Snippets dating from the summer of 1970, when some 50,000 kids bummed across the country—a “youthful invasion” that prompted the federal government to create a makeshift hostel system operating every summer until 1976.

“Tripping Out?? — do it! across canada”
— The Georgia Straight, Vancouver

“All the other kids were doing it and all of a sudden . . . well, there we were, standing at the side of the road with our suitcases.”
— Two hitching girls, Montreal

“[We welcome transient youth] although I don’t, in God’s name, know what we’re going to do with them when they get here.”
— Joseph Smallwood, Newfoundland premier

“I hereby declare myself as an innocent by-product of a totally fucked system, but I am in need of food, shelter and lots of dope. This hostel provides food and shelter. Vive!”
— John Piere, Vancouver

“Chains should be put across roads leading into the city and anyone without $100 in their pocket should not be allowed in.”
— Brian Higgins, St. John’s city councillor

“They are just having a good time on the road . . . Sure some of them have long hair and dirty feet. But that’s the way they are now. Some of them have lots of money. They just like sleeping in ditches.”
— Ed Fourchalk, hostel supervisor, Vancouver

“Some young transients are neurotic or psychotic. They restlessly keep on the move, seeking escape from reality and responsibility . . . Nearly all of them are deeply involved with one or more drugs.”
— Michael Wheeler, Canadian Welfare Council

“[I’m] just bumming around, seeing some of the places I always wanted to visit before I settle down and start to decay like the rest of the human race.”
— Chris, university graduate

“I would like to take a machine-gun and wipe them out. If I could get a machine-gun I’d kill them all. We pay taxes higher and higher and higher, and the government gives the money to the hippies.”
— Harry Chalratsiotis, Montreal restaurateur

“There are a lot of tired eyes here, there are smiles, there is confusion inside and out. We people are not the government’s summer students out to see the country so that they can relate to blindness. We’re freaks . . . orphans, smack freaks, love freaks, acid freaks, heavy freaks — stepped on, laughed at, spat on, shat on — the lost and the found.”
— H.P., hosteller, Vancouver

“Julie — please call home.”
— Billboard ad placed in six Canadian cities by Mark Prund, worried father and advertising executive

“Looking at what happened last year, in the armories and elsewhere, we regard it as a healthy, swinging experience for the young and for the country.”
— Federal government planner for the youth assistance program