O Canada

Before I hit the "Publish" button on this post today, I had written exactly one piece in the last 12 years about time that I had spent in Canada. That post was in 2017, and we were really only in Canada because that's where our cruise ship to Alaska was departing from. 

Where did all the other posts about Canada go to, you might ask? Where are all the words and paragraphs about the country that shares the longest land border with the United States of America?

There aren't any. 

Know why? Because I've never intentionally planned a vacation to Canada. Never. I went to Montreal for a couple of Thanksgivings with my parents in high school but that wasn't me planning the vacation. I just went along, having been afforded no real choice in the matter. And sure, I've wandered to Toronto a few times since I turned 18 to see a basketball game and go to a baseball game (that wasn't really the intent but that's what I did) and go to the Toronto Zoo, but those didn't count really either. Nor really do the less than 24 hours we spent in Vancouver in 2017. I mean, if the boat had departed from Seattle, I would still not have visited Vancouver.

That trip to the Zoo, by the way, was the only time I have ever spent the night in a car in a parking lot. In the middle of winter. In Toronto. It was actually one of the warmest nights I've ever spent in my life. I had blankets and slept in my clothes, what can I say?

The first of two Tim Hortons we visited in Golden, BC (population 3,986-ish). The other Tims is better.

So all that stops today because here is a post that's completely and unabashedly about Canada. Why, you may ask? Well...because right after my 57th birthday at the end of June, I finally took a trip to Canada that I planned. Not for a day on the way to catch a boat. Not for an accidental or intentional weekend away. A real, honest to God vacation in Canada. Eight nights! And behold: there will be blog posts about Canada this year. 

And maybe, just maybe...next year as well (our next Canada trip is already booked!).

Why Canada in 2025? Well, I guess it started when it came time to add a fourth weeklong trip to our 2025 travel itinerary, I thought Rocky Mountains and back to Yellowstone National Park. But...I didn't really want to spend time in the center of the United States. I mean, not really. Not this year. Then I had a thought. Or an inspiration maybe. I remembered the Rockies actually go all the way north of the border and into Canada. So I looked to the Great White North and found our fourth trip. Just like that, we decided to go to Canada. 

Was it just like the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Yellowstone National Park? Nope! No it wasn't. It was like the Canadian Rockies. They are different places in so many ways. We'll get to all that just soon enough including all sorts of stuff about mountains, birds, bears, kayaking, hiking, waterfalls, early sunrises, late sunsets, pine trees, trout, sheep, flowers, chairs, lakes, glaciers, crazy-colored water and lots and lots of French fries with gravy and maybe some Tim Hortons coffee with a Canadian maple donut or two (so good...). OK, so maybe I won't cover all of that. We'll see.

And as an aside...what's the deal with apostrophes at Tim Hortons? I thought the place was founded by a dude named Tim Horton and because they are his stores, the "s" after Horton is is some sort of possessive denotation. Yes? Or no? Because there's no apostrophe. Also when they shorten the name to Tims, it's also missing an apostrophe. So confused here. Why isn't it "Tim Horton's" and "Tim's"?

Avalanche warning sign in Yoho National Park. Lots of avalanche signs in the Canadian Rockies.

Our entry point for this trip was Calgary, Alberta. I suppose Calgary is likely on the plains of Canada but hop in a car and drive an hour or maybe a bit more west and you'll be on the edge or really into the Rockies depending on how fast you feel like rolling down the Trans-Canada Highway. I'm not sure Canadians are big speeders. I felt like we were most often the fastest car on the road and I by no means usually have a lead foot. 

When we visited Rocky Mountain National Park in 2020, we flew to Denver, stopped there for a night but did literally nothing else except eat dinner and sleep and then split for the mountains the next morning. We did something similar when we visited Yellowstone later that same year: flew to Salt Lake City, landed and then drove straight through Idaho to Jackson, Wyoming.

We didn't do that with Calgary on this trip. After six nights in eastern British Columbia, we spent the last two nights of this vacation in downtown Calgary. And as luck would have it, we checked in to our hotel in that city the day before the start of the Calgary Stampede, which is like the biggest event of the year and it's not even close in Southern Alberta.

Let me say this about the Calgary Stampede and the city of Calgary in general: it's awesome!

Calgary Stampede parade. Shania Twain was the grand marshal.

I have to say that the skyline of Calgary is not much to look at. It's not New York or Chicago or Los Angeles (yes...LA has a skyline!!) or Las Vegas or some of our more famous and iconic cities in the United States. But the downtown is compact, dense, lived in, full of stores and hotels and restaurants and just 15 minutes or so outside of town you can find a fish hatchery or a park packed full of yellow warblers in the summer. And you know...if you spend about 90 minutes driving west you are in the Rockies surrounded by some of the most gorgeous country I've ever been in.

Let me say for the record that I've wanted to visit a fish hatchery for several years now. I saw one somewhere in some wooded area in the United States a few years ago and thought maybe it would be cool to go check one out. By the time I'd processed that thought, we had moved on from whatever hatchery inspired that idea but in Calgary I couldn't resist. It's basically like a fish farm where they grow fish. Trout in Calgary. Fascinating stuff. But that's not what this post is about.

Let me also say that those warblers I wrote about at the end of last year as migratory attractions in Virginia spend their whole summer in Canada and there is a park called Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary that is like yellow warbler central. We'd never seen one of these birds in person before and we managed maybe eight or nine in a couple of hours one morning and heard many, many more.

About 64,000 trout and one yellow warbler. I'm rounding up on the fish.

So about that Stampede. Every July, Calgary hosts a 10 day event which can only be described as a celebration of all things horse and agricultural and cowboy and Native American. I don't know how else to put it. Rodeo? Sure, they got that. Pavilions with farm animals? Oh yeah. A Native American camp with displays about indigenous life? Yep, got that too. Parade with Shania Twain as grand marshal? Yes, sir! Although not every year on Shania. Chuck wagon races? Unbelievably, absolutely. Rides, food stalls and more cowboy hats than you have ever seen in your life? Yahoo!!!!!

Have you ever seen an indigenous relay race? I hadn't either. I suggest if you ever get a chance to do so that you check one out and get as close to the relay exchange point as possible. We saw two heats of these things as part of the opening night Evening Show (there's one each of the ten nights of the Stampede) which features a twin bill of these races and some chuck wagon races, which is exactly what it sounds like...a chuck wagon being pulled around a race track by four horses in front of each wagon.

These relay races...I knew they were on horseback so I figured there would be four or so horses with riders who would each do a lap and then hand a baton to the next mounted teammate and so on until all the laps were done and someone finished first. Not so. It's one dude racing against three other dudes riding a horse bareback around a track; dismounting and getting on a second horse (also bareback); then switching to a third horse after the second lap; and finishing the third and final lap on a third horse, and of course no saddle on that one either. 

I don't know that I've seen an athletic contest more incredible and I've seen my fair share of athletic events in my life. I didn't know someone could jump from the ground onto a horse's back with no help or hands and then take off on said horse less than about a second after he landed on the horse's back. We saw messed up horse transfers, we saw someone fall off a horse and we saw a horse handler (someone holds the horses in place waiting for transfer) or two get knocked over during a horse exchange. But when this was done right...just amazing. The speed which these guys come into the exchange is just wow! They basically fly off one horse and leap right onto the next. I don't know what to say. I didn't expect something like this out of the Stampede Evening Show. I'm still stunned.

I don't know if I'll ever make it to a second Stampede but I have to tell you (and I'm shocked to be writing this), I'm not ruling it out.

Chuck wagon races and Native American hoop dancer. Calgary Stampede. Lots of cowboy hats.

Our opening day Stampede visit was on July 4, which of course is Independence Day in the United States. We knew there would be fireworks after the evening show. We didn't know exactly how long we'd have to wait for them (the Evening Show starts at 7:30 pm but sun doesn't set until after 10) but we knew there would be some. We hoped that these fireworks would be our second of this trip, expecting some on Canada Day (July 1) only to be denied by threat of wildfire. That's cool. I've been near enough to one wildfire in my life already and I'm good not being near one again.

I have never been to a fireworks show like we saw that night. It was absolutely spectacular. There were more fireworks for longer than I can ever remember seeing in one place at one time. The cover picture of this post is one shot from the end sequence that night. It looks like an artist's rendering but I assure you, it's totally and completely real. Canada gave me my best July 4 fireworks ever. Go figure!

I've been reading books this year. I try to read a book or two about new places we visit to get myself psyched up for the experience and maybe to learn a thing or two before I arrive someplace new. One of the two books I read before this trip was about a solo trip across Canada with a canoe that author Adam Shoalts made in 2017. It's called "Beyond The Trees" and it kept me occupied for a few weeks this winter and spring. There's one part of the book that reads as follows:

"I enjoy returning to old haunts as much as the next person, but they don't have quite the same magical allure as unknown places..."

We travel a lot more than a lot of people we know. We for sure have some old haunts we love to go back to. We spend time in New York City every year and we've already spent a week this year re-visiting Tokyo, which I can see us visiting many times in the future if we have time and enough resources to keep knocking off new places and going back to places we love. Canada was not new to us, but Calgary and the mountains of Alberta and British Columbia sure were unknown places and they both definitely had a lot of magical allure. Who knows...maybe one day we might consider that corner of the globe as an old haunt. 

Blog posts about mountains and other stuff to follow.

Happy Canada Day! (July 1) from Jasper National Park.