Across the Prairies and to the Canadian Rockies

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Yikes! It's been more than a month since we've been home and I have yet to finish my blog, even though it's been mostly written for a long time. Needed to add photos! So here goes, old news.

Manitoba and Alberta 6/23-7/6

Winnipeg

We had an early morning leaving for our 9:30 train from Toronto to Winnipeg, Manitoba since our Airbnb was so far from the station. Luckily we had checked the metro schedule the day before and discovered that it did not start running until 8 and were able to catch a “night bus” that went straight to the station with time to spare. For the last time we got to experience the Business Lounge and priority boarding – quite a nice setup in Toronto. On the train there are just 3 sleeper/berth seat arrangements per car, so lots of quiet and privacy. We have an “attendant” who will make up the beds with a mattress, sheets and comforter. Our attendant is Julio, a really nice guy who loves to talk and is filling us in on all the ins and outs of rail life. Meals are included in sleeper class, and so far they have been excellent. They sit you with others at meals, and we’ve met some interesting people as well as boring! This is our longest leg – 34 hours. We only occasionally have internet, so we’ve been mostly unplugged, but I did get to work on my blogs and photos a little offline and researched what to do in Winnipeg. The berths at night are really comfortable – the best ones on the train, says Julio, as they are wider – even better than private rooms. I have the lower berth and Charlie the upper. They were indeed comfortable, but I had a hard time sleeping. The motion of the train they say rocks you to sleep, but it kept me awake. Maybe I’ll get used to it. It’s certainly way better than the economy class sleeping in the seats and eating sandwiches we brought that we experienced from Miramichi to Quebec City.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the “Prairie Provinces.” After leaving the wild forests and tundra of western Ontario, we came onto the flat grassy plains, with mile after mile of grain farms. It's the former home of millions of buffalo and the northern branch of the Blackfoot Nation, and has a definite western vibe. In addition to grain, the economy is highly dependent on oil and gas. Winnipeg is the capital of Manitoba and a pleasant medium-sized city. It sort of reminds me of Austin 30 years ago. And in case you are wondering, Manitobans are the highest per-capita consumers of 7-11 Slurpees in the world. We arrived early evening and walked to our nearby Airbnb. It’s an entire one-room apartment - small, but with everything we need. One of the nicest we’ve experienced so far.

Even though we’d had sleepers the previous night, we were worn out from the train from Toronto and slept late, had breakfast at a nice little local place and did some grocery shopping so we could make breakfast at “home.” We walked to an area south of where we are staying called “The Forks,” named after the meeting place of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. Here the old railway shops have been converted into a collection of shops and eating stalls. We walked along the river, through beautifully landscaped parks and across the bascule (“see-saw”) bridge, now a foot bridge across the Assiniboine River. We crossed the Red River on an interesting foot suspension bridge to Old St. Boniface (Canada’s 2nd largest French speaking community outside of Québec), which was founded by French priests to care for the Métis . The Métis are unique culturally, descended mostly from French fur traders and Aboriginal peoples and very proud of their heritage and had resisted integration. After the Canadian Confederation was founded in 1869, there was a sudden influx of English-speaking settlers and the Métis responded with 2 failed rebellions. Louis Riel, a Métis leader was found guilty of treason and hung for leading an 1885 uprising protesting the loss of Métis land rights and land. In the distance we had spied a large cathedral and headed that way. When we got there we were surprised to see that the church (St. Boniface) was surrounded by a shell of a 100 year old church – the original having burned in 1968. It was interesting that the architect of the new church had chosen to keep the old shell of the church, and the effect was quite striking. Unfortunately the 60s-era replacement church does not do the site justice. That night we had a lovely dinner at the home of Doug and Paulette Sutherland, Region 5 leaders for Marriage Encounter. Also there were their Encounter Leaders Stan and Miriam. It was so kind of them to come pick us up and take us to their home. The end of a great day was somewhat spoiled when we realized that we had not booked a car and accommodations in Jasper and Banff, Alberta, our next destinations. We were shocked to discover that we could not get anything for less than $350 per night, this being high season in these very popular National Parks. In addition, it was a holiday weekend – Canada Day on July 1 (like our Independence Day). To get more reasonable accommodations, we wound up booking a hotel 2 hours east of Jasper for our 3 days exploring Jasper National Park and an Airbnb close to Calgary for our 4 days visiting Banff and Calgary. Most of our second (raining on and off) day in Winnipeg was spent catching up, washing clothes, making sandwiches and repacking (our next leg of 33 hours, with 2 nights on the train in economy class – no sleeper and no meals included - woe is me!) and trying to book our final 1 night in Jasper after going to Prince Rupert on the Pacific Coast and back. Since we won’t have a rental car we have to stay in Jasper itself for that final night. I really should have booked these several months ago! Nada. Nothing available at the usual booking places or Airbnb. We eventually found an obscure website that had rooms in local houses (cash only) for $175 Canadian. Yikes! We’re blowing our accommodation budget. But we had no choice.

Our train to Jasper tomorrow doesn’t leave until 9:30 pm, so we took a bus out to Assiniboine Park to visit the English Garden, which was a nice park but had very poor signage, and we had to keep asking directions. Then we did a little more exploring of Winnipeg at the Exchange District and stood at the corner of Portage and Main, known for incredibly strong winds and made famous in a song by Neil Young, and went back to The Forks for a good dinner and to the train station to check in.

You might notice that the province of Saskatchewan is missing from our adventures. Our original intention was to hit all of the provinces of Canada as we traveled across the country (except for the far northern ones). However, ViaRail (Canada’s rail system) runs from Toronto to Jasper only 2 times a week, and so we've had to schedule our stops carefully. Stopping in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan would have meant 3 ½ days there, and in that case we wouldn’t have had time to go to Prince Rupert. But we got off the train there when they had an hour stop there and took a picture just to say we’ve been there! Unfortunately, the train station is far from the city, which we've heard is quite nice.

Jasper, 6/29-July 2

On the Toronto-Winnipeg leg of our train trip we were bemoaning to Julio, our attendant, about our inability to upgrade to sleeper class berths on our Winnipeg-Jasper leg. Oh, we could have gotten a private room for several thousand dollars more, but even at the favorable exchange rate of 0.75 Canadian to 1.00 US that was way above our budget. Julio told us that we might get an upgrade after we were on board the train, that sometimes there are no-shows, and you could get a good deal on them. So one of the first things we did when we entrained was to ask – and voila! We got upper and lower berths, similar to what we had coming from Toronto and at a very good discounted rate. We were especially excited to get them as this leg is sleeping 2 nights on the train, not just 1.

The town of Jasper is the gateway to Jasper National Park, considered by many to be even nicer than it’s famous neighbor to the south, Banff National Park. There was a time when you could say that it was also less crowded than Banff, but that no longer seems to be true, especially this time of year and on this (Canada Day) weekend. We arrived into Jasper 4 1/2 hours late (we learned in the morning that one of the engines caught fire and had to be replaced), arriving at 11:00 am instead of 6:30, which was fine by us as we got to sleep later (awakened by our awesome attendant, Amanda) and got an extra breakfast and brunch too. I’m getting better at sleeping on trains but it's still not like sleeping in a real bed. We picked up a rental car and were able to downsize from a SUV (the only one we had been able to get), saving $200 CAD but were surprised to learn that we only had 1600 kilometers for 8 days, with $0.28 per kilometer after that instead of unlimited mileage. No amount of arguing or cajoling could change that. Like the hotels, they can charge as much as they want. Having to stay 2 hours outside the park, we will eat up those miles fast. They threw in a GPS for free. Whoop-dee-doo. Rain again. Even though we were tired, we drove into the Park to Athabascan Falls rather than go the 2 hours in the opposite direction to our hotel. The Falls has a drop of 80ft and a width of 60ft. They’re not considered the highest or widest waterfalls in the Canadian Rockies, but are considered the most powerful.

Then we had to head to Edson, our home for the next 3 days in order to make the 5:00 Mass. Lots of extra prayers were said at the end of Mass by the priest and others. Not sure what that was about, but maybe we needed it! Our hotel is decent enough, at a fraction of what we would have paid in Jasper.

And back to Jasper. Luckily we already have a National Park Pass so don’t have to wait in line when entering the park. When we had picked up the car the previous day we didn’t notice that the windshield had several dings and scratches (it was raining at the time). So our first stop was to National Car Rental to make sure they were aware that we were not responsible. She looked and said yes, some had already been repaired, but that one was obviously new. Uh. No, not so obviously. Sigh. She wrote down on our check-out sheet that one might be new. An argument for when we return that car. We explored the town of Jasper a little (way too many tourists ?), then went to Maligne Canyon where we saw an amazing steep narrow gorge being carved by rushing water, (sort of a baby Grand Canyon). It’s considered the most interesting canyon in the Canadian Rockies. We got as far as the fourth bridge (about a 3 km. walk). On the way back into Jasper we came across a couple a little older than us looking lost and a little shy sticking out their thumbs hitch-hiking. So we picked them up. They were from England and had taken a tour bus out to the canyon. They decided it would be fun to walk back to Jasper but didn’t realize how far it was and had gotten lost. They were eternally grateful and tried to buy us a drink, but we declined and dropped them off in Jasper. We headed south again on the “scenic route” towards another falls (we love waterfalls!) but decided to follow a side road to Mount Edith Cavell, a windy road that dead-ended in an overlook. The sign said, “Path of the Glacier Trail, 1.4 km. return” out to Cavell Glacier and Angel Glacier so of course we had to take it. It was a steep climb, but so worth it. While there we heard a booming sound and saw 2 avalanches (ice and snow that is) coming off the glaciers. Incredible. We headed back to Edson, stopping at KFC for dinner – too much fast food today - and booked a Columbia Icefields Adventure Tour for the day after tomorrow when we head down to Banff and our Airbnb west of Calgary.

Canada Day. It was a cold and rainy day today (around 40 degrees) and still we saw folks out and about in shorts and flip flops. We decided to stay close to “home” in Edson since Jasper would be crazy with people there for the Canada Day celebrations and stayed inside most of the day. We ventured out later when the rain slowed to the local park for the celebrations. They had food trucks, stuff for the kids, etc. We wanted to see the “Pipe and Drum” performance (bagpipes, that is). We were expecting a large band and were slightly disappointed to see a 5 person group on stage. But they were pretty good (it’s kind of hard to know when bagpipes are off-key). Then came the singing of the Canadian national anthem and welcomes from the Canada Day committee and the local politicians (not so different from Fourth of July festivities). Then they gave out cupcakes to everyone. Not sure if that it a Canada Day tradition. The local talent were up next but we took off back to the hotel to get ready for our trip tomorrow down to the Columbia Icefields and Banff National Park and then on to our new home near Calgary. We decided to pass on the fireworks which didn’t start until 11:00 when it usually gets dark up here.

We had a long drive down to Calgary today, full of lots of lakes, gorgeous waterfalls and snow and ice-covered mountains and also saw a couple of moose, but the most exciting thing was the tour of the Columbia Icefields. It was expensive, but a once in a lifetime experience. It’s quite an operation, with full buses leaving for the glacier every 15 minutes. The bus took us to a staging area where we boarded these ginormous snow vehicles (see pictures) that took us up on the glacier. We had ½ hour to walk around a restricted area, get a bottle of glacier water to drink (really good) and take pictures. It was cold up there, and I got to use my new puffy insulated jacket that I expected to use a lot in Canada, but haven’t used since Newfoundland. The tour also included a “Skywalk” out over a canyon, a glass floored walk, similar to the one at the Grand Canyon. I had told Charlie that he could go; I’d just take the walk with him up to the site. But when I got there, and after reading all the info signs about how strongly it was built, I stuck one foot out onto the glass walk and decided it wasn’t so bad and walked out holding on to Charlie for dear life (as if that would make any difference if it all came tumbling down). The bridge swayed a little (that’s normal), but I surprised myself by not feeling queasy and stressed. The view wasn’t that spectacular – a valley and river way below. I think the Grand Canyon Skywalk would be more interesting.

The rest of the drive was okay – we stopped in Banff city and looked around a little – a real touristy town in the Park. Our Airbnb near Calgary is interesting. It’s on 5 acres out in the country in a small development. The owner, Elka, is from Romania and has a huge house where she books out her extra bedrooms to Airbnb guests. We immediately felt at home with her and her 2 more-or-less long term guests (and 2 husky/wolf dogs) as she offered us glasses of wine (we’re not much of wine drinkers, but I had a beer) and wanted to know all about our train trip across Canada. She decided that we needed to take the Orient Express across Russia and said she would tell us all about it in the morning!

Banff National Park, 7/3-4

After a late start at Elka's we headed back to Banff National Park – the first national park in Canada - for more exploring. We of course had to see Lake Louise. We, along with thousands of others who had the same idea that day. Not only was the parking lot filled up, the overflow parking lot also was full. Being resigned to coming back very early the following day, we drove into the small town of Lake Louise for something to eat (mostly a small strip shopping center), very luckily found a parking spot and got some pretty decent lunch. We spoke with the Parks Canada folks in the parking lot who told us we could hike up to the Lake (5 km.) or wait about 45 minutes for a local bus that would take us there for $2. We decided to wait for the bus, and were glad we did, even though the line was long and it was raining on and off. The walk to the Lake was pretty steep. I'm glad we didn't attempt it in the rain. I had been to Lake Louise as a kid of maybe 10 or 12 years, and I was disappointed to see that the glacier across the Lake had receded quite a bit. Or so it seemed – we don’t have our photos anymore. But the Lake was as beautifully turquoise as I remembered it, although with lots fewer people and activities back then. We had some coffee in the very elegant chalet (hotel) there (way out of our budget to stay, not that we could have even gotten a room). Next we went on to Moraine Lake, supposedly nicer with lots fewer people (not!). Another hurry up and wait time for the shuttle back to the parking lot at Lake Louise town. We drove the old (scenic) route south from there back to Banff instead of the superhighway, and that was very nice – incredible scenery again. In 2 days we go to Day 1 of the Calgary Stampede. That night, in checking our transportation into town we decided to go to the opening day parade. We discovered that we could reserve bleacher seats, with breakfast thrown in, sponsored by the local Rotary Club, and luckily they still had tickets left. Hopefully it will stop raining by then.

The next day we went back into Banff National Park. We had some scenic drives in mind and a hike up Johnston Canyon, but it was cold, foggy and rainy. We got as far as the Lower Falls at Johnston Canyon, and even with raincoats got pretty wet. We went back to the town of Banff and walked around, looking for a t-shirt for me and an easy lunch. We were surprised to find a Cows ice cream store (the famous Cows from Prince Edward Island), but sad to say my Mooey Gooey was just not the same. I’m getting tired of rainy days ruining our plans.

The Calgary Stampede is promoted as the biggest outdoor activity in North America, but I’m not so sure. I would think the Texas State Fair is larger. We left early and drove to the light rail station to go into Calgary in time for the breakfast and parade start time of 9. We were surprised to see a gigantic tent with hundreds of people inside and a huge buffet line. We thought it would be in a nice little restaurant somewhere. They had pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream, a fried egg, sausage patty, OJ, coffee and tea, as well as baked beans (!) I passed on the beans. We also had a drink ticket (alcohol). Who drinks at 8 in the morning?? Apparently lots, since the line for drinks was long. We found our bleacher seats and thankfully it stopped raining shortly before the parade started. And what a great parade it was. Lots of marching bands from all over the world, local groups, horse riders, bagpipers, chuckwagons, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, First Nations tribes and of course firetrucks, tanks, cowboys, cowgirls, kids and dogs. After the parade we went to Stampede Park and looked around. It had rides (we passed), lots of weird things to eat (Deep Fried Coffee??), agriculture and animal displays, some truly enormous horse breeds. We even watched a silly dog-acrobats show. We had gotten tickets months ago to something called the Chuck Wagon Races - that sounded interesting - with a show afterwards. We had no idea what a big deal chuck wagon racing is in Canada, especially at the Calgary Stampede, with total prize money at 1.5 million dollars US. There are 26 "chuck wagons" (which have to be built to specifications) pulled by 4 thoroughbred horses around a race track. Who knew? It's exciting - but controversial - with both people and horses having been killed over the years. This was followed by the Bell Grandstand Show, which according to the website, "dazzles audiences with elaborate song and dance numbers, acrobatics, and concludes with a spectacular fireworks finale! And it really was spectacular, with entertaining and incredible performances by the Young Canadians, 120 very talented young people (11-18) who attend the Calgary Stampede Foundation's School of the Performing Arts. But it got really cold in the grandstands, and we left early and skipped the fireworks extravaganza at the end. We finally arrived home around midnight, and Elka was waiting up for us with roast duck and rice, wine and lots of travel talk.

A late start back from Elka's as she plied us with snacks for the road and talked our ears off. We headed up to Hinton, near Jasper at an okay Airbnb - much cheaper than expensive Jasper. We decided to take the back roads up instead of driving back through the parks. Google Maps online showed the route clearly, but the GPS wasn't buying it. At some point we turned into a dirt road. Hmmm. Not knowing how bad it might get (and not wishing to return the car with another cracked windshield) we backtracked and wound up driving back through the park anyway. All was not lost, though, as we saw not 1, but 4 black bears. We're back on the train tomorrow, so we're having to re-pack everything after having the luxury of a car for the past week. This is a 2 day side trip to Prince Rupert on the Pacific, and it stops for the night at Prince George, half way there.

One more blog entry to go - British Columbia. I hope it won't take another month to get it out!

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Photos

Our train
From Toronto to Winnipeg

Miles and miles
of Prairies

Winnipeg Skyline
Winnipeg, Manitoba

St. Boniface shell
Winnipeg

With Marriage Encounter Friends Winnipeg
Winnipeg

Love this plaque.
Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg

Got off at Saskatoon
to say we've been to Saskatchewan

Athabascan Falls
Jasper National Park

Maligne Canyon
Jasper National Park

Mt. Edith Cavell
Jasper National Park

Angel Glacier
near Mt. Edith Cavell Jasper NP

Canada Day
Edson, Alberta

On the Glacier
Columbia Icefields

Skybridge
Jasper National Park

Lake Louise
Banff National Park

Johnston Canyon
Banff National Park

Breakfast Buffet
Calgary Stampede Parade
Calgary, Alberta

Chuck Wagon Races
Calgary Stampede

Bascule (See-Saw) Bridge
Winnipeg