Blogs from Canada, North America - page 17

Calgary, Alberta, 3 juillet Après ces deux années où l'exploration était quelque peu limitée géographiquement, il est bon de parcourir à nouveau les vastes étendues du continent. Plus d'une décennie plus tard, je retrouve avec grand bonheur les paysages magnifiques de l'Ouest canadien. C'est par la route, en empruntant en partie le côté américain de la frontière, que nous gagnâmes la métropole albertaine, Calgary. Ces 4 500 kilomètres de route (en cinq petits jours, bonne moyenne!) nous menèrent d'abord aux sources du fleuve Saint-Laurent que sont les Grands Lacs, puis aux immenses plaines du Dakota du Nord et du Montana et finalement aux contreforts des Rocheuses. En chemin, nous fîmes halte au parc National Theodore Roosevelt, dans les "badlands" du Dakota du Nord. L'ancien président des États-Unis (1901-1909) y avait un ranch et y a développé ... read more

Our shoddy but eye-wateringly expensive freeway-side apartment didn’t magically improve overnight. We learned during the small hours that Toronto freeway drivers are very fond of honking their horns and doing burnouts, and that the traffic on “our“ freeway is as heavy at 4am here as it is at peak hour anywhere in the rest of the world, or so it seemed. This may of course have something to do with the cardboard taped over the windows next to our bed not being a particularly effective noise barrier. … and as I lay awake watching the advertising signs flashing blindingly through the gaps in our near non-existent blinds and curtains, I began to wonder why these get left on late at night when everyone should be asleep. Oh wait on, of course, they’re not asleep, they’re all ... read more

We continued North-East to reach one of my highlight: Forillon National park. It's a peninsula at the end of the Gaspesian peninsula. A mix of ocean, forest, cold streams and beautiful landscapes. The most beautiful spot in the park is for me, the Bon-Ami Cape. It's dramatic because of its topography and at the same time beautiful for its blue and green ocean waters. The park has a wide range of hiking trails ranging from very easy and interpreted, to the rough and long with only limited shelters. Park have also many beaches whether with sand or pebbles. One sector harbors old historic buildings from 19th century showing small village life of that era. Other sector contains a distinctive taiga section, normally only see far in the North. Roads are well maintained. A good place for ... read more

This morning we’ve arranged to do a tour of the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac. We meet our guide, Thomas, who tells us that he’s a French travelling salesman, and that he’s 112 years old. We’re perhaps struggling a bit with that last bit, but at least he’s dressed the part. We’re told that the Chateau is named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac who was a much loved Governor General of New France in the late seventeenth century. It was originally built by the Canadian Pacific Railways as part of the company’s grand railways hotel program which includes such other icons as the Banff Springs Hotel, Chateau Lake Louise and the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park. The logic was that if they built a railway, the passengers were more likely to travel ... read more

This morning’s itinerary is a bus trip out to Montmorency Falls which we read tumble into the St Lawrence River about 10 kms downstream of Quebec City. The bus stops right outside the door of our hotel, but that’s about where the convenience ends. The driver doesn’t accept credit cards or give change, which seems to us like a great way of extracting large quantities of cash from unsuspecting tourists. The seats aren’t padded, and if there are any shock absorbers on this vehicle they passed their use by date several decades ago. Issy had one of her shakes for breakfast - a powder that she spent a long time mixing with water. She could have saved herself a lot of effort is she’d just eaten the powder and let the bus do the rest of ... read more