Banff Forest to Van Couver

The drive down from Banff was primarily viewing from the trails, however we did get an early morning hike in at the Valley of Five Lakes.  It was gorgeous and early enough that  there were very few people on the trail.  We were a little late for moose and bears, so I guess I'll have to settle for seeing them in captivity only.  They say that the moose are a lot like deer here and difficult to see other than early or dusk and in very swampy areas.  This was an absolutely stunning morning.  We have found that staying in the valleys and lake areas we can still get some wonderful sights in spite of the smoke overhead.

This guy was cooperative for the camera

Next stop on the trip out of Banff was a stop at the Athabasca Falls.  They were so impressive!  The caves that have been carved out over the years were used as stepping stones to the different levels of the falls, all the way down to the river.  The power generated there was just incredible.  We hiked this area for a couple of hours.

The final stop for the day was Lake Louise.   It was beautiful, but maybe overrated, then the smoke obscured a lot of the view, so it was rather a disappointment from what we had anticipated.  The tourist population was astronomical in the area and were all funneled into a very small veiwing space. sooo not the highlight of the day, but still worth a stop along the way.

We arrived in Vancouver to find complications with our reservation at the Sandman so we were treated to a night in the top floor Penthouse.  After a day hiking and traffic we slept like rocks so the extra conveniences were quite welcome.   The view from the balcony of Vancouver was awesome, but the next night was back to reality....

The next day we spent in Vancouver on Grouse Mountain.  The mountain itself is right in Vancouver.  Some guy saw a blue grouse while hunting on the mountain in the early days of its' development so named it that.  But I swear they call it Gross Mountain..  Anyway it was a lovely hike and the gondola ride was fun.  We nearly froze up there though,  you could see your breath, so we had hot cocoa with our beaver tails (fried bread with great toppings).  Long story but I have to learn to fix those things....

We were treated to an awesome time observing two rescued grizzlies, then a raptor show, and finally and Loggers contest and show.  They were so talented.  I thought about sending pictures of the guys throwing axes and climbing 60 ft. poles then doing handstands,  then remembered I have five grandsons and not all of them deal with fears of any kind.   Tricks you wouldn't want to try at home!!

Jasper through to the Banff Forest

Jasper is a fun mountain town reminiscient of Vail or any other ski resort  town.  It's the wild country outside of the community that is pretty amazing.  Lake Maligne is a ways south of the falls and just gorgeous.  We decided to stop and spend the day.  We took a boat tour into the lake to view the glaciers.  It was very interesting that all of the fish in the lake were stocked there and are not native due to the glacial qualities of the area. So the rainbow trout are regularly restocked but the lake is a dead lake so to speak.   We rode out to spirit island and spent thirty minutes out there hiking and taking hundreds of pictures, because the beauty was such that there really aren't any words.  Spirit Island is unavailable for hiking due to its importance to the Stoney Nakoda tribes.  But we still got some great shots.  The lake lies in a boxed canyon.  Completely boxed in by glaciers.

This is the boat tour boats we used to get across the lake.  It takes about 45 minutes to drive the length of it to Spirit Island.

It's pretty smokey but you can see where the glaciers come together to box in the lake.

Original Boathouse for Lake tours

You can see from the tourquoise color of the lake from the sediment runoff from the glaciers

Spirit Island (Not really an island except for a few days a year)

We were here!

WhiteCourt to Jasper

The Canadian Rockies are finally in view!  It is hazy from the smoke, but most of it is beginning to drift south to VanCouver(where we plan to be by week's end) and the states.  We have been blessed in that there is always something spectacular to view further from the smoke.  We drove through Edson and Hinton.  Hinton was a great stop as we had donair for the first time.  Delicious by the way.  and found some great tourist guide information for viewing the falls and valleys up here.  We had though the skytram, etc... but the mountain views are still rather obscured from the fires so we are changing to some other things.

I got some shots of a wild mountain goat herd crossing the highway.    Then on to Maligne Canyon where we hiked and had some wonderful views of the canyon and the waterfalls and the river that broke down the rock through the years.  The area got its name from a Jesuit priest who arrived here to help settle the area.  He called it the 'evil river" because he couldn't get across very easily on his horse.

I took pictures of the varied types of moss that grow at different levels throughout the canyon for the boys' geography lessons.  No spirit bear in sight yet, Cayden.  Still looking though.  We didn't see bears yet but the signs are plentiful to not feed them!

Papa is going to post a bunch of pictures here and in dropbox for you.  The rockies here are not as high or jagged, but every bit as stunning as colorado.  They are older and more worn down.

Stopover in Whitecourt

Saturday, we drove to Whitecourt. We picked it because it was in between Fort McMurray and Jasper and we didn't want to drive eight hours in one day. On Sunday, we went to church at the Hilltop Community Church (EFC) in Whitecourt and then went to the Hard Luck Canyon. It was beautiful.

While there we met an Hispanic church group from Edmonton that makes annual mission trips to different spanish speaking countries and also does jail ministry and ministry to addicts in Edmonton where they live.

Fleeing the wildfire smoke

The air quality was horrible in Edmonton when we woke up on Wednesday morning (looking across the parking lot and a busy street we couldn't make out any details on the buildings across the street. We decided we needed to do two things: 1) Find something to do in Edmonton that was inside, and, 2) Find somewhere else to stay outside of the smokey area. We opted to drive 270 miles north to Fort McMurray which was forecast to have better air quality.
It is interesting that Fort McMurray is the oil sands capital of Canada. They use two methods to extract oil from the oil sands: surface mining, and fracking (they call it "in situ" extraction).
We toured the Oil Sands Discovery Center and learned all about the processes and saw some really huge machinery used in the surface mining.

One very large Dump Truck

This bucket excavator can really dig a hole fast.

 We also toured the Heritage Museum which told the stories of the area's early residents including trappers, business men (and women) and the exploits of an heroic pilot named Wop May who flew in World War I and also pioneered medical flights in the icy cold of the Northwest Territories (in those days, the cockpit was open).

Trapped furs

Wop May defeats the notorious Red Baron

Saskatoon to Edmonton

We left from Saskatoon on Tuesday and discovered that the closer we drew to Edmonton the heavier the skies were filled with smoke from the forest fires in British Columbia.  There are lots of fires going on over there and the sky was so filled by Wednesday morning that the sun couldn't shine through.  Instead it was a red fuzzy ball in the sky. 

The air quality was at a 9 so we decided to change some plans and head for Ft. McMurray to the north where the air quality was reportedly at a 4.  We did make a quick pass through the Edmonton Mall which was at one time the largest in the country but now bows to the number two position.   It was still pretty awesome with an entire ship and enormous water park along with other features to take in. 

We found the air clearing all the way to Fort McMurray.  We had a fun find at the small town of Boyle.  Since I was a fan of "Fried Green Tomatoes" we enjoyed lunch at the Whistle Stop Cafe down by the railroad tracks.    We have had several times to stop at beautiful lakes and enjoy the peacefulness of the lakes set in the Canadian Forests.

Winnipeg to Saskatoon

There are so many ways to feel blessed on this trip.  The fun of seeing new places, meeting interesting people and just resting.

Our trip from Winnipeg to Saskatoon was Saturday morning until the wee hours of Sunday morning.  The train was about a half day longer than they anticipated.  We had to stop for all freight trains because they take priority of the tracks. Evidently that includes weekends in Canada.

We arrived in Saskatoon around 2:30 a.m. and caught a cab to our hotel.  The Evangelical Free Church is only a few miles from here so we went there for worship this week.  It was very interesting.  We spent the noon and some afternoon with a few elders from their church at an out of the way Chinese restaurant.  It was such a blessing to meet such sweet people.

We went to the Saskatoon Berry Barn later in the day and had dinner there.  I'm pretty sure that we didn't really have warm saskatoon berry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it.  They are such an unusual berry I wish I could have shipped some home!  All pictures the past few days are on our phones so I will have to catch up a little bit later.

Today we are headed to downtown Saskatoon to a couple of museums and the heritage center along the river front.  We have changed a few of our travel plans due to the undependable hours of the train so we're driving to Edmonton tomorrow for five hours rather than ride the train for twelve.  It adds some independence to our travels to have our own vehicle.