Alberta’s Elk Island National Park and Edmonton the Capital

At Elk Island National Park we quickly learn from driving the few roads within the park that it is basically a nature conservancy for wildlife. There are lots of trails for hiking around several lakes, marsh lands with beaver ponds, open meadows for bird watching, a bison reserve, and a sandy beach at Lake Astotin for sunbathing and picnicking.

 We covered all the roads within two hours during  early dusk. Beaver huts were out in the marsh ponds.

Relocating for the weekend at Lamont RV Park gave us two full days and nights for camping in order to visit several highlight attractions such as the West Edmonton Mall, Alberta Legislative Building, Government House, and Royal Albert Museum,. We didn’t have to fight rush hour commute traffic which made driving in the big city a little easier for JR.

 We miss the beautiful Canadian Rockies and its wildlife already. East of Jasper National Park it has become wide open green prairie farmland.

The West Edmonton Mall is the largest in North America being eight streets long. It is a mega super covered shopping mall and amusement park all combined into one amazing complex. There are 800 stores and 100 restaurants to chose from. There is a huge NHL ice skating rink, indoor small lake with submarines, golf course, indoor pool… the list of superlatives goes on. We left the mall with an additional wide angle lense for our Nikon camera and a new small pocket sized digital camera for Christa.

As luck has it we got a private tour of the Parliament Building as the first visitors on a Sunday morning.The Alberta Legislature Bldg. completed in 1913 is under two year reconstruction in preparation for its 2013 Centennial. We learned the province was named after Princess Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Elizabeth, whose husband was the premier and wanted to honor her. Their legislators do not have term limits and the provincial premier stays in office until he decides to retire.

 The Government House was the residency of Lt. Governors until 1969. It was build to host government dignitaries. Queen Elizabeth II visited it in 2005. We visited the Royal Alberta Museum for natural history wildlife. Apparently when the queen visited in 2005 she designated the title ' Royal' to the name.

Our last stop tomorrow in Alberta will be at the Ukrainian Village community before crossing into the prairie grassland Province of Saskatchewan.

Greetings from Banff and Jasper National Parks in Alberta

We are having the time of our lives, ambling through the Canadian Rockies, going to our own drummer. We visited here once before so sought out new extended places. At Banff a drive above the townsite up to Mt. Norquay Ski Resort gave us a spectacular vista of below. A great hike found us trekking 3 miles around the shoreline of Johnston Lake.

Another 4 mile hike through the Johnston Canyon gorge along catwalks above rushing water was quite a thrill. 

Dinner with Yukon at the Banff Springs Hotel provided us with a grand window seat table view of the Bow River and snow-peaked mountains.

Lake Louise is world-renowned for its emerald water and five star hotel. Earlier in the day we hiked around Lake Moraine where its jade green water seemed even more beautiful. It was peaceful and serene there without the large crowds of tourists like Lake Louise.

The Icefields Parkway was a remarkable journey of 144 miles where we saw glimpses of black bears, magnificent peaks, ancient glaciers, gorgeous waterfalls, and pristine mountain lakes on the way to Jasper. Sadly, climate changes are indeed causing most of the glaciers to recede and in several cases disappear.






Big black ravens entertained us at Jasper’s Whistler Campground. One evening there we saw two female elk watching their newborn calves frolic and playfully prance around one another. Sightings of black bears occasionally happens, but they tend to head off into the bushes rather quickly.

In Jasper National Park we enjoyed hiking at Maligne Canyon with its steep, deep gorge and falls. JR inflated our dinghy for a three hour run about on Lake Maligne where we spotted loons, Canadian geese, and ducks. Making new contacts with folks from Pennsylvania and Alabama and exchanging travel stories with one another has been great.
Thanks for sharing in this adventure ... we hope you are able to follow in some of our footsteps some time in the future.

Zig Zagging Across Southwest Alberta

   After Waterton National Park we’ve been on the move sightseeing in many places. Cardston was fun visiting the Remington-Alberta Carriage Museum and Alberta Temple. An Indian Buffalo Jump and the Fort Macleod outpost for the North West Mountie Police was interesting. In the Canadian Badlands at Dinosaur Provincial Park we took a small shuttle bus tour into a natural preserve to discover evidence of dinosaur bones. In the visitor center lab being able to hold fossilized dinosaur poop was a first. The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller is world renowned for its fossil collection and amazing dinosaur skeleton exhibits. It is also a research facility for paleontology where you can observe diggings and scientists at work in the lab prepping and piecing dinosaur skeletons together that were found in the Alberta Badlands. Calgary was our first big city and a bit of a disappointment due to insane streets that are difficult to discern how to maneuver around. Torrential rainy weather compounded the matter even more as JR came down sick with a nasty cold and cough. A day spent downtown at The Glenbow Museum proved to be the city’s real highlight. Onward we go for a week to the Canadian Rocky National Parks of Banff and Jasper through the Ice Field Parkway in between. 

CanadianBadlands                                   Dinosaur     Fossil  Dig

   

Fort Mcleod 1874 Mountie Post                                                           
                               Calgary Tower                 Samuri Warriors at Glenbow Museum, Calgary

Greetings from Glacier National Park, Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

Early June has found us along with Yukon exploring both sides of West and East Glacier. He is becoming quite a celebrity with the park rangers. Yukon travels on all our day trips and often keeps us entertained. The ranger station web cam photo shows why the Going to the Sun Road at Logan Pass is closed until June 18. We traveled this road on a prior trip so were not too disappointed. Instead we have managed to plan around the off and on rainy weather by driving to all possible sites and visiting the three Great Lodges within the park. Cascading waterfalls, snow capped Rocky Mt. ranges, glacial landforms, abundant wildflowers, sightings of elk cows and calves, mule deer, grazing moose, mountain goats, a big horn ram on the high slopes, red foxes and a glimpse of a black bear and her cub have been some of our recent highlights.

Each day seems to bring exciting new adventures. A four mile trail hike to Avalanche Lake was a bit of a stretch over some rough muddy terrain. We fortunately missed an encounter on the trail meeting a grizzly bear and her cubs by fifteen minutes that afternoon. Not that either of us wishes to find ourselves in such a situation. Hiking poles, mountaineering boots along with her back brace, Yukon, and JR’s watchful eye keep Christa trekking on trails safely as a backcountry enthusiast.

Capturing an early morning sunrise at East Glacier bid us farewell before we crossed the border into Alberta, Canada. We have arrived at Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. At the top of our hike up Bear Hump Mt. JR photographed The Prince of Wales Hotel sitting below overlooking three beautiful lakes in the Canadian Rockies. We are basking in the glory of the Rockies: deep blue lakes, abundant wildlife, and incredible vistas of both land and water.