the junks the terminal lies the antique mall here in DeWitt Bank so we're gonna go downstairs in the heaven see well the inside was completely packed full of really cool stuff lots of smalls some really big cool things like this big boy and I did pick up a couple things while I was there so checked in at a hotel I'm just recalibrating see if there's anything more I can go look at tonight before I had a tomorrow the plan is to hit a couple places tomorrow morning and then head on on the highway now I have a pretty exciting pic planned for Sunday morning 8 a.m. I have to be in the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan that's not the actual town name mind you there might be a town called middle of nowhere Saskatchewan apparently he's got lots of cool signs and antiques and things so I'm gonna go check and see what he has so tonight I'm gonna go to the red top famous drive-in for burgers I grab a hamburger and some fries out there and then come back and hopefully find some other antiques so yeah off we go so it's the second day of my adventure here in Winnipeg it's also the day I'm going to start driving down the highway and start heading back home my goal is to get to Saskatchewan by the by tonight so hopefully that'll happen and the van will be okay on the highway I've headed back out this morning and it's brought it's early it's like 6:00 in the morning right now the reason I'm up so early is that I'm going back out to a salvage yard outside of town that oh that yesterday and ended up getting a bunch of old signs and it was kind of exactly how you hope to find this stuff like still bolted to the fence of the salvage yard like old coke signs and stuff like that so I'm gonna go back out there and see if I can find some more steps so one of the things I like about Manitoba is that all these little small towns are really just like an hour from you get from what I baked stone wall or both or any number of little small towns within an hour including the lakes oops IVP right to beaches all time so it's quite a bit to do it's a lot of nice open prairie and kind of a nice little place probably the thing I like the best about Winnipeg itself is the architecture none of the old buildings have been really torn down or in some cases renovated so they can some of them look a little bit rundown but they're pretty cool still so I like coming out here seeing what I can find I've just about in Bossier which is the small town attitude to check that in the scrap yard when I went out there yesterday it was just piled high with stuff I mean I had to climb over things it was crazy crazy a crazy a good way for me I love diagnosed I had a really really great collection of old snowmobiles I think what he said is he had the very first snowmobile was ever made out there which I'm sure he's got to be pretty rare but unfortunately none of the snowmobile stuff was for sale that was his precious collection out there so I'm gonna see if there's anything more I can find yesterday got a little bunch of really cool signs and simple sirens like I got a siren off the fire engine and some police car lights and things like that so yeah we're gonna go see if what I can get today and it's just about ten after 7:00 in the morning I'm supposed to meet Eve out there 7:30 so so far right on schedule so I returned to the yard and I did find some more antiques but I also found something else do you see it can you tell what it is I think it's cool I don't know if you do it's a 1960s Mercedes Benz ambulance now they only made 400 of these and this one is all complete just happens to be sitting in a salvage yard it's got rust but I'm gonna bring it home and see if I can fix it up [Music] so just got back from Dennis's place out in Bossier it's my feet are completely soaked it's still early spring here in the snow has been melting off so unfortunately my feet went deep in swampy water so I'm driving down the highway now with soaking wet feet and there's nothing more of the world that wish I had been another pair of shoes so I might pick some up when I get back into Winnipeg did get some cool stuff got some old signs we went crawling through an abandoned house out on the property all kinds of neat stuff so yeah I'll give you guys an update at the end of this video and show you kind of alcohol from this trip but you have to meet things but for now I've got the heater on my feet and I hopefully may dry it out by the time I get back into Winnipeg and then I gotta hit the highway and head towards the schedule so yeah next stop couple antique markets and then off I go so as you can probably see in the back the Vans already getting pretty full this is a day into my journey so I ought to be a little bit careful because I still have to try and fit a big visible gas pump in here so if that doesn't fit I have a plan B my friend Henry who does my should be for me might have a trunk freeing up in a few days so if that's the case then I will get him to bring the pump out anyway but yeah it's turning out to be a fruitful trip so to that I say I bent Winnipeg farewell headed out in the highway now going to pick up my gas pump in new day all from that is over so a little ways to go and yeah I couldn't have asked for a better day just absolutely stunning outside so I'm going to enjoy this great highway driving enjoy my band which is surprisingly driving flawlessly and everything works cruise control works air conditioning works it's actually probably the best vehicle I've ever bought for $650 and I have bought several vehicles for less than $1000 this is probably the best one aside for the fact it's got some ugly rusted turning out to be just a stellar little vehicle so I'm gonna head down the highway work my way towards Saskatchewan and try and get to Saskatoon for tomorrow so off I go so I'm back on the highway I'm just about at the outskirts of Manitoba and going to stop at my friend Derek's place who's got some signs that I need to pick up and if you recall that's the whole reason I needed to make this trip was to pick these signs up and avoid shipping cost so I had to pick the signs up and yeah and see what he's got in his place he's got a pretty cool collection of things so let's go check it out [Music] so here's some of the stuff like picked up so far I have to kind of lay it out at Derek's plays here to rearrange the band but yeah the old police lights and yeah pretty packed he had some really neat stuff too like this weird crazy airport shuttle six wheel Olds Toronado never seen one before but yeah really cool car really strange car so I just picked my signs up not too long ago I left and I am just entering into Saskatchewan just stopping at a small town and I know I'm in the middle of nowhere but I'm just down to AM radio there's no FM anymore so no FM radio for me you listening to country music on am if I want to have any music on the radio of the van here or so yeah just get a cruise around this little town see if there's anything to find and then head back down the highway [Music] so it was stopped at a grant sale in the town not a whole lot of stuff there but there was this old black cat tune so some people are into black cat tobacco tins just they're kind of cool this one would have been better if it had the actual cat on it was an older it's still cool so I'm gonna head on to the next town where I hear there might be somebody with some antiques out there so see what is the fun thing about driving down the highway in Canada you never know when you're gonna come across giant machinery going down the highway glad I'm not stuck behind him so as I'm driving through this little town I come across this church with all these signs and antiques outside it's not an actual antique store but I thought I'd just poke my head in the door and see what was going on in there and pretty glad that I did have a look I was definitely not expecting to see this it's set up like an antique general store inside the church they even have a Model T inside so where he wanted you to start collecting and filling up this church like a general store stupidity yeah well yeah that's usually how it goes I mean look at this you've got it all the way up to the ceiling and these are vaulted ceilings like how higher the ceilings in here they've got to be like oh - higher than that probably because I'm six foot tall and that's like three me I did not the wall no but look at all those cereal boxes you've got them all price and everything - like look at all these old displays if you got the cigarette still in the packages I got some others on our Pole but you look at this stuff here that's 8 and 10 they're from World War two you got tons of them I do it's basically like a real general store from look at this I love the old cash register - now this is something else for sure who knew if I wouldn't have stopped you know it wouldn't have known yeah sometimes you just got to stop when you see the sign what an amazing stop I'm so glad I stopped at their little Museum there it's really their personal collection they've got they're more than happy to show people a really cool place to go so if you ever through on highway 16 definitely stop in and see the guys there I'd love to have a collection like that myself and hopefully soon my store will look like that it's well on its way right now but now I got a back on the highway and head towards my hotel so I can rest up tonight so here we go so I got to my hotel safely checked in did a little sightseeing around town and settled in for what I thought would be a good night's sleep so a little colder and cloudy road today it looks like it rained last night in the band's all away I woke up and had a little surprise this morning I had a take right here on my chest at first I just thought it was little spot I'm like oh that's weird and then they kind of crawl the way out there to the super gross probably picked it up when I was at the scrap yard yesterday morning which means I transported it across the border and missus Koechlin really gross anyway I'm gonna go get some signs this morning hopefully find some stuff then huh just ask a dude and for what I know was love and concern really made me anxious the whole ride away as I read this text message that my wife tells me it could have left his little head inside of me and his burrowing inside of my body right now so yeah that was gross so as I'm driving along I'm kind of like feeling scratchy like I had this found this take on me this morning and I don't think it fit me or anything yet but then take on me before which is maybe weird but I've never had a tick and I don't know if they travel in packs or if I should only just expect everyone but now I'm starting to think like you know do I have more that I can't see that in my hair and stuff so yeah so nervous about back now I'm gonna Google it probably and find out that they lay their eggs or something I don't know anyway so as I'm driving along I'm feeling like I have this like nervous feeling I might have a tick on me and I don't know it's not great but yeah try not to be too distracted while I'm driving along here but yeah I'll be a little bit more careful when I go through the bush and the trees and stuff for the future maybe where's the bug spray as you can see in the back there's a lot more stuff back there after this morning's pick I've got a few rare oil cans a really cool big struck - a fire truck from the 1950s an old slot machine so a few things that weren't oil and gas-related did get a cool it's William Penn oil it's from North North Star oil but it's fairly uncommon out where I am it's a brand that really is localized around Manitoba in a couple other areas so I was able to get a long skinny william penn sign so yeah i got some cool stuff so i'm headed toward Saskatoon now gonna stop and see a fellow out there who's got some stuff for sale and then aim for the homestretch back to Edmonton tonight so with any luck I'll get some stuff for in Saskatoon and then I'll head back home but the van is nearly full look at the Hat you kind of see stuff piled up back there I can still see out the back window which is good but hopefully by the time I get home it'll be almost pull up to the roof that's the goal anyway so alright so now we're just gonna drive down the highway and head towards ask you to [Music] so the highway has just come to an abrupt end and is now nothing but a gravel road it's all construction so I don't know if it's because this flooding I wouldn't think so I think it looks like they're doing some pretty major road work there's absolutely no road surface left usually they leave like half of it so you can at least drive on a hardtop for a little while but yeah this is just nothing but gravel so slow and steady for a little while at least anyway it looks like it goes on for a few miles so it looked like the highway well turns out the highway I guess was washed out it was a big lake just kind of to my right over here and it normally doesn't encroach on the highway but completely washed out a section so that's why there was no road left is that they are just rebuilding it so it's just all you know hard pack rock and gravel and stuff like that so we're really weird you don't often see flooding in the prairies like that but it has been a you know there's probably a lot of snow this winter and with the melt off and green just a little more than that road could handle so back on the hardtop now and you know back up to a regular highway speed so off I go so I don't know how I did it I think it was after I went through the construction I got turned a little bit around and I'm now and now like an extra hour away from Saskatoon so I should have been there pretty much by now but because of this little detour I got myself into ice somehow I ended up off highway 16 the main highway and ended up north of Saskatoon so yeah so a groundwork to make up now I'm supposed to be in a guy's place in an hour I'll be lucky if I make it there on time so always sucks to take a little detour like just but who knows maybe I'll find some cool stuff along the way so I am loaded up I just got back from Saskatoon who had a whole bunch of cool old signs back to the van is really full now and I am gonna be headed back home so now it's just open highway back home and unloaded the shock I'll show you guys what I got [Music] [Music] so some of the things I got this Dominion royal tire sign it's porcelain its stands nearly 6 feet tall it's a really cool early tire display some porcelain 7 up signs double-sided Briggs & Stratton Jersey milk chocolate bar sign North Star William pin sign that's a big one too it's about five nearly six feet tall old airplane propeller sweet capital cigarette tin sign a big one it's got the girl on a new grape soda some vintage sailing ship block-and-tackle wooden block and tackle with the rope so that's gonna take some work to unknot that and get it set up big giant four by eight foot 1930s coca-cola sign that's pretty cool porcelain license plates a bunch of oil cans some of these ones are a little bit more hard to find that's why I picked them up homemade trophy it looks like it was for either skating or curling or something so pretty cool that they made it themselves and it looks like they passed it around for probably twenty thirty years sky chief off with a gas pump that's porcelain red head grease ten lots of signs as you can see this is kind of a cool early piece it's a from the Hudson's Bay Company one of the oldest companies in existence that's when they were selling lands that's a really really sign it's in a more you know modern frame like probably from the 1940s or 50s frame but the piece itself I checked it out and it looks you know eighteen hundred something like that so really cool lots of neat old sirens that was a siren with a light attached old police sirens so somebody had a police car that they're trying to restore I'd be cool fire station call box and old press steel fire truck shipping signs that's a this over here is kind of cool to world war two aircraft training so it's basically the cockpit out of a fighter plane that was set up with seat and tiller and all that stuff for training pilots in the Second World War I have to assemble it still the really rare piece this whole director truck it's quite large on if you can see the size of my hand it's a pretty big truck porcelain California license plate is this is the Box to the erector set so it just it kind of goes on and on and on so it's gonna keep me busy for quite some time unpacking all this stuff but yeah just I'll give you so needless to say I'm pretty tired that was a long trip 1,500 kilometers about a thousand miles I never did replaced by confiscated razor blades so I'm getting a little bit of a stubble here so I'm gonna have to shave when I get back home and the van as for the van I paid 650 bucks for it looks like I have a buyer for around 650 750 so I'll get all my money back on the van which is cool and actually drove amazing so cool little van if I needed a van I would keep it but I don't which I've already got one that I use but yeah I hope you like tuning in these videos this one was pretty ambitious and almost like a little mini series sort of thing but appreciate you sticking with me on this journey it was fun for me I hope it was fun for you guys to watch and if you enjoy the stuff subscribe I try and put these videos out once every week or two weeks or so so thanks for tuning in guys and we'll talk to you soon bye for now [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Curiosity Incorporated

Views: 64,688

Rating: 4.9593563 out of 5

Keywords: junkyards, salvage yard, pickers, antiquing, road trip, adventure, collectibles, entertainment, antiques, porcelain signs, advertising, junk, abandoned, discovery, curiosityinc, curiosity incorporated

Id: WE8Z3baseqk

Length: 35min 19sec (2119 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017