The Olympic Torch also works as a night light.

It happens at every stop on this exhausting 45,000-kilometre, 106-day journey from Victoria to Vancouver - surely there was a shorter route? - and it is done to ensure that the flame never goes out.

Each evening as the young Aboriginal flame-keepers ready for bed, the six special miner's lamps that hold the "mother flame" are taken into a hotel bathroom and carefully set out on the sink counter so that they may shine all night but not disturb anyone's sleep.

Perhaps if all hotel rooms were so supplied the rest of us wouldn't stumble around in the dark....

The Olympic Torch Relay is now four weeks into its journey - and on the 28th day they rested.

You can only shout out "ARE WE HAPPY, (fill in place name)?" so many times before it rips your throat out, after all. This odd combination convention-summercamp-caravan is whipped.

The nightly news images are invariably of white-suited carriers (up to 120 a day) loping along a street and waving to those who come out to wave their tiny flags and take photographs.

The reality is that the torch is actually run over precious little of the countryside.

The logistics of the world's second-largest country dictate this.

Most of the time, the "torch" is cradled in the little miner's lanterns as the convoy - there are actually two, leapfrogging their way across a province - races, under police escort, from one designated town to the next.

It is a sad but regular sight to see country dwellers standing by the roadside, fully expecting to see a runner pass by and somewhat stunned by the flashing lights of the hurdling convoy.

What is impressive after 28 days is how few hitches there have been.

There were two days of bad weather -- -37C in Resolute Bay, Nunavut, and high winds and rain for the ferry crossing Port aux Basques to Sydney - and one mob scene (Sidney Crosby's torch carry in Halifax), but all else has gone by virtually problem free.

The man in charge of this 250-person traveling road show is Jim Richards, a former high school teacher who first got involved in the Calgary Winter Games of 1988. He is the relay director, a polite, unflappable man who likes to say "None of what we do is particularly hard - it isn't rocket science."

Perhaps not, but NASA would admire the countdowns, invariably kept to the micro-second by a happy dictator called Vidar Eilertsen, who has been doing Olympics since the Winter Games landed in his native Norway in 1994.

Richards' other key people are: Jean-Sebastien Porlier, a Sept-Isles native who is in charge of the event programs; Deena Stigas, a Toronto-native who came "home" from Greece to take over the torchbearer operations; and Eric Chene, who comes from Albin in Northern Ontario, and has responsibility for transportation and logistics.

Chene toured the entire route three times himself before setting the schedule that includes 34 flight sequences (29 already taken, mostly in the Far North), 45 ferry journeys and some 100 vehicles, including those belonging to torch sponsors Coca-Cola and RBC, as well as the various police forces.

He has a "scouting" staff of 11 always moving ahead of the caravan, some as far as five days in advance.

Chene's first big test was immediate, as he had to get the caravan vehicles moved from Victoria to St. John's while the torch went on its northern journey by air and dogsled.

"We had nine days," he says. "Canadian Pacific said they needed 15. We said ‘We only have nine!' And they pulled it off."

Chene also has responsibility for the torches, checking that they work, ensuring back-up torches are constantly within reach, and is also in charge of the young flame keepers and their six night lights.

Stigas is the one who handles the actual torchbearers, her team meeting with groups before the run and telling them precisely how it will go and getting them to relax. Some seem frozen when their torches are lighted.

Others break down in tears.

"I cry myself every single day," she says.

So powerful is the moment that, so far, some 80 per cent of the 12,000 carriers are purchasing their torch as a $400 keepsake.

The torches are disabled, however, so those who have fantasized lighting their barbecues - or, as some have said, their "doobies" - with the instant icon are out of luck.

The Vancouver relay is already off to a much better start than Calgary was 21 years ago - "Share the Flame" was often called "Share the Blame" in the early days - but Calgary ended well. Purchasing Olympic glasses at the gas station turned into a virtual act of patriotism.

Gas station glasses from 1988 were far cheaper than Bombardier torches are in 2009, but it is Richards hope that the Olympic flame lights up more than a few dozen torches each day and a hotel bathroom each night.
"It's already gone beyond the Games," he says.

"It's become incrementally patriotic."

But next week is Quebec, where anything can happen, and then Ontario.

"Ontario is going to be a challenge," Richards admits.

"But if we get out of that...."