Campsites – Page 5 – The Destinators

Kootenay National Park

We’re not anti-social, we’re just not into crowds. We anticipated being in the Canadian Rockies in August (prime vacation season) and into September (including the Labor Day weekend), so we hauled out our box full of secret magic tricks. Based on our travels to date, we know the best days of the week and times of day to arrive at a non-reservable campground, how to find remote, lesser-known hiking trails on weekends, and, if we’d like to hike a popular trail, when to head out. As we were closing in on Banff National Park, the most popular of Canada’s parks and close to both Calgary and Edmonton, we decided to visit Kootenay National Park over Labor Day weekend.

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Glacier (Canada) National Park

There are two Glacier National Parks in North America – one in Montana, US and one in British Columbia, Canada. They are about 550 km (340 miles) apart. To complicate things, Glacier (Canada) is in the Selkirk Mountains, close to (but not in) the Rocky Mountains, while Glacier (US) is in the Rockies, just south of the Canadian Rockies and connected to Waterton National Park (Canada) creating an international peace park. So when you talk about visiting Glacier National Park, many Canadians will ask ‘Which one?’ We’re in Glacier (Canada).

Glacier (Canada) had the name first – it was the second Canadian national park – established in 1886, while Glacier (US) was established in 1910. They both inspire awe. They both feature multiple, large, active glaciers, soaring mountains, waterfalls, black bears, grizzly bears and wildflowers. They both received early support from the countries’ respective transcontinental railroads. They both have avalanches in winter. However only Glacier (Canada) counts its epic avalanches as a major part of its history. To reduce confusion, Glacier (Canada) could rename itself Avalanche National Park. On second thought, that might not be good for tourism…
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Jasper National Park

Maligne Lake, Maligne Mountain, Maligne Glacier

We do love mountains! Views, mountain air, hiking, mountains in your face with glimpses of remote river valleys and distant peaks; forests and critters big and small, tiny mountain communities and ski towns, (usually) cooler temps. We were on our way to see the Canadian Rockies and set a course for Jasper National Park, the northernmost of the parks there.

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Yellowknife, NT

Yellowknife is out there! On the north shore of the Great Slave Lake, it’s a 15-hour drive from Edmonton, AB and 5 hours from the nearest settlement with more than 2,000 people. Although geographically isolated, it’s by no means disconnected from the world. It’s a modern city of 20,000 of the most ethnically diverse, friendliest and interesting people we’ve met on our travels.

We’d made a campground reservation to stay a few days for the music festival, and we extended it a couple of times to do some more visiting and exploring of the city.

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Yellowknife, NT: Folk on the Rocks

When we first considered exploring Canada this year, I looked at the map. I had to use a big screen – Canada’s a big place! Just pondering the sheer size, I noticed a dot on the map at the end of a road to the north on the edge of a huge lake: Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. It was all by itself and way up there. Curious, I googled it. It is the northernmost city in Canada. You get there on the northernmost paved road in Canada. It is the home of Folk on the Rocks, the ‘largest music festival under the midnight sun.’ We wanted to explore the Canadian Rockies in August/September. If we went to Yellowknife, the timing of the festival in late July would be perfect! We put a pushpin on the map and I made our only reservation of the summer at the campground next door to the festival grounds. We’re very glad we did!

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Calgary, AB

Calgary (rhymes with strawberry) is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, with a current population of 1.3 million. It’s a diverse city with 60% of the population of European descent and 36% ‘visible minority’ (non-white, non-aboriginal), the remainder being indigenous/aboriginal/First Nation. A former Olympic city, one of the largest in western Canada and a hub for the region’s agriculture, mining and oil activities, this should be an interesting place to explore.

We knew we wanted to visit Studio Bell, site of the National Music Centre and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. We also checked our festival list and assumed we’d be able to find some interesting event. Well, dontcha know, we would be in Calgary for their biggest event of the year – The Calgary Stampede – billed as ‘The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.’ The Stampede attracts 1.3 million visitors from outside the city each year.

With our recently boosted confidence in urban camping, we set a course to arrive just a couple of days before the start of the Stampede.

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Prince Albert National Park: Waskesiu Lake Blues Cruise

We have a connection in Saskatchewan with my friend Terry, whom we met almost two years ago in Memphis. Terry lives near the city of Prince Albert, SK and he has a boat on Waskesiu Lake in Prince Albert National Park, so our week-long stay in the park gave us opportunities for a few convenient musical meet-ups.

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North Manitoba – The Pas, Snow Lake

North? We’re getting somewhere! Winnipeg, in southeastern Manitoba, is north of the northernmost point we visited in North Ontario. The province considers anything north of the 53rd parallel North Manitoba, and describes it as ‘a vast untamed wilderness’ which sounds like our kinda place. So from Winnipeg, we headed north…

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Riding Mountain National Park

Riding Mountain National Park opened in 1932 and is the oldest national park in Manitoba. It rises 457 meters (1,499 feet) above the pretty flat prairie in all directions. At its center is Clear Lake and the town of Wasagaming. Its most recognizable feature is a line of cliffs along the eastern border formed by the Manitoba escarpment.

We planned to visit. Our new friends from the music festival confirmed it was a must see in Manitoba. We set a course.

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Prairie Wind Music Festival

Our approach to non-planning our trips always includes having a list of music festivals and dates handy so we can be on the lookout for where our trajectory might intersect a festival. Most recent example: if we bypassed Winnipeg on our first pass (planning to double back to visit later), we could attend the Prairie Wind Music Festival in Cypress River. To continue a theme from the previous post, Neil Young wrote about this town – the town where his dad grew up – in his song ‘Prairie Wind.’

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