The Great Rockies Road Trip

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We'd flown to Vancouver but we had a wedding to attend in Saskatoon roughly 1000 miles to the east, so that meant hopping in a hire car and heading out on an epic road trip! If you look at a map of Canada that doesn't look like much of a distance, but I blame Canada for that, for being ridiculously large. Over six days on the road we crossed two mountain ranges, visited a former gold rush area, a wine region, and numerous national parks, where we saw nature of awe-inspiring beauty.

We'd hardly left Vancouver when we had the first beauty spot, the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Any frisson of fear from walking along a small bridge over a gigantic ravine was somewhat dampened but the hordes of tourists, but nothing could interfere with the sheer beauty of the surrounds. The forest of British Columbia is as beautiful as anything I've seen. Coming from New Zealand, conifers are exotic plants grown from lumber, and hold very little beauty at all. Here in their native habitat they look incredible, and often majestically tall. Meanwhile Maria Chiara was entranced by the wonderful form of the maple leaf... it would have to be good to get on the Canadian flag!

The road to Whistler is called the Sea to Sky highway, with a fjord on one side, and a steep sided mountain on the other, with dense forest and spectacular waterfalls. It was becoming evident to us that Canada's own brand of natural beauty is not "less is more" but "big is beautiful".

Whistler itself is a famous ski resort. It has a cutesy pedestrianised centre that was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics. We didn't love it. If Disney wanted to add an alpine village to one of its theme parks my guess is it would look a lot like Whistler. That may not have been to our taste, but the next day up the road Maria Chiara and I did our first major hike, to the three Joffre Lakes: glassy and surreal-blue glacial lakes with perfect reflections of the mountains above. If only there weren't so many tourists. Rude, crass, and malingering in the way of the best views while trawling their phones. My inner misanthrope was kicking in. Globalisation means that travel is cheaper and easier than ever - not only for me but for everyone else. So I have to share these beautiful places, at times extremely reluctantly.

Descending the first set of mountains put us in a dry.hot valley with not much to speak of other than the small former gold rush towns frequented by cowboys. They drive big pick up trucks and hang around in saloons - this is very much the northern extent of the "wild west".

Next was Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley, an high quality but not internationally known wine region surrounded by a long lake. On the first night we had a meal at a winery with quite possibly the most friendly waitress in the world, who gave us a fairly complete tasting of their range of wines while having dinner, free of charge. Such friendliness was by not unusual on our trip: Canadians have a lovely way about them. If a quintessential Canadian were a cocktail they would be one part the politeness of the English, and two parts the confidence and openness of Americans, served over ice. They have a reputation for apologising all the time. I didn't notice that sorry, I love a good apology myself! The next day MC got in a bad mood with me when we spent so much time visiting six wineries that by the time we tried to visit a fruit farm (fruit other than grapes interest her) they were closed. We drove many miles, with me apologising, until we found a large fruit stand still open. Not only did this fruit stand save my marriage that day, it had the finest, plumpest cherries I have ever ingested.

A day's drive saw us cross into the state of Alberta and into the very heart of the Rocky Mountains. This is the Canada of the post cards: soaring peaks, sumptuous forest and lakes of a profound cerulean blue. We had been warned Banff National Park is tricky in peak season so we got off to what we (vainly) hoped was an early start. Lake Louise was impossible to access: the car park was full. Thank goodness there is the just as beautiful Moraine Lake just up the road to see instead... sadly this car park was also full, so we were barely mid-morning and already onto "Plan C." Fortunately you'd have to run your way right through the alphabet of plans before you found anything less than stunning, so as we kept driving north towards Jasper we were bombarded constantly with stunning vistas.

I did have a rising sense of tension however as we were a long way from an internet connection, and I was aware that as we were driving along I was in active danger of missing the football world cup semi final, and England's expected glory against the pitifully small country Croatia. Despite the fact that football is only my second favourite winter ball sport (after rugby) and England/Britain the second favorite of my two nationalities (after New Zealand), I couldn't help but get swept up in the fever of it all. It shames me to admit, but despite being a self-professed soccer dilettante I insisted we turn around and head for the closest pub we could to watch the rest of the game and support Harry Kane and the boys. We found a suitable spot in the village near Lake Louise. The game was perfectly poised, England 1, Croatia 0. What could possibly go wrong?! We left the pub fairly quickly after England's shock 1-2 defeat. Maria Chiara was under a similar dark cloud considering Roger Federer had lost his Wimbledon quarter final that morning too!

Enough had gone wrong with our day, it was time for things to go to plan. Now well into the mid-afternoon, officials were still turning people away from Lake Louise under the pretext of the full car park. Every man has his limit, and this was beyond mine. I summoned up my three years' acting training and spun a sob-story which the guard actually bought, and we were finally let in the fabled car park. A car pulled out, and we pulled in. Hoorah and huzzah, glory hallelujah!

Lake Louise is one of the most famous lakes for good reason, it is stunning. Ideally you would be staying at the hotel looking outwards, as the hotel itself is - I'm sorry to have to admit - quite ugly. Way too big and flashy. One lovely feature of it though is that in the 1930s they built two tearooms far away enough to inspire generations of hikers to walk from the hotel, through forest and in our case across glacier, for a refreshing cuppa. The workers have to hike to the tearoom themselves and stay five days at a time. The good vibes were palpable. Who cares if England are denied world cup glory for yet another four years when the carrot cake and earl grey are as good as this??

Our wildlife sightings were disappointing insofar as we never saw bears in the wild. Maria Chiara was scared of that ever happening, but I know that deep down nothing would have given her more pleasure than to see me defend her life by squaring up to a grizzly. Although I never got the opportunity, but I'm sure she knows that had it happened I would have defended her. Later that night in the middle of Banff Town, what we did see were two magnificent elks looking for quick bites, vaulting fences with astounding elegance and athleticism.

Having travelled our way across the mountain ranges of British Columbia and Alberta, we reached the flat bit of Canada at Calgary. MC and I had wisely decided to fly from here to Saskatoon the wedding venue. The six hour drive between those two cities is infamously mind-numbing. Straight roads and fields of obscure grain types... that's it! Had we had some time to spare though, we would have loved to stop in Calgary to experience the Stampede: we watched it on TV one night in bemusement as cowboys engaged in a discipline called "tie down roping": jumping off a horse, lassoing a calf and tying up its legs in as few seconds as possible.

Saskatoon was my first first-hand experience of "the real America": that huge continental expanse between the liberal, big money cities near the coasts of USA and Canada. Tourists may overlook these places, but this where to see the North Americans in their natural habitat. It was a town where it would be unthinkable to walk... everyone drives everywhere. Long straight flat roads, Starbucks and burger joints showing baseball. We spent a hot evening in the back garden of Darren (the groom's) childhood home. He is the youngest of five brothers, all four of the others were at the BBQ with their families. The children were the second generation to play in that back garden. That beautiful moment was slightly tarnished by Darren's father praising Donald Trump... nothing is perfect in this life!

The wedding itself was lovely, although not without its pressures: Maria Chiara excelled as one of the two bridesmaids alongside Charlotte the bride's sister Shannon. I muddled my way through being the sound guy at the church for the wedding ceremony. I was quietly suffering a fit of paranoia thinking that if I made one major false move I could ruin the most important day in Charlotte and Darren's life. Thank goodness my false moves were all minor, and so I escaped humiliation. At the reception I was the emcee. The bride and groom for some reason assumed I was a seasoned wedding orator. By the time they realised their mistake it was too late to hire someone else. Even so I think I did OK. The evening was capped off by a midnight food truck serving one of Canada's great delicacies, poutine: chips, cheese curds and gravy. I only discovered the joy of poutine far too late, in the last night of the trip, so we will have to go back to Canada for more!

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Photos

Moraine Lake
Taking a picture on a log in a lake is a mandatory right of passage in British Columbia

Brandywine Falls
And my homage to Ansel Adams

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

A beautiful part of the world
Clear blue sky. Just stunning.