Places we’ve visited by bicycle, or would like to
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.
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.
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!
Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest national park in Canada and the fifth largest national park in the world.* How large? It’s nearly 45,000 sq km (17,300 sq mi). How large is that? By comparison, Yellowstone, one of the larger national parks in the US, is approximately 9,000 sq km (3,500 sq mi), just 20% of the size of WBNP. Like Yellowstone, WBNP is significant on a world scale. It’s the home of the largest free-roaming wood bison herd in existence, the only nesting area for the remaining wild population of whooping cranes and the largest freshwater delta supporting four waterfowl migration routes across North America. Oh, and it’s home of the world’s largest beaver dam, 850 metres (2,700 feet) wide.
They had me at ‘Buffalo.’
Continue reading “Wood Buffalo National Park (NT/AB) and Fort Smith, NT”
The past three weeks have been packed with music, biking, urban adventures, exploration, new friends, old friends, and the usual off-the-wall stuff – the essentials for what makes us want to keep on traveling. Yet we were feeling the need to chill just a bit, maybe take a hike. So we headed for Elk Island National Park which features lakes, wildlife, hiking, and a small campground. It’s famous for its bison conservation work. I’m not making this up.
Between the park and the weather, Elk Island was exactly what we needed.
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.
Our approach to trip preparation includes doing a bit of reading and talking to people about where we’re heading. Based on what we learn, we go to our trusty electronic map and add e-pushpins indicating friends and family, potential places of interest, and music festivals. When we left home, Saskatchewan was looking a bit thin with not quite 4 pushpins across the entire province – Prince Albert National Park, Doug’s guitar buddy TerryB, the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in Saskatoon, and the name of an old drumming colleague (but no current contact info).
As we approached Saskatchewan, the sparsity of pushpins turned around in a fashion reminiscent of the classic (original series) Star Trek episode ‘The Trouble with Tribbles…’
We’ve shied away from visiting large cities in the past. However, when we noticed that the Wesley-Clover Park Campground was within the city limits of Ottawa (pop 1 million), receiving 5-star ratings and boasting of easy access to downtown via bike trails and public transportation, we decided to visit Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.
Ottawa is fun and overwhelming and already on our list of places to visit again!
Jackson Hole is the (aptly named) broad, flat valley between the Gros Ventre Range and Teton Mountain Range. To enter from any direction is to ‘drop’ into the hole. The 13,000-foot Teton Range dominates the view from anywhere in the hole which can only mean one thing… Lots of Teton Range photos!
Happy Fourth of July to all from Mackay (rhymes with wacky), ID!
Continue reading “Happy Independence Day from Eastern Idaho!”