More Prairies to Winnipeg, Manitoba

Leaving Moose Jaw around lunchtime, we set off on the 650km journey to Winnipeg to see friends we met in Vietnam – Wes and Amanda. We spent a day or so hanging out with them reminiscing on old times of our 3 weeks of travel together in 2006. We enjoyed walking around Winnipeg and seeing downtown. Winnipeg has many funky neighbourhoods that seem to be busy and ‘happening’. It also has a large French community so we had some great Poutine. Originating from Montreal, traditional poutine is a French Canadian dish made of chips (with real potato, not skinny fries), thick gravy and cheese curds. Not exactly very healthy, but really really gooood! Great to see Wes and Amanda and catch up with them. * Mush
 

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Little Chicago – Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

Well, the town of Moose Jaw has nothing to do with mooses or jaws but comes from the Cree word ‘moosegaw’ for ‘warm breezes’. Moose jaw used to be a lonely trading post in mid Saskachewan until the railways transformed it into a bustling prairie town in the 1880s. It’s claim to fame is a little-known gangster bringing his criminal escapades north from Chicago during Prohibition in the 20’s. Al Capone – his guns, his goons, his gin, his gals – had a secret world in the underground tunnels of Moose Jaw. Now I didn’t realize just how much money Big Al made: a $100 million a year! That’s an amazing amount of money. We took a tour through a maze of underground spaces which was informative and very entertaining. Our guides would drop into character every once in a while. We learned that the tunnels were originally made and used by Chinese immigrants who, after working on the railroad and with no job or return ticket to China (as had been promised), still had to repay their fee for their original passage from China. The ‘coulee’ as they were disrespectfully referred to worked for a pittance in the underground in laundries or burlap factories trying to pay off their debts. They were persecuted by white people, and even though they endured intolerable working and living conditions below, they never ventured above ground. Eventually immigration laws changed but not after may more years of hardship for the Chinese.

From here, we set off on the 650km journey to Winnipeg to see our friends from Vietnam – Wes and Amanda!

Writing-on Stone Provincial Park, Alberta

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Today we started heading East across the Prairies of Alberta.  The winds picked up the morning we left Waterton. It was blowing 40km/hr (25miles/hr) winds forecast to increase to 60k/hr, gusting to 80! Probably a good time to pack up the tent before that happenend! So we headed east for the flat prairies leaving the mountains behind. The prairies were indeed flat as far as they eye could see, though not as dull as we were expecting. Farms flanked the road we took. The landscape of crops of corn or wheat were broken up with silos or grain elevators. Occasionally, there’d be an oil rig in the middle of a sea of wheat.

Once in a while the flat landscape would drop into a valley created by meandering rivers giving rise to unexpected oases of trees and lush undergrowth. Writing-on Stone Provincial Park was a highlight. A lush oasis with eroded rock formations called hoodoos. These reminded Martin of Cappadocia in Turkey: lots of unusual shapes and sizes of eroded rocks with funky layers and flat tops. Petroglyphs were depicting life of the Blackfoot Indians are carved into the rocks here. Pretty cool.

We were going to cross the province border in the very south, but hit dirt gravel roads every which way we turned, so decided to go north and take the main TransCanada Highway1 into Saskachewan. It was dark when we arrived in a campsite north of Moosejaw in a lush little valley on a lake. *Mush

Prairie Meets Mountains at Waterton Lakes

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Waterton National Park is in south east Alberta near the border with BC to the west and the states to the south. Beautiful place. Serene mountains and lakes teeming with wildlife starting with buffalo as we entered the park, tons of deer, and the highlight: a cinnamon bear cub in a tree with mum out of sight in the bushes down below. We thought that it was a grizzly, but discovered it wasn’t. Cinnamon bears are light brown in colour and part of the black bear family (not brown bear).  We did a very cool six hour hike into the mountains to Carthew pass. Our starting point at Cameron lake and it’s surrounding peaks were shrouded in cloud.  We walked up beautiful snowy forests passed another lake for lunch with a view of pretty mountains. Steep scree terrain rewarded us with a spectacular 360 degree view at the saddle summit with Glacier National Park (Waterton’s equivalent in the US) to the south and glimpses of prairies to the east beyond Waterton’s peaks. Just before entering Waterton’s pretty townsite the Prince of Wales Hotel had a perch overlooking the lake that I think any Fairmont Hotel would kill for! In comparison, our accommodation was less pretty even though it was beside the lake. We were surprised to see that the National Park campground (the only one open) was pretty much an open field with no character or privacy between sites. Stone chimneyed kitchen huts offered some warmth and shelter, but we couldn’t find any wood at the camp or in town. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the beautiful colours and hiking. *Mush

City Slickers Here We Come!

Time to leave the shelter of Calgary and face the open road and whatever the weather would throw at us now that we were dried out and fuelled to go. First stop was Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump - a UNESCO World Heritage site where the ancient method of hunting buffalo by herding them for miles and then funneling them driving them over very specific cliffs areas. The Blackfoot first nations people (the Plains Indians of this area) hunted this way for nearly 6000 years. The exhibit centre is pretty cool describing the pre-hunt ceremony, the herding process and the jump with interesting archeological evidence. There are also walks around the area of the cliffs and the kill site, though nothing much to see now apart from cliffs that once were originally 20m high are now, after thousands of years of buffalo bone deposits, only 10m high.

Our end destination of the day was a somewhat surprise/short-notice landing on friends of Rob’s who own a ranch in south-east Alberta. Jim and Lauren and their two kids Sophie and Mattias, made us feel super welcome at their family ranch known as Antelope Butte Ranch. Unfortunately, it snowed that night (thankfully we were inside by a nice wood burning stove) which meant there was no harvesting of crop to be done the next morning. But a ranch is a ranch… and there’s always work to be done! Well, the first job of the day was milking Hazel their family cow, of course, for the family fridge. I was pretty excited as I have never milked a cow before despite many school visits ‘to the farm’ when I was a kid in England. Anyway, it was not as difficult as I had imagined although my aim was a bit dubious. It’s an interesting technique requiring one to grip the hand around the teet and squeeze with the fingers in quick succession starting from the index to the pinkie allowing milk to collect then squirt out. Collect, squirt, collect, squirt etc. Who would have dreamt that we would be milking a cow on our trip!

Second job of the day (after Martin helped Sophie build a snowman, of course) was to bring a renegade bull home. City slickers eat your heart out… I have been on a horse probably twice in my life, but Jim was not perturbed (which meant that he could probably do the job single handedly). Anyway, once I got a quick lesson on how to ride a horse, we went in search of the Bull. The ranch is at least 9,000 acres, but Jim knew where to start looking. As we slowly made our way we saw a bald eagle, a golden eagle, and in the distance, a coyote. We eventually found the bull in a field (probably doing his job), but with the neighbours cows who had got out of their own field and onto the more juicier plains of Antelope Butte. So not only did we have to bring the bull home, we had to get the girls back into their own field. By the three of us manouvering in a line towards the herd constantly moving our horses back and forth so that the herd would move towards the gate we were able to get them back in to the correct field! Using the same process we were able to separate the bull from the cows, and with Jim, Martin and I always in constant eye contact with the bull from the rear side we ‘walked’ the bull home and herded him into the corral. The whole experience was amazing and every minute we had to keep reminding ourselves that we were actually doing this. Holy Cow! *Mush

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Dry Days in Calgary

It seemed to keep on raining when we got to Calgary. We didn't care: we were DRY and WARM for the first time in what felt like a loooong time. Heaven! It was great to stay with friends Robb and Nat and their two kids, Abby and Maggie.... not to mention, the fabulous warm, dry roof over our heads! We spent some goofy times catching up with friends Jeff and Alana, and Sean and Emma too. We were reluctant to leave the warmth and comfort, so poor Robb and Nat had to put up with us for another day!

We managed a quick visit with Slim and Michelle on what happened to be their son Zach's 7th birthday.  All the kids were out for a 'Harry Potter' party, so plenty of spells were cast, and potions drank.  Brian and Mel, Martin's friends from Queen's were also there with their 2 kids!!
We spent four glorious dry days in Calgary before moving on.  *Mush

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Lake O’Hara, British Columbia, Canada

The next four days we spent at beautiful Lake O’Hara.
Surprise, surprise, but more rain!  We boarded the bright yellow school bus bound for Lake O’Hara with a group of other campers.  They limit the number of people that can head up to the lake to 40/day.  This is to protect the natural beauty of the area and to restore a lot of the trampled habitat.  Because of this, we had to book the bus and campsite 3 months in advance, and had been looking forward to it.  It did not disappoint.

The campground was like a little community, with communal cooking shelters/warming huts and a big fire pit where we could all gather when it wasn’t raining. The hiking around the alpine circuits was amazing in spite of the rain. The mist and low-lying clouds added to the atmosphere, and once they lifted, the colours were more vibrant, if anything. The first larches were turning gold too. For those of you who don't know, larches are unusual trees because they are the only pine-needle tree that will change colour in autumn and lose its needles.

Anyway, we had fun meeting a variety of people on the trails and at the campsite. At the end of each day we would take shelter from the rain and cook dinner in the kitchen huts sharing stories of the day’s adventures with other campers. We decided to stay an extra night as there was space due to poor weather, and to our surprise, we found little food packages and farewell notes in our bear locker from friends we’d made whom we'd told. We couldn’t believe it. It made us feel good that people are so generous despite only knowing them for a day or so.

On the evenings that it didn’t rain, we sat around the group fire pit and had great laughs and made smores (again generously donated by new friends who had left that day). I will have to explain smores as they are a very north American thing and we don’t 'do' them in England. They are basically a sandwich that you make around the campfire made with a freshly melted-on-the fire marshmallow with a square of (unmelted) chocolate and placed between 2 graham crackers (biscuits). They can only be eaten whole so you have to cram them in your mouth in one go, and if it's done correctly, the chocolate should melt from the heat of the marshmallow.
We did not want to leave this beautiful place, but know that we aim to come back again, as seems to be the norm with most of the people we met who come back year after year. * Mush

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Rampart Creek, Icefields Parkway, Alberta

The last couple of days, were somewhat chore days. Laundry, groceries, camp clean-up etc, so we had a late start back down the Icefields Parkway. As it is getting later in the season, a lot of the campsites have closed for the winter, so we were pleasantly surprised when we came across Rampart Creek campground, and it was still open. We had a really nice site backing onto the light blue creek, and chilled out with a glass of wine and backgammon at the river. We have been eating some great meals generally at our campsites, and tonight was no exception. Full bellies to sleep, and yet another night of rain – what is up with the weather!!

Today, we cruised from Rampart Creek to Lake Louise. Along the way, we stopped for yet another hike to Bow Falls, by the lake we had dried out a few days earlier. It’s nice to get out into the wilderness with all these hikes. It’s hard to explain how beautiful all these areas are without repeating myself, but the colours and sights are just stunning if you work a little to get there.

As is pretty common on the drive, you often see groups of cars pulled over on the side of the road and this usually signifies some sort of wildlife. We came across a similar sight on the drive and both of us immediately said “Must not be a bear because all the people are out of their cars”. Well, to our surprise it was a bear – about 15-20 feet from all these people!! What were they thinking getting out of their cars! Some people are crazy, not to mention the effect this type of behaviour has on the poor bear itself. NUTS!

We had booked a bus up to Lake O’Hara for the following day to do some ‘backcountry’ camping, so our camping time in Lake Louise was spent getting all our gear sorted, and pre-cooking up some tasty meals to take to the backcountry for the next 4 days!! *Stub

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Mt Edith Cavell, Alberta, Canada

We spent another couple of days in Jasper.  We really like the feel of this cute town and would like to come back and explore a little more sometime.  There are some great outdoor opportunities in Jasper, including Mt Robson – the highest mountain in Canada.  We did another hike today, but not to the top of Robson or anything.  It was at Mt Edith Cavell, named after the English nurse that helped many POW’s escape during WW1.  I had no idea what to expect of this area, but was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the glaciers and lake at the base.  There was a massive hanging glacier above the lake called Angel Glacier because it had wings.  The entire time we were in the area, you could hear the glacier calving and large chunks of ice falling down the cliffs.  At the lake itself, the water was an incredible greeny turquoise colour and was full of ‘icebergs’ floating around in the lake.  Once again, we did a 3 hour hike up past the moraines and the tourists, passing many little pikas scurrying around getting their winter nests in order.  The view from the top of the hike was very serene.  Looking down on the beautiful icebergs and lake was quite peaceful. After the hike, to pick up the pace, I decided to get my bike off the roof and ride the 13km road all downhill to get the adrenaline flowing – FUN but also a little wet! Earlier that day, we had moved campsites, and instead of taking our tent down and deflating the mattress, we had carried the entire ’mobile home’ to the new site which seemed like miles away.  To give you an idea of the magnitude of the 780 site campground, we had a couple of visitors that night that saw our lantern on and approached us.  Dutch couple Ditmar and Frederik, could not find their way back to their rented RV, as they had gone out earlier for a drink and did not have a map or flashlight with them.  We immediately were willing to help them find their way back, but not before sitting down for a glass of wine with us!!  We were then rewarded handsomely for successfully navigating them home, with a few glasses of single malt whiskey which is Michelle’s favourite!  We had some fun laughs with them, before navigating our way back home for a relatively warm and dry night!   *Stub To see more Alberta photos, click here

Jasper and Maligne

We woke up to even more snow on the next morning.  Packing up the WET tent again, and heading on our way, we continued North on the Parkway.  Stunning scenery awaited us at every turn, along with some wildlife sightings (mountain sheep, mountain goats, elk, deer).  We made stops at most viewpoints, but took some more time at Athabasca Falls.  A few too many tourists, but what do you expect on the Labour Day weekend!  The opaque blue water pouring out the back end of the canyon looked freezing and we felt cold just watching the white water rafting trip start.  The staircases around the falls we really neat as they were built through dried up river channels from the falls.

We had lunch at a nice lake in cute little Jasper, a beautiful little place that looks like a hub for outdoor adventures.  Since we hadn’t showered in probably a week (hey – we are staying in primitive campsites) we cruised further north to Miette hot springs and after a rinse, we spent a couple of hours in the outdoor pools, with the rain coming down around us.  The even better part was…… you guessed it, we got to shower after!  Fresh and clean for another week!  Back to the rain at Pocahontas campsite - we have become accustomed to holing up in our tent playing backgammon and cards at night. 

The next morning, we were off to Maligne Lake up in the mountains.  We didn’t leave ourselves enough time to hike here, but apparently there is one of the best 3 day hikes in the Rockies here – the Skyline Trail.  I must admit, I was not really impressed with Maligne Lake, but I was expecting a particular view of Spirit Island that I could not get to cheaply, and was too far to walk.  A more interesting lake on the way was Medicine Lake, which apparently fills up in the Spring with the runoff, but turns into a series of channels later in the summer.  This is because there is no visible outlet from the lake, but instead there is a network of underground river channels that drain the lake.  It fills in Spring because the underground channels are not large enough to keep up with runoff into the lake.

A short drive back down the valley brings us to Maligne Canyon, the place where the underground rivers come back above ground.  We loved this canyon and took a long walk up and down the length of the canyon.  At some points, the canyon was 50m deep, but probably only about 5m wide max.  Super steep walls, very colourful green mosses and light blue waters filled with glacial sediment.  Pretty impressive, and a highlight of the day.

We camped that night at the overpriced, 780 site campsite in Jasper where we were surprised to see a huge elk and baby walk right through our site.    *Stub

Columbia Icefields

We woke up to a blanket of snow – our first real snowfall and it’s only Sept 6th. After a warm breakfast and a hot chocolate, we set out for Parker Ridge – a small day hike we were planning on tackling. Within the first few turns of the hike, we bumped into a lovely couple that were enjoying the snowy “Christmas Trees”. Turns out Lionel and Elmara were from South Africa and do not see the snow so much, so were totally enjoying the white, fluffy stuff. After parting ways, we climbed to the saddle of the ridge, then up a little higher to enjoy a brisk view of Mt Athabasca and the Saskatchewan Glacier. On our way down to the saddle, we were delighted to see Lionel and Elmara at had managed to make the trek all the way up there. We invited them for hot chocolate at our car after the hike which they said was too good to pass up. They headed on their way up the Icefields, hostelling all the way, and we plan to visit them in Capetown, SA later in our trip.

















We were on a roll, so attempted another hike for the late afternoon. This time up Wilcox Pass to get a different view of the Athabasca Glacier. Very cool views across the valley with the Icefields centre in the foreground and massive glacier behind and above. In this final picture you can see a few dots on the glacier bottom right - these are monster 6x6 tourist buses that explore the glacier. Both Michelle and I had done some glacier walking in New Zealand, so decided that would probably be the more adventurous of the trips, so stuck with our hiking rather than spending the $$ here. We did see some big horn sheep at the top of Wilcox, but only at a distance.

Our final ‘hike’ of the day was a very chilly walk to the toe of the glacier. The thing is massive, and they say at the deepest point, it is actually thicker than the Eiffel Tower is high!! *Stub

Icefields Parkway, Alberta

Martin can’t believe that he has lived in BC on and off since 1994, and never traveled the Icefields Parkway – probably one of the most scenic drives in the world. He had been to Lake Louise and Jasper (towns at the top and bottom of the Parkway) but has never done the 230km (160 miles) Icefields bit between them until now. For me, this will be my second time exploring this beautiful and interesting place.


A wet, soggy start was a sign of things to come for the next few weeks. When the sun finally came out we screeched to a halt and draped a thankfully, quiet picnic area with our tarps, groundsheets and tent. And Bow Lake was a great scenic spot for lunch too!

After that the clouds came and went, and we passed many beautiful mountains and glaciers, lakes and rivers stopping off to do small hikes here and there along the Parkway. At the beautiful aquamarine Peyto Lake we just managed to get out alive from a bus load of Japanese tourists that engulfed us at the viewing platform. We found a little solitude on a small hike away from the busloads, and actually had a better view of the stunning lake. We also saw our first snowflakes of the trip here!

On to Saskatchewan Crossing with views of the Saskatchewan River which comes from the Saskatchewan glacier in the icefields. This eventually feeds Lake Winnipeg – a looooong way away! Mistaya Canyon was pretty cool with its turbulent waters down below and long-ago eroded potholes in the walls and rocks.

The Icefields Parkway passes within viewing distance of seven icefields which are monstrous-sized upland glaciers, and about 25 smaller glaciers. The massive Athabasca glacier was the view we had from our great, but cold, campsite that night. *Mush

Valley of the Ten Peaks

All the packing is finally over (thank goodness) and we are on the road. First real night of camping and we managed to sleep-in partly because all we could hear through the night were trucks and trains, and we needed more sleep. Maybe not the best choice of campsite in Yoho Park! We had cruised to Yoho after spending our real first night with friends Rob and Michelle Nagy in Revelstoke, with deluxe accommodations on their front lawn in ‘Our Blue Heaven’ – their second-hand RV that came with the special name!

What to do on our second day….. how about a nice hike in the Rockies. (A note on translation for you non-Canadians here: a 'hike' is a walk in the wilderness, not a lift from the side of the road!) After sorting our gear, we got our day packs sorted and headed out for famous Moraine Lake, along with what seemed about fifty thousand others on the Saturday of Labour Day long weekend. If anyone has been to Moraine Lake, they know it is a beautiful sight, but FAR too many people. But, as soon as you start hiking, you lose about 90% of the tourists and get some solitude.


I had been wanting to do the hike here for years. We hiked up to Eiffel Lake, about 2 hours of switch-backs and side-cuts from Moraine. Some great views back over the aquamarine glacial blue of the lake, and the Ten Peaks behind. Hence the name of the valley – Valley of the Ten Peaks (which used to be on the $20 bill). We hiked with a couple from Cold Lake, Alberta and their sister from Nova Scotia. It is required to hike in groups of 4 or more, as there is a lot of grizzly bear activity in the area, and the chances of bear attacks to groups of 4+ are slim. A great hike then back to the campsite for some grub, but the rains came and banished us to our tent!! *Stub

Homeless!

Well, we hit the road again today after a scramble to get moved out of our apartment and get organized for storing our gear, packing for our cross-country trip and packing for our main backpack trip to Africa. We drove up to Revelstoke and are on our way to Yoho National Park tomorrow to start camping and hiking! Here is a recent photo of Mt Assiniboine from our hiking trip there in the 3rd week of July. We expect to see more stunning scenery like this over the next few weeks!
We are officially gypsies again!!
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