Canada is cool – Professional Writing Services

Image: Sunset at Waterfowl Lakes, Banff National Park

Sun 18 August 2024
Post 1 of 4

Alberta & Banff

The arrival into Canada involved a very long flight time of 816 minutes and the stupid date line meant our Friday consisted of 33 daylight waking hours – ghastly! The weather was perfect in Vancouver for exploring and enjoying the varied and beautiful city.

An old steam clock outside in a street mall — *Steam Clock, Gastown*

The base of a large tree with a small door and garden resembling a fairy house — *Fairy house, Kitsilano*

Lots of people relaxing on a sandy beach next to a river on a hot sunny day — *Kitsilano Beach – I had a swim – it wasn’t great*

Tall buildings, a busy city street and people crossing the road — *Vancouver, Downtown*

Once our body clocks had adjusted, we flew to Calgary where we took possession of a motorhome (or RV as the locals call it) for the next 2 weeks. We had ourselves a 2004 Ford Senator, automatic with kitchen, bathroom, 3 beds and 250,000kms on the clock. Three beds for the 3 amigas – Jenny, Soraya and myself. Jenny from Newcastle and Soraya from Barcelona.

Three friends and a dog posing in front of a motorhome — *Nonnie, Jenny & Soraya plus Suzie the dog*

Three friends inside a motorhome, driving — *RV chicas*

Despite our RV feeling like a truck, at 7.3m it was considered “small” in Canada. Large RVs are over 12m and your average RV is about 9m long. Driving on the wrong side of the road in a truck was made easier by the fact we were “small” when compared to almost all other vehicles on the road.

Our first stop was to visit Katherine, 2hrs north of Calgary, on an Angus beef farm near Stettler. The directions were drive north for a long time, turn right at a town, turn right at an intersection and then 2nd house on the left – welcome to the prairies where the roads are straight and wide

View of a road with flat landscape all around — *Prairie roads*

A pumpjack working in the middle of a paddock in Alberta oil fields — *Pumpjack working in the Alberta oil fields*

Looking out over a farm with morning light creating shadows — *Katherine’s backyard*

Two women leaning on a fence on a farm — *Farm girls*

5 friends laughing and smiling outside — *Dinner with Laura*

Four women eating dinner together outside as sun goes down — *Sunset dinner at Katherine’s*

Katherine is from Far North Queensland who since 2012, has also been a Canadian surviving -40 degree winters and 2m of snow. Katherine is a savvy farmer, green thumb and animal lover. It was wonderful to be out on the farm and experience prairie life. Katherine was a terrific tour guide, taking us around the area including a visit to Drumheller – Dinosaur Capital of the World located in the Badlands – which was as cool as it sounds.

Dinosaur skeleton embedded in a rock in the Drumheller Dinosaur Museum — *Drumheller Dinosaur*

Skeleton of a woolly mammoth in a dinosaur museum — *Woolly Mammoth*

Rock formations of sandstone pillars known as Hoodoos — *Hoodoos in the Badlands*

Through Katherine’s connections, we were very lucky to visit a colony of the Hutterites – a self-sufficient community of about 120 people living on an industrial grade farm selling produce to distributors and at local farmer’s markets. This colony has 20k chooks who produce about 17k eggs every day. They also have cattle for beef and dairy, sheep, pigs, geese, ducks, turkeys and a huge vegetable garden. We got to try their home-made bacon and check out the cool room full of sausages, salami, pickles, chicken meat, vegetables, fruit and oodles of other goodies ready for market. We took home some eggs and saskatoons – the tasty local berry. I could write a whole blog post about our Hutterite experience but instead I’ll give you some photos to interpret.

A man in an industrial kitchen with a leg of bacon — *Sampling the maple bacon*

Spanish woman in a small crowd of girls dressed in traditional Hutterite clothing — *Soraya with the Hutterite girls*

Turkey, ducks and geese in feedlot on farm — *The Hutterite poultry shed*

Man in large pantry with goods on shelves to go to market — *The pantry ready for market*

Katherine had to go back to work, so Soraya, Jenny and I ventured west in the RV to the grand old Rocky Mountains. We struggled to get information about where to go and what to see because tourist information centres only knew about activities in their immediate radius, there was no phone service in most of the mountains and no one prints maps anymore. Very frustrating! My advice is plan and book ahead as much as you can, which obviously takes the adventure out of adventure, but it is way less stressful.

An empty highway with mountains in the distance — *Cowboy Trail*

A motorhome in a forest campground — *Bear territory*

There were bushfires raging in the north of the mountains around Jasper so we entered the Rocky Mountains at the top of the Banff National Park, a few hours south of Jasper. The mountains dictate the climatic forces making the weather pretty unpredictable meaning rain and rogue storms would thunder through most days but not last long. Day time temperatures were about 25 degrees, getting as low as 6 degrees overnight.

Chasm with alpine river running through the base, mountains in the distance — *Siffleur Falls*

Alpine mountain and lake view — *Peyto Lake*

While I found the Rocky Mountains to be absolutely stunning and my visit very enjoyable, crowd numbers in hot spots like Lake Louise, Lake Emerald and Peyto Lake meant the magic of the landscape was lost in the din of people clambering for selfies and complaining about their inappropriate footwear. Fortunately for us, our lack of maps and reliance on potluck in finding camping sites delivered us access to the best walks we did in the Rocky’s with very few other tourists. We also found stunning rivers and lakes for an icy swim, and delightful picnic spots with jaw dropping scenery.

A women walking on a mountain trail — *hike at Lake Louise*

Two women swimming in a glacier lake — *Swimming Waterfowl Lakes*

Mountain with some snow reflected in still glacier lake — *Chephren Lake*

Bears were on my mind. I was desperate to see one (or more), and on at least 3 occasions the rangers informed us that bears had been spotted in the camp site the morning before we arrived. Fortunately, there was lots of advice on precautions to take and how to manage a bear encounter, but I never got to put my new knowledge into practice with a real bear.

"The Bearsmart Guide" Playing safely in bear and cougar country — *Bear smart*

Woman standing with silver statue of a bear — *Banff bear*

In Banff, we farewelled Soraya who was slowly making her way back to Barcelona. Jenny and I continued south to the Kananaskis National Park and followed the Cowboy Trail out to the prairies to Longview. Unfortunately, Jenny and I both succumbed to an evil tummy bug, so we were forced to cancel all plans and recuperate at Longview’s RV park, which was really just a paddock on the edge of the small town. I was a day ahead of Jenny on the recovery, so I spent the evenings by a campfire under the stars with our neighbour who had driven 30 mins south from his home to celebrate his 67th birthday with his dog Fonzi by getting stoned, listening to his favourite music, and as it turns out, talking to me. He had a thoroughly good birthday because he also got all our leftover food and booze, as it was our last days in this RV and we couldn’t stomach much.

A few days later, at Calgary Airport, Jenny and I said goodbye to the RV and met up with Katherine. We flew together to Montreal for the next chapter in the adventure.

A woman perched on a rock in the distance surrounded by mountains and forest — *Peyto Mountain*

Alpine mountain with river system flowing in foreground — *Banff*

Two women at a table eating dinner — *Last dinner with Soraya*

Motorhomes in an RV park on the prairies — *Longview*