We made it to BC!

We woke early today, after a cold night but cosy in our tent, for the penultimate day of this trip across Canada and the day we reached our new home province. Since showers weren't open in Jasper National Park, we've been having quick washes in the mornings ... but, oh, the hair! 

Just before we left, we had a visit from a female Wapiti (aka elk).

We left Jasper shortly after 10am (Mountain Time) and had a beautiful drive through the Rockies via the famous Yellowhead Pass. Before crossing the continental divide and into BC, we had this view of more Rockies to the north. 

After crossing into BC and Pacific Time, we were soon following the Fraser River valley, watching for Mt Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. As we went by the Mt. Robson park campgrounds, we couldn't see it anywhere so pulled off at a lay-by. It was nowhere in sight. So, Richard asked the reluctant driver (Catharine) to turn around and go back to a viewpoint she'd seen while he was napping. But just turning around was enough. It was right behind us. We both let out a gasp; there it was in all its majesty and momentarily free of clouds — a real honest to goodness mountain! 

It is almost 13,000 feet but seems twice as big because the Yellowhead Pass is so low. It rises 9,200 feet above where we were sitting. In contrast, Mt. Victoria, which is the peak behind Lake Louise, and only 600 feet shorter, only rises 1,800 feet above the lake. We took some time at the lay-by and took this shot of the young Fraser River, not far from its source, seen here below Moose Lake, with Mt. Robson just out of the left-hand side of the frame.

We drove south, out of the Rockies and learned of two other smaller mountain ranges that lie further to the west of them. The Cariboo Mountains run parallel and the Monashee Mountains are a bit further south. The Yellowhead Highway took us south between these two ranges and down into a wide open valley full of farms, fields, horses and cows; ranch country. As we dropped down out of the mountains, the temperature got warmer. As we write this, it's about 14C.

We learned that the Fraser River flows north/north-west from Mt Robson Park all the way to Prince George, then turns south and flows down to Vancouver. The Yellowhead Highway, the southern route follows the North Thompson River and the railroad all the way to Kamloops. (The northern Yellowhead route goes through Prince George all the way to Prince Rupert on the northern BC coast just south of Alaska).

We mentioned in an earlier post that the Yellowhead highway is named for the Yellowhead pass through which it passes the Rockies. Today we learned that these are named after an Iroquois-Metis trapper. His name was Pierre Bostonais but the French voyageurs called him "Tete Jaune"  or "Yellowhead" because of his blond-streaked hair. Tete Jaune worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1800s as a guide and opened the pass, named after him, for trade.

Kamloops sits at the confluence of the Sage and North Thompson rivers and straddles both banks and hillsides. The landscape is dry and arid, semi-desert really. 

Tonight we're staying at Silver Sage RV Camp on the banks of the Sage River. It's located on the edge of town, next to an industrial park and across the river from the railroad and the highway. It's threatening rain and is windy but the bathrooms are clean and have free hot showers are free. Tomorrow we will wash our hair in honour of our arrival into Vancouver.

Jasper National Park

We let ourselves sleep in on Friday morning (28 Aug) and awoke to glorious sunshine streaming down on the tent, warming things up. The temperature had gone down to zero overnight ~ one guy said something had frozen on his site! In the wee hours we had noticed Zoe curled into the tightest smallest ball she could manage and put a blanket over her. 

After a leisurely breakfast, we finally sallied forth about midday to explore the Park. Our first stop was Athabasca Falls. The campgrounds stretch along one side of the Athabasca River, a grand noisy rocky milky-turquoise fast-flowing beauty. We had taken Zoe for a walk along it for an evening walk on Thursday and we were all entranced by it. The Falls did not disappoint.

We even found a trail leading away from the crowds and upstream, where we let Zoe run off-leash. Zoe and I both had dips in the water: truly glacial, bracing and invigorating!

 

After an afternoon nap was had by all, we roused ourselves in time for supper and a bonfire … and back to bed.

Since the forecast called for rain, we’d put up the tarp over the picnic table earlier in the day. It rained, as predicted, for a good part of the night but by the time we were ready to get up today (Saturday 29), the sun was up and warming the tent again.

In New Zealand, it was already 29 August; AlexAndrea's first wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary you two! So many happy memories from this time last year! And so grateful that it happened last, not this year. You were able to celebrate in person with your families and friends surrounding you!

Today again we relaxed away the morning - oh! except Richard who posted our belated blog. (Turns out writing up the blog and adding the photos takes us about 1-2 hours. It's a surprisingly time-consuming affair which neither of us realized when we cheerfully agreed to keep a blog of our trip. Hence the delay in some of the postings. We've either been too darn tired or the cell phone connection has not been strong enough to allow all the technological wizardry.)

And then we set off to explore Maligne Lake. We learned it’s pronounced “muh-leen” -  from the French adjective (fem) ”maligne” meaning wicked - named after a river running out of it. 

Maligne Lake is about an hour's drive up the mountains from the campgrounds. A spectacular drive around Medicine Lake, surrounded by peaks and mountains, through a significantly impressive area which looked to be in recent recovery from a forest fire, and up to the popular attraction of Maligne Lake. A strong wind from the north reminded us of the elevation and lowered the temperature to just above 10C. 

We hiked a 2-hour loop to a smaller lake, Moose Lake, which was a hidden gem, and away from the crowds, but alas, no moose. 

Apparently, the moose didn't know there was a lake named for her, and instead, we found her, back at Maligne Lake, feeding in front of a large crowd. Seemingly unperturbed by canoeists, the Park's official tour boats, and the crowd of charmed spectators, she focussed on her dinner. What surprised both Richard and I (moose experts that we are - not!) was how she was mostly submerged, with only her hump showing. She appeared to be pulling up vegetation from the lake bottom and only brought her head up to breathe, with a loud gurgling and splashing. Zoe was rivetted by this enormous 'waterfowl'!

We drove back to the campsite yawning and thrilled from our successful explorations. Another cold night is ahead but we'll all be cosy in our blankets and sleeping bags. Tomorrow we finally cross into BC! 

Alberta and mountain time!

Alberta dawned a bit grey and damp, but we didn't get rained on as we de-camped in a hurry after oversleeping either because of a failed alarm clock or operator error -- we'll never know. 

On the topic of clocks and time, a correction to a previous post. One of the confusions of time zones that we finally figured out is that Saskatchewan doesn't do daylight savings. So when our iPhones went back an hour we thought that we'd crossed into Mountain time, which seemed a bit too soon. But it ain't so. Manitoba and Saskatchewan are central time, but only Manitoba does daylight savings. Since Alberta does daylight savings, there was no time change when we crossed the border at Lloydminster. 

Anyway, mountain time it was and we quickly got into rolling country with more varied kinds of vegetation. Suddenly cattle and horses seem to be more prevalent and, while I was napping, Catharine said we passed through an area where there was evidence of oil wells. So, that ticked off most of the Alberta boxes. Edmonton went by in a flash. We didn't get any sense of the city passing through the usual industrial infrastructure and suburban commercial zones. 

Finally, around Hinton, the mountains came into view. As you can see from the photo, we had a beautiful day to make the drive into Jasper. We were both excited to reach the mountains and the views were breath-taking. While I was driving, Catharine clicked off a bunch of photos. Here are some of them. 

(find the face)

If you look closely at the last one, you will see people wading way out in the Athabaska River. There were many cars stopped here and it seemed to be the thing to do. We saw one group probably a good half a kilometre out. Soon after that, we came across a bunch of stopped cars and the usual photo flurry going on whenever wildlife is spotted. So we joined the scrum. It was a group of elk/wapiti feeding by the road. 

We got to our campsite in Wapiti campground and quickly set up (we're getting to be very good at this by now) and enjoyed some freeze-dried Pad Thai that we had saved for just such an occasion. After three long days of driving (and neglect of the time-consuming blogging, with apologies), we collapsed in bed, thankful to have two days of rest and leisurely sight-seeing ahead of us.

Saskatchewan and big skies

(Historic elevator at museum outside N. Battleford)

We had a great day crossing Saskatchewan from Yorkton to Lloydminster. The day started out dampish and grey, but we soon pulled out from under it into huge blue skies. Saskatchewan was a bit of revelation to us both, especially after the endless prairie of the day before. The landscape along the Yellowhead is a charming mix of fields, woods, sloughs and even some big lakes. And always the sky. You can see weather happening all over the prairie. It was charming and we would like to come back and spend more time exploring it.

For lunch we went right into downtown Saskatoon and ate beside the river. My good friends Wayne and Carol were born here, so it was nice for me to see where they came from. My sister-in-law's parents are also here and my brother and family come here often. It's a pretty city with a good vibe. Sitting on the banks of the N. Saskatchewan River, the prairie seems distant. I can see how two Saskatooners could settle in southern Ontario and feel quite at home. There isn't as much difference as I'd assumed in the two landscapes (at least not in summer).

As we approached Lloydminster, our destination for the day, a cold front was approaching, bringing big black clouds and heavy rain. For a while I thought we might dodge it. The highway would curve and we'd be heading right for the middle of it and then curve again and it would look like we might sneak by. But finally it hit. Huge amounts of water with a little planing happening as we hit inches of water on the road, which got the adrenaline flowing.

The campsite was on the far side of Lloydminster (the Alberta side). It was private and incredibly well maintained. They catered mostly to itinerant workers in the oil industry who lived in very large trailers. Five of them had even spent last winter there. We were able to have hot showers and even gets some laundry done (several notices above the laundry machines asking campers not to wash clothing covered in oil and gas). We pitched the tent on an enormous expanse of the most perfect lawn I'd seen since they banned 2-4-D — which I could smell wherever I walked.

The Prairies

We left Rushing River Provincial Park near Kenora about 8:30am this morning. We were up at 6am and not only broke camp in 2.5 hours but also gave Zoe a walk. We’re getting into the groove of this camping thing. It was another beautiful day but the dew overnight was heavy ~ as it’s been all along, and our tent and fly were a bit damp as we packed them up.

By 11am we reached the Manitoba border. We were curious to notice, at our first pit stop, that no-one was wearing masks. Ontario has been much more strict in this regard.

Driving into Manitoba from Ontario didn’t seem like a big change in the landscape at first. Northern Ontario, or at least the stretch from Thunder Bay through to Kenora and the border is really very rough terrain: no decent agricultural land, mostly lakes, rocks and trees, what we might call “muskeg”: damp, water-logged soil where very little thrives, thus there are few inhabitants or towns. Those who live there don’t exactly thrive either. It’s poor land. 

Initially Manitoba didn’t seem that different but it gradually flattened out and opened up to better agricultural lands. The further west we drove, the larger the farms became. Big Agro, indeed. 

The quintessential grain elevators, the combines working the fields,

and the road following the railway all day. 

We were surprised though to see black earth.The earth of both Manitoba and Saskatchewan is black. In Ontario, it’s more of a light brown or brown colour (except in the Holland Marsh).

About an hour west of Winnipeg, the Trans-Canada highway divides into southern and northern routes. Our route to BC is along the Yellowhead highway or northern route. If you look at a map, you’ll see it goes through Saskatoon SK, Edmonton AB, and cuts through the Rockies at Jasper AB, and then down through Kamloops BC en route to Vancouver. 

We stopped for lunch in Portage La Prairie, at a grand park that was quite empty. 

Zoe was elated to find grass again ~ hasn’t had a decent patch since we left our garden in Guelph back on July 31st (no grass at the cottage, just granite rocks). Our previous campsites have been more about rocks and sand than grass. She luxuriated in rolling around on her back and ran about with a huge smile on her face. We also were able to leave her off leash. She’s had to be on leash at all the campgrounds and being an independent kind of girl, she has been unhappy to find herself so constrained. Luckily both at Neys Provincial Park and at Rushing River PP, our neighbours were dog-lovers and after getting to know them we let her have some off-leash time to visit with them. We’ve had to be vigilant however, because the fines in most campgrounds for having your dog off-leash are not insignificant. 

We crossed into Saskatchewan about 2:30pm and into a new time zone. Unlike leaving Eastern Standard Time and crossing into Central ST, there was no big plaque announcing the change into Mountain ST, just a small notice and our cell phones making the change ~ as soon as we got a strong enough connection. The connection has actually been quite reliable so far today. 

The transition from Manitoba to Saskatchewan has been almost imperceptible, except perhaps the sky seems bigger. Oh, and the lakes. We think they’re called “sloughs”. At least I remember this name from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder about the American Prairies.

We arrived at our camp site about 4pm MST. It felt like about 8pm. It’s been a long day on the road alright (about 8 hours of driving) but we knew this one would be. Manitoba has not been welcoming to out-of-province travellers so we decided we’d have to drive through it. Tonight we’re staying at the municipal private campground in Yorkton Saskatechewan, about 45 minutes from the border with Manitoba. The best thing about this campground is the showers ARE OPEN! The provincial campgrounds of Ontario had closed their showers due to C-19. We’ve managed fine by washing/swimming in the campground lakes but after a week of this we’re pretty excited to have our morning shower tomorrow :)

After a quick supper of leftovers from yesterday, we took Zoe for a well-deserved walk. The campground in Yorkton is next to one of the many sloughs (lakes) that are all over Saskatchewan. We walked around it as the sun was setting. A beautiful warm evening here in Saskatchewan.

Tomorrow we drive into Alberta. 

Last days in Ontario

On Saturday morning, we left Thunder Bay in the fog, in a damp 18°C. (We learned that this is a regular weather condition up here due to the cold waters of Lake Superior). First on the day's itinerary was a stop at Kakabeka Falls.

We then continued west along Hwy 17/Hwy 11 for about an hour, turning up the northerly route following Hwy 17. The landscape and rock type changed several times along our route; white pines giving way to scrubby short pines mixed with Aspens. Along the way, we crossed the Arctic Watershed: all rivers in this next stretch of land flow into Hudson’s Bay in the Arctic Circle. That was cool! 

At 12:26pm, we also crossed into the Central Standard Time zone. In a fine show of the best of modern technology, Richard’s iPhone immediately changed back an hour. In a fine show of operator not-so-up-to-date, Catharine’s iPhone (not set on “automatic change”) stayed in Eastern Standard Time. Lol!

After crossing the divide, there was a long stretch of flat, swampy ground, sandy and a bit forlorn, where a silver-sage-green moss (lichen?) grew along the side of the highway with low spiky black spruce, looking almost muskeg-like. The land undulating, granite of all colours, and then surprisingly, as we left Dryden, pastoral views with recently mown hay bales, open fields - similar to what we were used to seeing on Hwy 141 to Rosseau from 400, or in the Egansville to Golden Lake on Hwy 60. As we drove, the weather got warmer, climbing up to 25C+ by the afternoon.

After about 7.5 hours on the road, we arrived in Rushing River Provincial Park. What a gem! This little park skirts the shores at one end of Dogtooth Lake. A swimming area has been set up in and around a sandy and small rocky outcrops, making it a perfect place for families to spend the day. The camp ground is charming, with campsites nestled into little nooks and crannies among the rocks and trees. 

We arrived to find out site in full sun at the end of the day, a most welcomed change from the previous locations offering the opportunity to dry out all our damp bedding, tent, etc. After quickly setting up camp, we went for a refreshing swim. The water is very dark but clear and clean feeling. And warm enough that Richard was able to enjoy it! Before bed we took Zoe for an exploratory walk through the rest of the campground. Utterly charming and well-laid out.

Today, Sunday, has been beautiful. Sunshine, very little clouds, and again about 25C. Catharine had a wash and swim off a sunlit dock and that’s about all she managed today! Richard took Zoe for a nice long walk along the rapids downstream of Dogtooth Lake leading into Lake of the Woods. Here are some photos.

Otherwise we’ve been resting up. And we’ve had a good cell phone connection hence this post. Stay tuned for the next instalment. Tomorrow we leave Ontario and head across the Prairies. The next couple of day will involve long drives as we dash towards Jasper and then onto BC.