Tag: moose-jaw

Seven city teaser post

I know, it has been a week since I posted anything substantial, and that was from way back near Vancouver. As usual, I am way behind but can assure you I am accumulating LOTS of photos.

Driving across southern Alberta province a few days ago, on my way to Moose Jaw, I decided I would post a few photos from each city I have stayed in since leaving Vancouver Island to whet your appetite for what is still to come.

HOPE, BC – I didn’t stay there but it provided some excitement early in my loooong drive to Cranbrook from east of Vancouver. There was an electronic sign next to the Trans Canada Highway warning of a wildfire ahead and telling drivers NOT to stop along the roadway. Well, it turns out the fire was on a hillside above a gas station I was already planning to stop at, where Route 3 branches off from the TCH to take me east across southern British Columbia, very close to the US/Canadian border. So I didn’t stop along the roadway, I stopped at a gas station off the exit.

This fire had been burning for about a month (and still is as I write this). It is quite small by wildfire standards but is stubborn due to the steep terrain on the hillside. While I was getting gas, a helicopter arrived about every 4 minutes to dump a large bucket of water on the hotspots, then flew off to a nearby water source to bring more. Imagine the pilot(s), doing that all day, every day.

That particular drop hit right on the “sweet spot” where I could see visible flames.

This was as close as I ever need to get to a wildfire.

CRANBROOK – After 12 hours in the car (with stops) I approached Cranbrook and got my first look at the southernmost Canadian Rockies. The sun was just setting as I could see the very impressive mountains in the distance. By the time I found a place to stop with a fairly clear view only one set of mountains were still getting sunlight and the others were now in full shade.

There was a third set of mountains further north that I could see but I couldn’t get a clear shot at them from this vantage point.

GOLDEN, BC – After spending two nights in Cranbrook I headed north to spend 6 nights in Golden, from which I would visit 6 National Parks.

This was from the drive towards Jasper NP, a huge Park which suffered considerable damage from a large wildfire last year. I drove over 3 hours north on the Icefield Parkway, and stopped at these two lakes and saw LOTS of mountains along the way:

The next day I drove west from Golden through (the Canadian) Glacier NP.

I would also go through Kootenay, Yoho, Mount Revelstoke and Banff National Parks from my base in Golden.

CANMORE, BC – Rather than staying in Banff proper I went 22 kilometers south to spend 4 nights in Canmore which is a very nice little town without the massive crowds that Banff experiences. I did make two early morning stops in Banff before the tour buses and RV’s started to arrive in the late mornings, and will post those photos later.

From Canmore I drove a long way south one day in an area known as Kananaskis Country (pronounced can-a-NASS-kiss):

As I was driving home, there were two full grown Bighorn Sheep in the road and traffic was stopped. Note the Park Ranger’s truck approaching behind the black car which was stopped.

The Ranger lit up the emergency lights and started honking the horn as the truck swerved around the stopped car, scaring the sheep over the guardrail and off the road.

CALGARY, AB – After 10 nights total in the Canadian Rockies I went west from Canmore to Calgary, the provincial capital of Alberta. There I found the huge Wonderland sculpture in front of a building on a busy city street:

And the Calgary Tower, similar to the CN Tower in Toronto, but shorter and designed to look like the Olympic torch (Calgary is another Canadian city which has hosted the Winter Olympics):

The tower used to dominate the skyline but is now dwarfed by many of the new skyscrapers downtown.

I apparently haven’t downloaded some of the other photos I took in Calgary which I had planned to include here but will post them later.

MOOSE JAW, SK – Three days ago I drove due east from Calgary for about 7 hours, across southern Alberta and into western Saskatchewan, to a town I have wanted to visit for a very long time.

I give you Mac the Moose:

He stands proudly outside the Visitor Centre in Moose Jaw. Inside the Visitor Centre I found his sidekick, Cheese the cat:

Get it? Mac and Cheese?

Next to Mac there was a replica of one of the Canadian Snowbirds jets.

The Snowbirds are Canada’s precision flying team and are based at the military airfield just outside of Moose Jaw. I saw their support truck twice on the highways as I went from town to town, and they just recently put on an airshow in Nanaimo, where I took the ferry from when I sailed from Vancouver Island to Vancouver city at the beginning of this trip.

REGINA, SK – Which brings me to where I am tonight. I didn’t get into town until noon, and stopped at the Visitor Centre for maps and brochures to add to what I had already found elsewhere. I went to a series of sports arenas, all gathered on one part of town, and drove to several nice city parks to enjoy the cooler weather. In one of them I found this rabbit, casually eating grass:

It’s hard to tell from the photo but he is huge – every bit as large as my 16-pound cat (Bigfoot) that I had when I lived in Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately I scared him as I tried to get closer and he used his long legs to run off.

I haven’t had a chance to really explore the city but I will review my notes when I get up in the morning and make a full day of it.

I hope this will hold you over until I have time to review, crop and organize more photos from all of these places.

Po-TAY-to, Po-TA-to

Real-time post, photo at the end.

Today I arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan, the capital of the province.

I have confirmed that the locals pronounce it re-JYE-na (sounds like a sensitive part of the female anatomy). I worked with someone in Pennsylvania who pronounced it re-GEE-na. Today I was even presented with a conflict between Google Maps and my “sometimes trusty” GPS 4.0. The GPS unit correctly pronounced it as the people who live here do, whereas Google Maps used the other pronunciation. I didn’t even bother to put in my two cents since neither device pays any attention to what I tell them.

This is as far east as I will be going in Canada on this trip. Regina is just west of the Montana/North Dakota border vertically, and is due north of Cheyenne, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado. When I entered the province two days ago on my way to Moose Jaw (which I can confirm IS two words) I crossed into the Central Time Zone. Almost all of British Columbia is in the Pacific Time Zone, save for Golden and Cranbrook, two towns I stayed in, and a strip of land west of the southernmost Canadian Rockies, which slant from NW to SE. Alberta province is in the Mountain Time Zone, and Saskatchewan is in Central. I also learned today that Sask (as the locals call it) does not play the Daylight Savings Time game. I was confused the two days I was in Moose Jaw because the time on my phone never changed, which it normally does automatically when I am in the US. Lo and behold, I should have just left Mountain time alone and not told my car that I was in CDT. MDT = CST.

I will be in Regina two nights, then head northwest to Saskatoon for two nights. I almost eliminated Saskatchewan from my itinerary altogether due to air quality issues from the wildfires in the northern part of the province. I checked the numbers every day before committing to reserving my Airbnb’s past Banff. About two weeks ago the numbers dropped to safe levels in all of the towns I was planning to stay in except one, presumably because they received a fair amount of rain which washed the smoke particles out of the air. I haven’t noticed any of the smoke “haze” the three days I have been in the province.

The only casualty from my original schedule is Prince Albert National Park, which is pretty far north from Regina, and which was very close to the fires and had very bad air quality numbers. So I am adjusting my itinerary, eliminating multiple nights from many small towns, which will free up time to reallocate elsewhere.

I will end this post with a photo I took from my bedroom window early this morning in Moose Jaw, SK. This was taken at 506 local time, about an hour before sunrise. The 3 bright spots in the photo are, the Moon (lower center), Venus (above it and to the right) and Saturn (further above and to the right). I darkened the photo a bit so it would look exactly like what I was seeing. The Moon appears as a thin crescent. It was really an amazing sight.