A Clarenville town councillor and his son are in self-isolation after an eye-opening cross-Canada journey during the pandemic.

Keith Fillier flew up to Calgary and drove back with his son who had his fill out west and wanted to come home.

The problem they encountered was getting a 100 pound Bernese Mountain Dog home so Keith decided to fly up and help his son with the move, driving back across the country.

Fillier describes the flight up as unnerving.

He says everyone is wearing N95 masks, and the shadow of known variants in circulation makes the atmosphere tense. While there was plenty of spacing on the flight from St. John’s to Halifax, he describes the two hour flight from Halifax to Toronto on a cramped plane with people packed together, “stressful.”

Meanwhile, Fillier says while driving home it wasn’t until they hit Ontario before they started hitting COVID checkpoints, which became more frequent the closed they got to home.