Day 4 Sunday 28 May

Today, in talking to people, apparently this tour sold out quite early, proving very popular. We went for a walk to Bear’s Hump, the location of the same name of the beer I had the night before.  It was very steep but we only went about 2/3 of the way.  It was steeper than the price of a Starbucks coffee in London ($.8.50 – 2015 prices). Ironically Canada is home to Starbucks. Around the village Mule Deer and Big Horn Sheep come down and graze between the cabins.

The deer lick the cars for salt and other mineral deposits – an early form of car detailing perhaps?

We had a boat trip down the lake this afternoon and learned about bears and the other wildlife. Apparently in winter cougars/mountain lions come down, sit on the roofs and jump on unsuspecting prey (but not people). While on the lake we crossed the Canadian-USA border on the water.  The border is devoid of any vegetation. It is the longest undefended border in the world, some 9000 km.

Afterwards we had coffee at the Prince of Wales Hotel overlooking the village and Lake Waterton.  It was a very impressive view. For dinner we had wiener dogs, root beer, sodas and sweet potato fries – it’s important to immerse yourself in the local culture and cholesterol. Sorry only pictures of/and from the hotel, nothing of the wiener dogs. Spectacular and the view was good too. Memorable is an understatement.  

  

Day 3 Saturday 27 May

Today we visited the Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump and interpretative centre.  We thought it would be just a lookout with a few signs.  How wrong we were.  It was an incredibly well-designed museum and our guide was a First Nations fellow called Little Leaf (I thought it was Little Leap!).  We learnt so much and not only had a greater appreciation but a deeper understanding of the culture.  Elizabeth asked about why is that First Nations have a different attitude towards using the land and natural resources compared to the west. He thanked our group afterwards for asking grown up questions.    The concept was to herd buffalo over the 200 metre cliff to their deaths.  It sounds easy but their techniques were very sophisticated indeed.

Apparently the local Blackfoot women were happy to marry the first Europeans who came through, because it gave them access to cooking pots, knives, axes which made their lives so much easier. In their culture women could divorce. Although they had to leave all his items outside the tepee, she kept everything else for the maintenance of the family.  Essentially they were reverse trophy wives, where they keep the trophies. Fair enough.

We saw Red Rock Canyon which was a small stream flowing through red shale, nice but nothing to write home about – although I just did. Perhaps Red Rock Ditch. Apparently upstream it’s more impressive.

We arrived at Waterton a picturesque village by the shores of a lake which is part of the world’s first peace park in 1932 and a UNESCO site.  About 10% is in Canada and the rest is in Montana. The border between the two countries is cleared of vegetation and is the longest undefended border in the world.

Our room is on the lakeside and looks like a 40s or 50’s hotel, rustic but nice. We went to dinner at the Lakeside Chophouse and had nice meals and we met some lovely people, mainly from NSW.  I had a Bear Hump beer which was interesting. The one thing that has surprised is how late the sun sets - 9.38 pm and it is not even summer yet. Here is the cruise boat we take tomorrow with Mt Vimy in the background.  The battle of Vimy in 1917 has the same significance for the Canadians as Gallipoli has for Australia.

Pick the odd one out.

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Day 2 Friday 26 May

Visit to the Provincial Dinosaur Park today which may still be the world’s richest fossil field. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  So far they have identified 58 new dinosaur species. On the way there, rolling prairie gave way to what we know as the Badlands.  They do exist outside of the US.

The formation with the hard rock on top is termed a hoodoo.  The interpretative centre has a diorama of smaller dinosaurs attacking a big one. (I hope I have not used overly technical language.)

We had a behind the scenes tour with a palaeontologist and we looked for fossil fragments.   We found what looked like a sponge but it was fossilized bone marrow. We also found fragments of bones and once you know what you are looking for, the ground was literally covered in these fossil fragments.  We did see tracks of a coyote and possibly a moose. You can see our tour group heading back to the bus leaving tracks of their own.

In the afternoon in Calgary we walked around to have something to eat and walked to the Olympic Park and looked at some of the sculpture around the place.  One was dedicated to the 1920s suffragette movement who successfully campaigned for women to become elected officials.  Elizabeth is sitting with them. The locals are very proud of their hosting of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games.

And of couse the Calgary tower, hence a good name for a grand blog and Brooke said there was nothing to see apart from this in Calgary.

Day 1 Part 2

There is an international childrens’ festival on.  Do they really need to have kids at these things? We saw of what we call gophers but these are Richardson’s Ground Squirrels.  This one we decided to call Michael. 

We had a welcome dinner and met our trip buddies and tour director Tara who sounds like she is Wendy Malick.   Tara is a Calgary girl who knew the singer KD Lang growing up.  That gives her a lot of street cred.

Day 1 Thursday 25 May

We left on time Thursday morning without any incident of foggy mornings and passport failure that had bedevilled Brisbane international travellers in the days prior our departure. The flight was very long and had very little turbulence although we first struck it at 3.30 PM. Which made me think of turbulence at Kedron Expo but I am sure it was smooth sailing – good work Patra and team! There were several babies on board and they were quite well behaved but we were not that close to them.  We had a breakfast coming into Vancouver airport of pancakes with imitation maple syrup (Queensland made) with a berry compote.  Very nice for airline food.

If you are reading this we have landed safely rather than be lost in the Pacific Ocean like Kingsford-Smith. (Not that he died in a fireball).  Strangely, by crossing the International Date Line we arrived in  Canada before we left. Good work.

Vancouver airport has snow-capped mountains off in the distance, making the airport slightly scenic. We had a morning tea Red Tea milkshakes that were quite refreshing.  We next made our connection to Calgary which was only an hour away. We had a limo ride to our Fairmont Hotel in Calgary.  It was built about 100 years ago as part of the great railway tourism of the age with Canadian-Pacific owning both the railroads and the hotels.  

Arriving at the hotel about 1.30PM we took off later to walk to the Fort Calgary museum which was only about a 15 minute walk away although we had to negotiate our way through 500 children under the age of 10 hopping on to buses after watching some drama productions.  

More to come...