On The Road To Vancouver

Friday, July 28

Jasper turns out to be a far more pleasant town than Banff – possibly because its streets are twice as wide – but mostly because, as well as the tourist shops, it has enough real commerce to suggest that, if all the tourists suddenly stopped coming, Jasper would continue on quite comfortably.

Speaking of commerce, Darlene and I would like to attest to the thriving industry of rail freight! Our campsites have invariably been close to the tracks and we know that there’s a LOT of rail cars moving across this land of ours – day and night.

On Tuesday, the 24th we camped on a lovely little provincial campsite just south of Jasper on the 93A, where the smiling ,helpful park attendant assured us that bears were quite common in the park because of the buffalo berries that grew plentifully. We didn’t really share her enthusiasm. We did, however, wind up with a beautiful site overlooking the Athabasca River and saw no bears.

The next morning we drove up to Mt. Edith Clavell so that Ian could relive some youthful foolishness. Those of you who have heard the story should know that my stupidity was even greater that I have previously portrayed it. I’ll include a photo with the fateful crevasse circled.

Just south of Jasper we came across a herd of cow elk grazing in a wooded area just off the highway. There were cars and vans pulling off at all angles – and all speeds – people dashing this way and that, and these animals seemed oblivious to us. ( I felt very sorry for the people on a tour bus that pulled over but the driver wouldn’t let anyone off the bus.)

As we traveled away from Jasper through Mt. Robson Park we also see a wonderful 5-point elk beside the road, but now we’re in B.C. and the traffic on the 16 is mostly commercial and only we and a couple of motorcycles bother to stop.

Wednesday night is spent in McLure camped in a private campground, and this now gets top billing as the WORST night camping. The campground itself is just fine, lots of trees and reasonable seclusion. It’s the heat – HEAT! And the trains – TRAINS! The heat was ridiculous – 40 degrees at 9:30 – and the bloody trains didn’t just pass through – they stopped and backed up all night long! At one point when I was getting up to have a pee, Darlene was sure I was leaving her behind and heading for a motel.

From McLure we opted for the 5 to get us into Vancouver quickly but hit stop-and-go traffic at Chilliwack that stays with us most of the way. This is frustrating as we want to get to the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus and it closes at 5 p.m. We take several wrong turns getting there – map failure + navigator error + driver incompetence – but eventually get to wander among the phenomenal Haida totem poles and carvings and get to wonder at the mastery of Bill Reid. There is something approaching ”holy” in these artifacts.

Leaving the museum, we drive to Granville Island and check out the crafts shops. Alysha wants us to buy a particular hammock but when we finally find the store it is just closing.

At night we decide to try the YWCA Hotel in Vancouver and are very pleasantly surprised. It is clean, comfortable and secure. ( And for only $105. including the parking)

Today has been another wonderful day. We got up early and roller-bladed around Stanley Park then spent a couple of hours at the Art Gallery of Vancouver. They’re currently showing an exhibit of traditional and contemporary Native artwork based on The Raven and we were both overwhelmed with its beauty. As well, they have a presentation on the architecture of Arthur Erikson whose work with concrete structures is breathtaking. (He designed the Museum of Anthropology as well as Roy Thompson Hall.) Things I know today that I did not know yesterday.

Mmmmmm - Mountains!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Nelson. B.C. is a lovely little town. After catching the ferry at Kootenay Bay to Balfour BC, to get us across Kokanee Lake we camp the night at Kokanee Provincial Park. That evening we treat ourselves to dinner at the Red Fish Café, “a date” and an opportunity to enjoy the town, Thai noodles and a seafood stew – wonderful. The next morning we set out early for Cody Caves.

The caves are twenty km off the highway UP a narrow, rough gravel road that twists and turns with switchbacks every 50 metres. Nothing is said about this in the guidebook and I worry about anyone towing a trailer or driving a big motor home. (Really, I’m worried about meeting them as they try to back down.) The drive is followed by a 1 km hike UP,UP,UP some more. When we arrive at the cave opening we quickly discover that our guide is Fraser Bonner - an ex MMR student from the late 80’s, and Dar taught his sisters! Darlene and I get a personalized tour through an exciting, rugged (“Just walk through the river here. You may have to lie down on this next passage.”) set of caves.

We emerge exhilarated, dirty and ready for a soak in the Ainworth Hot Springs – which are very hot but just the ticket for the bumps and aches we picked up in the caves. Surrounded by mountains and not too overdone, it was a treat. A fabulous day, driving along the Kootenay Lake. If we lived anywhere close we would buy a retirement, cottage/home here. Beautiful country, and not very developed.

We camped that night at Revelstoke so that we could hike the mountain the next day. A private campsite but well maintained, & with a pool, which is great when it’s 38°C, we find a lovely site surrounded by trees. The next day we head up the “Meadows In The Sky Parkway” and go hiking through alpine meadows and give ourselves a bit of heatstroke. High and hot are not a good combination.

The remedy for this is a late lunch at a lovely little restaurant in Revelstoke called The Woolsey Creek Café which we highly recommend to anyone passing through. (It sounds as though we’re eating out a lot. Not so! )

We push on, hoping to stay at Glacier National Park but everything is full and we wind up at a private campground in Golden. Not nice. The owner is making a bundle cramming people into small sites with few amenities. ( Note: On his brochure the owner has the chutzpah to show a small herd of Bighorn Sheep grazing – on the only grass available - in front of the camp. We think this is just oversell until we leave the next morning and turn into – a small herd of Bighorn Sheep! )

We learn from all this, though, and will stop earlier in the day from now on. (And doing so we find a lovely little spot in Lake Louise Campground..)

As we’ve been traveling through the mountains I’ve been frustrated by lovely views but lousy photos. It seemed that there was always a problem with the angle, the light, the foreground, the background, the whatever. It’s really the photographer of course. I go through periods where I simply cannot “see” a photo. Fortunately, that changed with the Ice Fields Parkway and now we have enough mountain photos to build our own postcard business. The ice fields have lost none of their majesty or mystery but a lot of their mass and we are again reminded that global warming is causing great shifts in the topography of this planet of ours. This topic is much on my mind as I’m currently reading “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery. This is a book that should be required reading for every concerned citizen on the planet. This man lays out the crisis of global warming clearly, with illustrations that even I can understand.

We spend Sunday and Monday in Lake Louise National Park. Sunday afternoon we drove south to Banff and quickly left. It really is no longer a town – just an oversized shopping mall with good scenics. On Monday we drove slowly up to the ice fields, stopping at every viewpoint and hiking spot that we could find. Banff can be forgiven, just because it anchors such a stupendous drive. At the ice fields, we do the obligatory walk, fill Dar’s water bottle with meltwater and turn around for home. On the road south, we drive through several storms. These have already visited our campsite and we resolve once again not to leave our camp chairs out in the open when we quit camp.

On Tuesday, we leave for Jasper.

Lords - and Ladies - Of The Dance

Thursday, July 20, 2006,

Things happen so fast! Yesterday we spent a little time in Claresholm, AB – a town much changed since mother and I visited it fifteen years ago. A very helpful librarian gave us some historical material on my grandparents, and we were able to locate the Moffatt plot in the Claresholm Cemetery. I said hello to Ernie and Sue and had a bit of a chat with Uncle Billy for whom I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart. I was delighted to see that his stone is engraved with a treble and bass clef.

In the early afternoon we drove south to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and just happened to arrive at the beginning of a presentation of Blackfoot dances. The outfits – NOT costumes – were fabulous and we watched for about an hour and a half as these people danced a variety of dances in full sun.

The Jump is another World Heritage Site and they’ve done a marvelous job of presenting it. Although it's not possible to walk beneath the cliffs, inside the interpretative centre they recreated the cliff - with buffalo - as well as presenting an excellent overview of how buffalo were hunted by both the Indians and the early settlers. Needless to say, the white boys don't come off looking too good. It took us only about twenty years to reduce a buffalo population of about sixty million to a little over one thousand!

From there, we drove to Crowsnest Pass and then to Chinook Lake Provincial Park where we spent the night. After a hike around the lake we set out for Creston (where we’re presently having lunch under tall white pine trees totally surrounded by mountains) and then we’ll drive north along Kootenay Lake and get the ferry to Nelson where we’ll spend the night.

We Do The Hoodoos

Monday, July 17, 2006

Today we find ourselves in Dinosaur Provincial Park, after an early morning drive north from Writing On Stone Provincial Park.

The day before yesterday we drove through southern Saskatchewan along the Red Coat Trail. This is a government that apparently names its roads literally. While there were patches of asphalt, there were also long stretches of soupy gravel that demanded constant attention to the steering wheel. (Mind you, we chose this route.) Again, we were overwhelmed by the endless skies and flat, flat fields. Wheat is still very green and only the canola and occasional flax field provide some colour.

Who would have thought that one could drive from full to empty without ever encountering a gas station? We didn’t quite manage to empty the tank but came close until we found in Orion a very small, very old grocery with gas tanks set up on a truck around back and a very weathered gentleman to serve us. As we left, a cowboy – black hat, boots, jeans & white t-shirt – was sitting on the stoop, legs outstretched, having just driven up in his truck. It was such a great photo but I couldn’t think of a way to ask.

Writing On Stone Provincial Park was one of those inspired guesses that each of us occasionally make. Driving through more flat grasslands we came suddenly on the Milk River valley and the thousands of hoodoos that line its sides. The campground nestles alongside the river, which is warm and inviting and provided a wonderful swim to end the day.

We got up with the sun to photograph the hoodoos in the morning light and then set out for Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Really, the only comparison that is suitable is coming upon the Grand Canyon from the north side. One moment there are grasslands, next moment you’re staring at a bloody great river valley filled with hoodoos and steep weathered cliffs. (See pix)

At night we are treated to tremendous winds – but no clouds – and Ian has to get up and reset a tent peg. Tuesday morning we get up early to hike the Cottonwood Trail, Ian gets treated to bacon & eggs for breakfast, and we head out to Calgary.

On The Road Again - With The Bison

Friday, July 14, 2006

Saskatchewan!

No one will accuse us of spending too much time in Manitoba. We blew through, spending only one night in the province. This was not entirely our plan – it just happened.

Coming out of Kenora - a lovely little town – you reach the Manitoba border quickly. And I swear, within a distance of 100 metres, the trees that have surrounded you for the last week suddenly drop away and it’s big skies and canola fields. (Darlene assured me that we were looking at mustard. After seeing enough “mustard” fields to coat the world’s hot dogs and hamburgers a million times over, she was ready to agree that that yellow stuff might just be canola.)

We bypassed Winnipeg and headed for Riding Mountain National Park. (That’s not quite true. We spent 30 minutes on the western perimeter in 39 degree heat looking for any place that would give us an Internet hookup. Aesthetics report: Winnipeg can do ugly and congested with the best of Ontario cities.)

Riding Mountain National Park is home to a herd of Bison and we found them at the Lake Audy campsite. When we first arrived they were nowhere to be seen. After pitching the tent we had another drive around and again came up with nothing. And then, on the verge of heading back to the tent, a fortuitous right turn took us over a hill and into the middle of about thirty of them.

And I do mean the middle. They were on both sides of the road and not at all wary of cars. Both of us took dozens of photos and then we got up in the morning at first light, and did it all again. I could do an entire blog devoted to bison but instead I’ll limit myself to the three pictures here.

Before I leave Lake Audy I’ll just mention that my biggest surprise was not the bison, nor the deer, nor the elk – it was the raft of pelicans on the lake. I just don’t associate pelicans with Canada, but I suppose they spend their summer here – there’s certainly enough fish – and then head south in late August when winter arrives. (Joke)

To finish, Dar and I decided that Riding Mountain either deserved another two days or we could just be on our way and that is how we find ourselves in Saskatchewan in Moose Mountain Provincial Park and our big thrill this afternoon is hot showers.

On The Road Again - and the tracks!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Wet! We’ve had more than our fair share of rain since leaving Sudbury. On Thursday we decided to stay overnight in the Sault and take the Agora Canyon train trip the next day. LOTS of green! This would be an excellent trip in the fall, but really, in the summer, we don’t recommend it. Yes, the canyon is lovely but there is an awful lot of featureless green seen on the three-hour train ride each way.

The trip around Lake Superior has been just as beautiful as we both remember it, but plagued by rain. Sunday night found us in Wawa, pushed into a motel by a storm that lasted all day and made photography in any of the parks impossible. (But we missed the hail!) I’m beginning to rearrange my thinking about photographs because of this. I started the trip with a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to shoot. That is a path that seems to lead to frustration. So I’ll take my photos where I find them and try to erase the preconceptions of what I “want” as I go. I’ll try to include a few of the more interesting “found” shots each time I post.

Monday brought us a bit of excitement. The local tourist blurb suggested that it might be fun to hike to Jackfish Station, a ghost town left by a mining concern that ran dry. “ Find the yellow sign 23.7 km east of Terrace Bay, turn right on the gravel road, follow it down to the train tracks, and then walk along the tracks for 15 minutes to the town.”

NOTHING WAS SAID ABOUT TRAINS! So there are Dar and I casually wondering if the tracks get used much and noting that the set of rails beside us seem to be surprisingly polished. See the little rock cleft just behind Dar? We were half way into it when we both screamed “Train!” and ran backwards into that little indent just across from the shadow behind Darlene. This was exciting. Seeing a train go by from four feet away gets the blood coursing through the veins.

And if you’re wondering how much lead time you get on a set of curving tracks, the answer is about 20 – 30 seconds. We know this because the second time it happened, we were ready for it. And we were able to get about 12 feet away – oddly, this seems to be much greater than 3x4 where trains are concerned.

The second train did, however, dampen our enthusiasm for track-walking. With no ghost town in sight we turned around and headed back to the car. Dar quickly perfected the track hiking technique of left-right-left-right-pivot-checkbehind-pivot-left-right…and so on.

And now, with our adrenaline levels still a little high, we decided we could push on to Sleeping Giant campground. Although the guide book billed this as “rugged” and serene we found it to be – after a hell of a long, slow drive off the highway – the most populated, open, least private of all the camps visited so far. It was apartment style living applied to camping. The good news was that although people surrounded us on all sides, it was remarkably quiet at night. And the next day we were rewarded with some very young, very close White Tailed deer on the way back to the highway.

And finally, if you are reading this and wondering why I haven’t sent you an e-mail, it is because my Palm crashed five minutes before we left and I have absolutely no addresses with me. If you’d like to hear from me, send me an e-mail at iancowling@sympatico.ca.

On The Road Again - Jane's Cottage

July 5th,06
Darlene and I finally manage to leave Burlington about 3:00 p.m., after making our first detour to buy a foam pad to go under our Themarests because my back now complains in the morning if it senses that it’s been abused.

We spend the first night with Jane Daw, a former teaching partner at J. M. Denyes Public School (We obey its golden rule!) at her two beautiful cottages on Lake Muskoka and meet Stephanie, her daughter and Sam and Riley,two wonderful Wheaton terriers.

Morning finds Ian sticking his foot in his mouth yet again, but Darlene forgives him and we set off for Sudbury. But first a side trip to Huntsville to find Karen Pearce’s cottage. Karen draws a great map, but labels “Falcon Rd.” as “Falconlodge Rd.” We drive a little further than necessary seeking the impossible but eventually have enough sense to look at the map and disregard the words.

Karen gets a birthday present! All she has to do is find it. It’s located somewhere on the cottage property.

In Sudbury, Darlene renews her OHIP and we push on to Les Chutes Provincial Park on he North Channel. Nice camp site but LOTS of mossies and I see an early night.