Calgary

TVFMHRW - Calgary

Our last stop in Canada, for this section of the tour, was a good one: Calgary. It was just a short bus ride south from Edmonton on Monday through the hay and canola fields. A short digression here about canola - it grows in big yellow fields across the plains of Canada. Initially, I thought the yellow fields might be mustard - the two plants, turns out, are related. The plant is actually known as rapeseed, but is marketed as Canola ("Canadian oil, low acid") since 1978, for obvious reasons.

A photo of canola fields - stolen from wikipedia. Pretty, no?

The Spamily crashed out on the bus - even a two and half hour ride turns into nap time.

The closer we got to Calgary, the more rolling the landscape became. As the city came into view, so did the Rocky Mountains. Like Denver, Calgary is situated where the Rockies meet the plains. Though it's not as high as Denver (Denver's at 5,280' to Calgary's 3,438'), it reminded me of Denver in many ways. Both have a distinct Western feel - Calgary is host to the world famous Calgary Stampede (we missed it by just a few weeks) which features chuck wagon racing! They each also have a pretty skyline set against mountains in the distance.

In Calgary's case, the Canadian Rockies are a little more than an hour west of the city. Bright and early on Wednesday morning, David and I headed out to visit said mountains. We entered the vast Banff National Park (more than 2,500 square miles) near Canmore, AB. We wandered along the more scenic route 1A - Route 1 is the Trans-Canada Highway, Canada's only coast-to-coast highway - to Lake Louise. Situated at 5,741', Lake Louise is absolutely beautiful. The water is a brilliant blue/green color from all the minerals it collects on its way down the mountain from the glacier.

w/ Lake Louise

My camera is still non-functional, so I stole this photo from Francesca so you can get a better sense of the color of Lake Louise

A man playing a giant alphorn greeted us at the water's edge. He would occasionally start playing amazing grace for tips - but he was present more for decoration than functionality. David and I rented a canoe and paddled toward Mount Victoria at the far end of Lake Louise. (Mount Victoria is named for Queen Victoria while both the Province of Alberta and Lake Louise are named for Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, Queen Victoria's 4th daughter and the wife of the Governor General of Canada.) A glacier sits on the flanks of Mount Victoria and is the source of most of Lake Louise's water. The water is icy cold and cloudy with all the rock flour. We couldn't see the ends of our paddles as we propelled ourselves across the lake!

DVZ in the canoe

After our adventure on Lake Louise, David and I grabbed a quick bite to eat in the town of Lake Louise and set off toward Johnston Canyon. Along the way, the vista below caught our eye:

We waited for a while hoping a train would come by and complete the view, but alas, the natural beauty alone would have to suffice.

Johnston Canyon has been created over the last 8,000 years by the action of Johnston Creek flowing down from the glaciers. The gorge is hundreds of feet deep in places. The trail often is a catwalk attached to the rock face of the side of the canyon. The main attractions of this heavily trafficked trail are a series of waterfalls. The water in the creek is the same intensely blue/green color and is beautiful as it tumbles over the falls. The upper falls are the most spectacular; cascading more than a hundred feet in two distinct streams

The upper falls - just out of the frame to the right is a wide limestone wall. Spring water seeps out of the rock face near the top and cover the whole wall, slowly widening the canyon.

Just downstream of the largest falls is a smaller set of falls that we hiked right up to and then behind!

The creek has changed course several times over the centuries. This tunnel through the mountainside used to be a creek bed, but now is part of the trail that brought us right to the top of a smaller waterfall.

Our trip to Banff was amazing. We had to hurry back to Calgary after the hike and went right to work exhausted. We barely scratched the surface of the park - I hope to return again. We saw a coyote, lots of birds and some smaller ground and tree dwelling animals, but I have yet to see the much sought after moose.

The theatre in Calgary is the doppelganger of the one in Edmonton. Like its Northern sister, the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium is situated on a college campus. It is, truly, just like the theatre in Edmonton: the auditorium looks just the same, the support spaces are the same, only the furnishings are different. I won't lie, it was a little strange.

The folks at the Southern Jubilee were very safety conscious. Whenever there was anyone working overhead, everyone on stage was required to wear a hardhat. While this is, to some degree, a matter of common sense; it's rare. It meant that I was required to wear a hardhat for most of the focus.

The city of Calgary was really nice. When we arrived on Monday, Alberta was celebrating Heritage Day. Canada celebrates a "Civic Holiday" on the first Monday in August; each of the provinces give it a different name, but its purpose is the same: to give everybody a long weekend in August. Calgary was celebrating with an ethnic festival in Prince's Island Park. Various groups were performing in the park's amphitheatre - I watched a presentation of dance from the Pacific Islands - and there were trailers and tents ringing the green offering food from all sorts of ethnicities.

Several tepees were set up in the park with demonstrations of the crafts of some of the Native People of Canada

Calgary had lots more street life than downtown Edmonton. Stevens Avenue turned into a blocks long pedestrian mall every afternoon. Restaurants with patios lined the street as did all manner of shops. Musicians and buskers set up during the busy lunch rush, even a few food carts appeared (and I do love food from carts!). Stevens Ave ended at Olympic Plaza, a relic of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. The plaza was created as a sight for the presentation of the medals, but is now a outdoor gathering place in downtown Calgary. It features an amphitheatre and a shallow pool for wading in the summer and ice skating in the winter. The afternoon I was there, the amphitheatre was presenting a preview of Calgary's Korean Day. A group of Korean young people presented a selection of traditional Korean music and dance!

A traditional Korean fan dance presented on what appears to be the set of an outdoor production of Grease in Olympic Plaza

The pool at Olympic Plaza - awfully inviting on a warm summer day...

I spent the latter part of the same afternoon exploring the Glenbow Museum. In 1966, one of Calgary's leading citizens, Eric Harvie, donated his collection of art and artifacts to the people of Alberta and the Glenbow Museum was created. Mr. Harvie was an oil man of considerable wealth who traveled the world collecting all manner of things. The museum features an extensive display of rocks and minerals as well as big display of armor and other military historical items. I spent most of my visit, though, in the exhibit entitled "Mavericks". It explored the history of Alberta through the lives and experiences of a wide variety of its citizens - everyone from early whiskey traders and fur trappers to oil men and politicians. It was a cool way to tell the story of the Province.

The weekend brought the Taste of Calgary festival to downtown. Restaurants from all over Calgary gathered in the plaza behind our hotel and offered sample menus from tents. Roy and I ate lunch there on Thursday, but I couldn't stay away and wandered over there a couple more times. Every sort of cuisine was an offer: oysters, micro-brewed beers, mangoes with sticky rice and on and on - all of it available for just a few coupons from the stacks in my pocket. Heaven.

The "Taste Mobile"

Roy shows off his frozen mud pie at the Taste of Calgary

I really enjoyed Calgary and would have liked to spend more time there. A week wasn't enough time to explore either the city or the natural beauty that surrounded it. This one definitely goes on the "visit again" list!

JV