Back in June, when comedians Dan Quinn, Ed Byrne, Craig Campbell and Glenn Wool met in Wool's North London home to discuss a January tour of B.C., they thought it would be funny to play up the cold Canadian winters angle.

Now not so much.

So it was that the Snowed In Comedy Tour was literally snowed in. At least on Day 1 for two of the comics. Calgary native, and former Vancouverite, Campbell was eager to play tour director for Irishman Byrne and his wife, along with Campbell's British partner and her son. Their mission: to get from Nelson to Kamloops. Easy enough for someone who's done many a drive between provinces in his 19 years on the road.

Mission impossible, it turns out.

Waking up in the little B&B on the shores of Kootenay Lake to no power and rainfall on top of gooey snow, the road warriors made a go of it anyway. They piled in to their rented 4x4 and set off on their journey. Showtime at Sun Peaks was at 9 pm. Lots of time.

"An incredibly picturesque dawdle is what I had in my head," says Campbell, who has carved out a very successful comedy career in Europe after playing second fiddle to a sock for seven seasons on Ed's Night Party in Toronto. "I was hoping to be pointing out bald eagles and talking about Kokanee salmon and their unique properties in our world. And we get onto the main road and it's very nearly carnage."

In Slocan, they were met with avalanche bars across the road. Thinking laterally, he thought of the Creston-Radium Hot Springs-Golden route on to Revelstoke, but Highway 1 was closed from Golden to Sicamous.

"I started to realize how really socked in we were," he says.

The only option was to cut down through the U.S., which is easier said than done with passengers holding three different passports. But where there's a will, there's either a dead person or a way. Thankfully, it was the latter.

"Luckily we get the nicest guy we could ever hope to meet at the American border. He's really quite charming to deal with. He sees the Conan O'Brien credit on the poster and asks Ed if he's met Conan O'Brien," Campbell laughs. "He's not sycophantic but he's really keen and interested. It wasn't a butter-up; it was a real wonderful, sincere conversation with the guy who really wanted to know stuff about the show. I felt there were all sorts of things he could have done to us but he just fast-tracked us."

Not fast enough, however. Despite only an hour's drive through the States, they didn't arrive to their 8 o'clock gig until 11:45, fifteen minutes after Quinn and Wool finished the show on their own.

"We just missed it. It just wasn't to be," he says philosophically. "It was frustrating but it couldn't have been funnier to be snowed in on the Snowed In Comedy Tour."

If there's anything to be gained from this experience it's that Campbell, who's known as one of the best storytellers in the business, will come away with tons of new material.

"It was actually on so many levels a great experience to have with people in the car that aren't from here because it underlines what's a pretty normal Canadian experience is quite abnormal in many parts of the globe," he says.

Byrne won't make the last leg of the journey, which stops in Vancouver at the Rio Theatre. But Campbell, Quinn and Wool, three headliners in their own right, can more than carry the load.

"I'm very, very happy to be playing Vancouver again. I've not been there for so long," says Campbell, who last was here about five years ago. The wild-haired 39-year-old has been living in England, as has Vancouverite Wool, for years and fits right in to the southern England rustic lifestyle. He's in no hurry to move back.

"I love Canada," he says. "It's my favourite holiday."