Tag: travel

Chetwynd, BC – Post 1 of 2

September 8, 2025

I didn’t realize it at the time but the last two nights I spent in Grande Prairie would be my last visit to Alberta province during this trip. My destination today will be Prince George, BC and I will cross the Canadian Rockies for the last time.

The drive to Prince George was to be 6 hours but I encountered an unexpected diversion along the way. Nothing wrong at all, but something that had not popped up on my radar and I found VERY interesting.

Chetwynd, a small town of about 3,000 people, is home to the Chetwynd International Chainsaw Carving Championship. As I was driving in to town I saw lots of these lined up on both sides of the highway, and a concentration of them once I got to Tim Horton’s to stop for coffee. I went back to the “Welcome” sign where the first two I posted were and started taking pictures.

These are all chainsaw carvings, done over a number of years. I will explain shortly.

The competition is held the second week of June and 12 carvers are invited to participate – 4 from Canada, 4 from the United States and 4 from other countries around the world. Each carver is provided with 40-50″ diameter, 8 foot tall piece of western red cedar. They have 35 hours to create their entry.

I don’t know how that 35 hours is spread out, but I would think each artist is probably allowed 10-12 hours per day to work, with meal breaks, and then given time to sleep. The contest runs 4 days, and on the last day there is a 90-minute “quick carve” contest, with those works being put up for auction. The major pieces stay in Chetwynd and are scattered all over town. It seems that the artists have free reign over what they can produce, and there is an amazing variety of works on display.

Here are two shots of the detail on the front of the dragon shown above.

All of this is done with chainsaws, and they are gearing up for the 20th annual competition in June, 2026. I believe technology has improved to the point where woodworkers have smaller, more precise saws for detail work, and some of the pieces I saw had just a stunning amount of fine detail.

I was a little bit challenged with the bright sunshine, and some of my photos didn’t turn out too well because the objects were backlit. I tried to move around to get the best shots.

I will have more photos in the next post. You may also Google the town or contest name to see lots more photos online.

I was really blown away by them, and wished I had more time to spend in town to seek out more of them. Some of the ones I saw were done as far back as 2007 and I didn’t look at all of the signs indicating who the artist was, where then were from and what year the work was produced.

Red Deer, AB to Valemount, BC

September 5, 2025

The wildfire smoke really restricted my activities while I was in Red Deer and my next stop was located well west, of the other side of Jasper National Park, which I hoped would get me out of it. From Red Deer I took Hwy 11 west towards the Park, but to get there I would also have to drive through part of Banff National Park . I could tell it was still smoky when I left Red Deer, and it didn’t improve any as I headed west.

Once I entered Banff National Park I would continue until the road I was on ended at the Icefields Parkway and the Saskatchewan River Crossing. From there I would turn right and continue on up into Jasper National Park and to the town of Jasper, but this time I would turn left instead of right and take Hwy 16W towards Valemount.

(Photo credit: Parks Canada)

I’ve already posted photos from that stretch of road so I won’t post them again.

This was the view as I approached the western entrance to Jasper (as I was going out).

I arrived in Valemount, a village of only about a thousand people, and checked in at my Airbnb. My throat was still sore and I was afraid I might be getting sick so I went to the grocery store in town and bought some cold medicine.

The rest of these photos were taken the next day while I was in Valemount.

It was a nicer day than when I had arrived but I just stayed put since I didn’t feel well. I didn’t think there was much to see here anyway, and I will find the thing I came here to see tomorrow when I head back east.

I will point out that just north of Valemount is Mount Terry Fox. I was happy to see that they named a mountain after him.

Terry Fox was a young man from Winnipeg who lost his right leg to bone cancer. In 1980 he embarked on the “Marathon of Hope” to raise money for cancer research, asking every Canadian to contribute $1. He started in Newfoundland, on the east coast of Canada, and planned to run all the way across the country. He ran for 143 days, averaging around 23 miles per day (a standard marathon is 26 miles) and made it as far as Thunder Bay, Ontario, a distance of 3,338 miles, before illness forced him to stop.

Terry Fox was only 22 when he passed away on June 28, 1981, and he is considered a hero in Canada.

The peak on the right is 8,678 foot tall Mount Terry Fox.

Red Deer, Alberta

September 3, 2025

I drove north from High River, through Calgary, and took the QEII Highway up to Red Deer, which is about halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. When I modified my original schedule I decided to drop several nights in Edmonton after speaking with someone who lives there who was mystified as to why I would possibly want to go there (” Uh… we have a mall…” ) and decided to add three days in Red Deer instead. My research showed me that there were lots of scenic roads near Red Deer, including the “Cowboy Trail” to the west and the “Dinosaur Trail” to the east.

I saw this young buck just off the two lane road I was on as I started to drive the 2 hours it would take me to get to Red Deer..

Well, my plans kind of fell apart as when I approached Red Deer there seemed to be a brown cloud hanging over it. I didn’t think it was big enough to have a smog problem and didn’t even think about the wildfire possibility. I drove around town for a while to get acclimated and then checked in at my Airbnb. I mentioned the “cloud” to my hostess and she said she had heard there was a wildfire up near Edmonton.

I fired up my computer and learned that although there was a small wildfire near Edmonton (a little less than two hours north) it had just been detected the day before and wasn’t very big. When I checked the smoke pattern website I was shocked to learn that what I was experiencing was coming from a large wildfire in the Northwest Territories province, a thousand miles to the north!!

I went out to get something to eat and returned to my Airbnb. By the next day the air quality in Red Deer had changed to unhealthy, and my throat was a little sore from having been outside the day before, so I just stayed put for the day. The next morning I evaluated my options online and decided it should be ok to go back south and east towards the town of Drumheller.

When I started out early in the morning this was the sunrise as seen through the smoke:

I took the QEII south to try and get away from the smoke, then headed east on a series of smaller two-lane roads through farmland. At the lower speeds it would take almost two hours each way.

Once I got closer to Drumheller I would drop down into Horsethief Canyon near the Red Deer River.

This is the small Bleriot ferry which can transport up to 13 cars at a time the short distance across the river, which isn’t very wide at this location. I would traverse it later in the day and it only took about two minutes.

Not quite the shortest ferry ride I have been on (it was on a 3-vehicle ferry in Kentucky) but interesting nonetheless.

I finally arrived in Drumheller.

If you are so inclined you may take the stairs all the way up and look out of the T-Rex’s mouth. I was not so inclined.

There were several “dinosaur” sites around the area but after checking in at the Visitor Centre I learned that there was generally a good bit of hiking involved and so I decided to pass on it. I was hoping to get some photo ops from the road but the staff didn’t think that would work out too well.

Before leaving Drumheller I did find this tiny little church which only has room for 6 parishioners:

Castlegar, BC to High River, AB

August 31, 2025

Today I will head back east to Alberta province and start working my way north. Before I leave Castlegar I want to share something I noticed as I drove into town two days ago. When I had been to town previously I approached from the west and left to the south. This trip I came in from the south and noticed this as I was descending Mount Kelly.

I was looking right down the runway of the West Kootenay Regional Airport, and there was a large mountain on the other side. The mountain in the distance is Sentinel Mountain which, at it’s highest point, is 5,456 feet tall. The mountain I was on when I took this photo is even higher at over 6,400 feet. The mountain in the distance isn’t that far from the end of the runway (looks like about 3 miles on Google Maps).

When I was in town yesterday taking pictures of the sculptures I heard, then saw, this mid-size passenger jet flying parallel to the runway and then bank south to make a turn towards the runway.

You can see it in front of the mountain before it would turn right again to land.

Someone at the Visitor Centre told me that the airport is nicknamed “Cancel-gar” by the locals due to the number of flights that get cancelled due to weather or other issues.

Today I would reverse my route from two days ago and shortly after crossing the Canadian Rockies I will turn left onto smaller roads for the rest of the day. I had a few stops planned in Alberta province and the total drive time was projected to be about 7 1/2 hours without stops.

The town of Creston is about an hour and half east of Castlegar. When I had driven through it previously I stopped to get gas in town and drove past the Kokanee Brewery. They market their product as “Glacier Beer” and, despite being acquired by a much larger brewery, still make their beer here.

That is a statue of Bigfoot making off with a case of Kokanee beer.

I won’t show any more mountain pictures since you just saw them two days ago. Once I got past the Rockies I headed north to the small town of Longview. My plan was to have a fancy steak dinner at a highly rated steakhouse there but that plan fell apart when I tried to make a reservation. The first day I called they had already started serving customers and the recording said to call another time (well excuuuuuse me!). I called back the next day and the recording told me they had shut down for a week so the staff could have their vacation.

So no steak for JohnBoy.

I went to Longview anyway and it was a cute little town:

I didn’t even drive by the steakhouse, which was further up the road, but I did go to an ice cream stand which offered their signature Saskatoon Berry milkshake with fresh, locally grown Saskatoons. Just my luck they were sold out. So no Saskatoon Berries for JohnBoy, either.

I left town and drove east to my next stop. On a very small rural road I stopped to take a photo in each direction. North (left)

East (forward)

South (right)

And west (behind me). You can see the Rockies in the distance.

This is where I was now headed:

If you are familiar with the original Star Trek TV series you know that Mr. Spock is from the planet Vulcan. Welcome to Vulcan, Alberta!

Once fans of the series discovered that there was a town called Vulcan here they started visiting and things kind of took off from there. Now they have festivals here and Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock, attended at least one. It has taken on a life of its own…

You will notice that the large starship shown above is NOT identified as the Enterprise (possibly due to licensing issues).

The flower planter located outside the gift shop is a replica of a Federation shuttlecraft.

I thought the place was closed so I put my phone up to the glass on the entrance and took this photo – and then saw people moving around inside. Turns out I got there just before closing time.

I walked around inside for a short while looking at the merchandise, and there were many items and photos signed by the cast of the show. One of the brochures I had picked up back when I was in Calgary alerted me to this town. There was also a menu for a local pizzeria which, when the festival occurs, makes a pizza with a Federation logo-shaped crust.

When I left Vulcan I headed back northwest to the town of High River, where I had a one-night Airbnb reservation. I picked it because it was the largest town near here and with all my stops I knew it would be getting dark soon. When I got there I discovered it also has a connection to a TV show.

The Canadian drama “Heartland” is currently in it’s 20th season. Parts of the show are filmed in and around High River, including Maggie’s Feed Store and Diner. The actual ranch featured in the show is on private property, in a nearby town, closer to the Rockies.

This is a “set” used for filming and is not an actual restaurant. I only knew about Heartland, and this set location, because a friend of mine used to watch the show.

Castlegar Sculpturewalk

August 30, 2025

When I stopped briefly in Castlegar on my way to Cranbrook earlier in my trip I had picked up a brochure about this activity and after looking through it I decided I wanted to come back and check it out for myself. Fortunately it was a nice day, as the sculptures are scattered all over town, though there is a concentration of them in the downtown shopping district.

The artwork in the photo above was featured on the cover of the brochure I had seen. It is called “Dedngon”. Here is another angle of it:

Most of these sculptures are available for sale or lease. The only deterrent to photographing them was that many were backlit by the sun. There were many more than I am going to show you, but I’ve tried to pick the best ones to post. You can Google the name and see photos of many of the ones that I will post, as well as others that are no longer in circulation, or were in parts of town that I didn’t go to. I tried to find all the ones that were downtown or close to it.

The bench above is supposed to represent a tree trunk, with new growth sprouting from the top.

The artwork in the photo above is called “Just Had To Look” and features a small man crawling on a hand held sphere who is peering down into a hole in the surface.

The artwork in the photo above is called “Living Fossil” and is of a swimming white sturgeon.

The artwork in the photo above is called “Don’t Judge Me by My Cover.”

That one is called “Mask of Ooinn” (the first two letters of the last word have characters above them which I am unable to replicate here). It is one of the few sculptures I saw that was not made out of metal. It depicts the chief Norse deity (as stated in the brochure).

“Egghead” was purchased by a local business and is on display outside the public library.

The next two I found in Millenium Park, a large city park east of town and next to the Columbia River.

And the next one is in several parts. It is metal shaped in the form of a curved maple leaf. It covers a bench near the river and has a nice detailed painting inside.

I’ve saved my favorite for last. It is being leased by the city and currently sits out next to the highway coming in to town.

Lethbridge, AB to Castlegar, BC

August 29, 2025

Today will be another driving day. I will be taking Hwy 3 (the Crowsnest Highway) west and will cross the southern end of the Canadian Rockies from east to west. The first 80 miles will be flat prairie and farmland, which I have grown accustomed to while in most of Alberta province. Google Maps indicated it would take about 6 hours, without stops, to get to my destination. Once I hit the Rockies the road will take me through Cranbrook, where I stayed earlier in my trip, and then beyond it to Castlegar. The portion from Lethbridge to Cranbrook will be new to me.

The first item of interest I encountered was as I was getting into the Rockies.

That is the result of the Frank Slide. At 410am on April 29, 1903, the top of the mountain gave way and wiped out a good portion of the town of Frank, a small coal mining town. 70 people perished, either in their homes or in the mines. As you can see, lots of the rock debris made it to where the highway now runs. The photo above is looking left (south) from the highway.

That is how the highway appears now. They obviously had to clear rocks and boulders out of the way to build the road. And this is how it looks now if you look right from the highway:

You can see that with the momentum of the rockslide the debris traveled a significant distance.

OK – so now I’m back in the Rockies. You know what that means…. more mountains!

I believe the mountains above are part of the range I saw as I approached Cranbrook from the west. And I believe the mountains shown below are a little further north in that same mountain range.

OK, that wasn’t so bad was it?

I drove for about 2 1/2 more hours and then crossed a mountain pass which is about an hour and a half from Castlegar.

I believe that photo is dark because there were clouds right overhead shading the valley. It was a bright, sunny day everywhere else.

When I got to Castlegar I stopped in at the Visitor Centre again (I had stopped in briefly when I was coming east and decided that I liked the town enough to some back for a two-night stay).

That is a large metal sculpture of a hummingbird. It is a set-up for tomorrow’s post which will include lots more sculptures.

I did have time after I arrived in Castlegar to visit the “Brilliant Bridge”. Technically it is called the Doukhobor Suspension Bridge National Heritage Site of Canada, and is located in the neighborhood of Brilliant on the opposite side of the Columbia River from the town of Castlegar.

If you look closely at the original concrete stanchion you will see that the bridge was built in 1913.

The original bridge was abandoned in 1966 when a new highway bridge was built not far away. The bridge was restored in the early 1990’s and is now a pedestrian bridge, and a popular landmark in town.

The bridge spans the Upper Kootenay River shortly before it joins the Columbia River not far from here.

Getting back to the official name, the Doukhobors (the Canadian spelling, adding the letter ‘u’) immigrated from Russia to Canada in the early 1900’s. About 7,500 arrived in Canada over a 30 year period, seeking to escape religious persecution. They originally settled in Saskatchewan but later relocated here to British Columbia. (Source: Wikipedia)

There is a Doukhobor Heritage Centre in Castlegar but I didn’t go to it.

Lethbridge, Alberta

August 28, 2025

After having visited Waterton Lakes National Park yesterday I had returned to my Airbnb in Lethbridge to spend my first night here. Lethbridge is the 4th largest town in Alberta province with a population of just over 100,000. People who live here are called Lethbridgians or, are you ready for this, Lethbians.

Today first place I went was the Paradise Canyon Golf Course, as it was listed on TripAdvisor as being a good place for photo ops. Well, it is in a nice canyon but it is a golf course (duh) so I didn’t spend much time there.

Running alongside it, in this long coulee, is the Oldman River which you will hear more about in a moment.

My next stop was the Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, which I had passed as I was driving into town yesterday.

No, that’s not a Japanese Darth Vader. It is authentic samurai armor.

After that I drove to the Helen Schuler Nature Centre. I was greeted by this sign:

Oki is an indigenous Blackfoot word meaning hello, or welcome.

Most of the displays in the Centre seemed to be targeted at kids, though there were numerous messages scattered about clearly directed at adults.

The building did have a rooftop deck which was promoted as having a variety of plants, but I can’t say as I was terribly impressed (they weren’t flowers so much as herbs and non-flowering plants). It did, however, give me a great view of another local landmark – the Lethbridge Viaduct, or as is called locally, the High Level Bridge. I had driven under it to get to the Nature Centre.

It was completed in 1909 by the Canada Pacific Railway and is the longest and highest railroad trestle in the world. It spans the Oldman River and reaches a maximum height of 314 feet. At 5,327 feet it is just over a mile long. It is still in use, and I did see a long train traveling over it later in the day.

I drove to a wetlands/nature preserve in another part of the coulee. I walked along a series of paths and on a pier-type walkway, hoping to see some critters but I did not. I then drove downtown as I had picked up a brochure touting a mural contest with some pretty clever entries, but it must have been dated as I only found one – painted on an electrical box in a big city park. The map I had showed lots more…

I got a little uncomfortable as there seemed to be lots of rough looking people hanging out in the park, and there was an obvious police presence, so I decided to go back to my Airbnb and do some trip planning. I had improvised visits to Medicine Hat and Castlegar (my next stop) but needed to look at my maps and plot out some more stops in British Columbia and Alberta and start planning my route to Alaska!

Waterton Lakes NP – Part 2 of 2

August 27, 2025

(Photo credit: Parks Canada)

After I arrived at the hamlet of Waterton Park I turned right onto Akamina Parkway to traverse the 10 miles out to Cameron Lake.

This is the part of our program where I tell you about the wildfire in 2017. It was started by lightning and began outside the Park but worked its way south and consumed roughly 39% of the trees in the Park.

There were several parking lots where visitors could leave their vehicles and hike. I finally arrived at Cameron Lake.

And looking left and right from the pier you can see the damage to the distant trees caused by the wildfire.

As you look straight out across the lake the mountain you see at the far end is actually in the United States, as is a small portion of the lake itself.

There was a large parking lot and a building where visitors could rent canoes and small boats to go out on the lake, and I imagine earlier in the summer swimming might be popular as well. There were rangers available to answer questions or give directions to visitors.

I stood and spoke with some of the other visitors before I left and was surprised to see a small deer calmly walk out of the lake:

I started driving back towards the village.

In the photo above you can see the Prince of Wales Hotel on the left, a small part of the village below and to the right, and parts of both Upper Waterton Lake (near) and Middle Waterton Lake (distance).

In the photo below you can see more of the village at the bottom of the frame and more of Upper Waterton Lake which continues south, well into the United States.

After descending down into the village I would start driving back towards the Park entrance, but encountered this lone bighorn sheep casually walking up the road before I got all the way down the hill.

There was no one behind me so I stopped in the road and put my hazard lights on. My next thought, after not wanting to get run into by another vehicle, was “do sheep with horns react to red cars like bulls might??”

Evidently not because he walked right past me without a care in the world.

When I got further up the road I turned left on Red Rock Parkway to check out that side of the Park. Some of the campgrounds and trails along that road were still closed as a result of the wildfire.

I must say I was very impressed with this Park and am glad some people convinced me it was worthwhile to visit after I had almost talked myself out of it.

Waterton Lakes NP – Part 1 of 2

August 27, 2025

I headed out early from Medicine Hat because I had a busy day ahead of me. My next stop would be Lethbridge, in southern Alberta, but today’s journey would take me well beyond that to Waterton Lakes National Park, in the southwest corner of Alberta, where it lies against the Canada/United States border. In fact, if you hike or travel across the border you will find yourself in Glacier National Park in Montana.

I have previously referred to this Park by two other names – just Waterton, though Lakes is technically part of the name, and Waterton Peace Park, which isn’t correct either. Within Waterton Lakes NP is the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a World Heritage site. All of that was kind of rattling around in my brain and I wish I had done my due diligence and researched the Peace Park part as I would have liked to go see it.

I came very close to not even visiting this Park at all. I knew it was here, and that I would pass by close to it, but several people along my route told me they didn’t think it was worth seeing. The consensus seemed to be “If you’ve seen the US Glacier NP (which I have) then there isn’t much to see at Waterton Lakes”. Now that I’ve been here I couldn’t disagree more, especially if you’re a hiker.

Getting to Lethbridge would take me a little less than two hours. I stopped for maps and brochures at the Visitor Centre and then set out for the Park, which would take me about an hour and a half more. I will go back to Lethbridge to spend the night, and will post photos from there tomorrow.

Getting to the Park would be a very pleasant drive on Hwy 5, through lots of farmland and small towns. I had been in relatively flat Saskatchewan and Alberta and would now be heading back into the southern tip of the Canadian Rockies.

It didn’t take long to start seeing big mountains ahead of me.

The mountains in the two photos above look very similar, but it appears that the two “pyramids” are now further away from the larger, “rectangular” mountain as I evidently had traveled further north and was now looking at them from a different angle. That is one thing that really plays games with my mind because as I drive the view of some mountains I see looks different as I get further down the road and pass by them.

Even after having been to the Park it is difficult for me to determine which of these mountains are in the United States and which are in Canada.

The small lake shown above is Maskinonge Lake, and is located at the point where Hwy 5 would turn left and become the access road into the Park itself. On the map below you will see the road I was coming in from on the right.

(Photo credit: Parks Canada)

The next lake I would see after the entry gate is Lower Waterton Lake:

And the next one would be Middle Waterton Lake:

Perched on the hill above this lake is the Prince of Wales Hotel:

I wasn’t allowed to park and get better pictures of the hotel from their parking lot because I was not staying there, but it is a very impressive building.

Shortly after that I came to a small hamlet of Waterton Park which apparently had about 200 private residences but seemed to be more about restaurants, hotels and gift shops. Hwy 5 ends in the village.

Photos of the rest of the National Park will continue in the next post.

Medicine Hat, Alberta

August 25, 2025

It was time to bid Saskatchewan a fond adieu and head back to Alberta province. Google Maps told me it would be a 4 3/4 hour drive southwest to Medicine Hat, just across the provincial border. I had stopped there briefly on my way to Moose Jaw and decided I would go back and spend more time there.

The trip consisted mostly of driving through open farmland. One place I noticed a pattern in a field which reminded me of similar sights elsewhere.

I had previously attributed the color pattern to different crops but I now wonder if it was crops and dirt (though the dirt here seemed freshly tilled).

It was an uneventful drive to Medicine Hat.

I went down to a city park near the river and found a man ready to go out on a paddleboard with his dog.

The dog was obviously ready to go.

I drove across town to the Big Marble Go Centre, a large multi-purpose complex with both indoor and outdoor activities.

There were some squared off spaces between the wall pillars and each had a unique wrought iron scene depicting life and industry in the area.

And atop the building was this back-lit bird.

There were pickleball and tennis courts outside, as well as numerous fields for sports activities.

Inside was a whole host of activities, from an ice rink, aquatic center and indoor courts which could be transformed for various uses.

They even had a climbing wall, though it was more for kids than adults.

And I found this to be an interesting idea:

On my way to The Go Centre I noticed another sports facility for kids and adults alike.

I also spotted a nice church near town. I am often impressed by religious buildings as they are generally well designed and maintained.

I decided to treat myself to a beer after my long travel day. I selected a place that was listed in TripAdvisor and they offered an alcoholic root beer on their menu which sounded interesting. I was disappointed to learn that they were out of it so I “had” to settle for a regular brew. And they didn’t even have any bar food to offer – only chips.

And as I was leaving I saw a sign giving a possible reason for the scant offerings:

Yikes! A 4 hour window. Well better that going out of business altogether, I suppose.