Canada
Heavenly Valhalla
In Norse mythology, Valhalla is the place where slain warriors dwell under the leadership of god Odin. The einherjar blissfully hang out in the netherworld, patiently awaiting the arrival of Doomsday. Not my idea of a fun place to winter. Luckily, the Valhalla we visited last March, a quaint mountain lodge tucked away in BC’s Selkirk Mountains, is rather less…
‘Adventures in Pandemica’ or ‘What I did on my Isolation Vacation’
Our trip to Pandemica was unplanned. It began March 17, 2020, on a sunny St Patrick’s Day. The voyage was short, comfortable and hassle-free. No packing, no suitcases, no plane tickets - and no jetlag. We simply got out of bed and we were there. I wasn’t sure what to expect in this strange land or how long we’d be…
Vancouver Island
Let’s face it. April in Alberta sucks. Beneath the snowy mantle cold and clean… lies a bunch of dead brown grass. Meanwhile on Vancouver Island, spring is in bloom. The cherry trees are in full magenta majesty. The land is bright with magnolia and rhododendron blossoms and colourful tulips punctuate the evergreen grass. Hummingbirds flit amongst the flowers, sipping spring’s…
Fly Fishing Alberta
I remember the first time I played golf. It was a beautiful summer evening. That first shot flew out over the blue Edmonton sky and settled in the middle of the fairway. I was 12 years old and, from that moment, addicted to golf. My appetite for fly fishing began many years later, but was also sparked by a single,…
Cape Breton Island
The Canso Causeway connects mainland Nova Scotia to the island of Cape Breton. As we motor-homed across the span on a crisp autumn day, the ebb tide was pulling westward, hard through the Canso Strait. We stopped at Port Hastings visitor’s centre where a pleasant woman bid us welcome and told us we were in luck, “You’re just in time…
The Irish Loop
When I told a Red Deer friend (born and raised in Newfoundland) that we intended to explore only the west side of the Island during our two-week visit she looked at me as if I were daft. “If you haven’t walked down Water Street in St. John’s, you haven’t been to Newfoundland.” And so we divided our 14-day fall camping…
Jiggs Dinner
If Newfoundlanders weren’t so damn friendly we’d have been on time for our Jiggs dinner. Terra Nova National Park is situated in eastern Newfoundland, 399 sq km of rugged rock, trees and wetland, wrapped around idyllic fingers of Bonavista Bay. The Trans-Canada highway bisects the park, then continues southeast toward Come by Chance and eventually the capital, St. John’s, on…
L’Anse Aux Meadows
On a lonely highway in a tempest on Newfoundland’s remote Northern Peninsula, we spotted our first moose (if you don’t count the fresh-ground burger we enjoyed at a roadside take-out stand near Deer Lake). Luckily, before moose met grill, the big bull stepped off the road into the ditch and I was able to keep the rig down the centerline,…
Gros Morne – Western Newfoundland
The talk of salt cod and moose started before we’d even made landfall on The Rock. On the ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, a wizened fellow regaled us with stories of jigging for fish with his cousin and bagging a bull moose with his wife. It was late September. He was pleased as punch…
Boulder Hut
There are no baths or showers at Boulder Hut. Clean-up after a day of strenuous backcountry skiing involves soaping up in a wood-fired sauna, then dumping a bucket of water over one’s head. To my surprise a fellow guest, fit naked and female, offered to do the pouring. I reluctantly acquiesced. Thereafter, the absence of a proper shower seemed trivial…
Fisher Peak
Once in a blue moon something unlikely occurs. A goal beyond expectations – beyond capacity of aging knees – is accomplished. The view of Fisher Peak from our Kimberley home is mesmerizing. For years I’ve gazed across the Rocky Mountain Trench at that daunting, taunting pinnacle. Fisher dominates the skyline in this range of the Rockies. At nearly 3000 meters…
Whistler
The Olympics ended almost five years ago but the Whistler party carries onI was navigating a black-diamond run at the end of our last day in Whistler. The path dropped precipitously through a steep mogul-field then narrowed to a single track. I veered hard right through a tiny opening between two Douglas fir trees. As I emerged blindly from the…
Lake O’Hara
A Red Deer friend described Lake O’Hara Lodge in Yoho National Park, B.C. as the most beautiful place she’d ever been. I have done a fair share of travel to earth’s exotic and amazing places, so my expectations for our three-day visit to O’Hara were tempered with a grain of salt. The Lodge, accessible only by bus up a dusty…
Chatter Creek
The Snow Cat lurched to a halt high atop the mountain ridge. We hopped out. Nervous bladders were emptied. We stepped into our skis and looked warily out over a hanging cornice into the snowy abyss below. “She’s gnarly steep,” said Pete, our guide. Then he leaned out over the icy precipice and disappeared. I peaked warily over the edge.…
Mt. Logan – Kluane National Park
I’ve been a geography nut since I was a kid. My noggin is full of useless facts. In pre-metric days I memorized details of the world’s highest and lowest: Mount Everest 29,028 feet, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench 35,814 feet. As a proud Canadian I knew that our highest peak, Mt. Logan in Yukon’s Kluane National Park, topped out…
Dawson City and the Dempster Highway
Upon our return from six weeks exploring Canada’s north, friends enquired, “So what was your favorite place?” And each time, gazing distantly while recalling the amazing scenery, people and places we encountered, I answered: “Haven’t a clue.” But Dawson City, Yukon is a good start. I love Dawson. Unlike cruise-ship destinations on the nearby Alaska coast, Dawson is genuinely quaint.…
Rat’s Nest Cave
It's tough to snap a decent photo while crawling on your belly through a crevice too dark and tight for a sane human to negotiate. It's also difficult to focus a camera (or one’s mind) when confronted by an oversize rodent cornered in a cavern. Welcome to Rat's Nest Cave.Though few Albertans know about it, this spelunking adventure is remarkably…
A Soft Egg in the Nahanni – Part Two
In German weichei means soft egg. It defines a person’s character. In Canada we call them wimps. Charly Kudlacek is from Frankfurt, Germany and, as eggs go, is hard-boiled. We met Charly and his wife Marion in a remote campground at Summit Lake on the British Columbia portion of the Alaska Highway. The place is so-named because of its location…
A Soft Egg in the Nahanni – Part One
Weich Ei means "Soft Egg" in German. This defines a person's character. In Canada we call them wimps. Charly Kudlacek is from Frankfurt in the German state of Hesse and, as eggs go, is hard-boiled. We met Charly and his wife Marion in a remote unserviced campground at Summit Lake on the British Columbia portion of the Alaska Highway. The…
Hikin’ (and Fishin’) the Kootenays Part II
I wouldn’t say fly-fishing has become my life’s obsession but I sure enjoy watching a 30cm cutthroat tricked into chomping on a hand-tied mayfly. Besides, fishing represents a nice change from a day spent three-putting greens. So in September I booked a guided float down the Bull River for my three golf buddies and me as part of our annual…
Hikin’ (and Fishin’) the Kootenays Part I
A reluctant admission: British Columbia kicks Alberta’s butt. After cresting Storm Mountain on Highway 93 from Banff National Park the descent into B.C. begins. The change is apparent: greater vistas, fewer people… and much better weather. Soon the Rocky Mountain Trench appears, a formation that extends for two thousand kilometers southward toward old Mexico. To the east rise the mighty…
November 20, 2010 – Halifax… Glass Houses
We’d been in Nova Scotia less than an hour before we were introduced, at close quarters, to a sample of the local fauna. Minutes earlier the polite young woman at the Budget airport rental car desk, Miss Marybeth MacKinnon -- originally from Windsor, N.S. where her grandmother still grew prized pumpkins -- had offered a friendly Maritime greeting with her…
Naden Lodge (Haida Gwaii) – Halibut Taming – September, 2010
Our fishing guide suggested we stand back while he employed a harpoon to haul the giant halibut aboard. “They can be a little ornery,” Tim warned. The beast was boat-side, hanging precariously from 25lb test line, in jeopardy of breaking free and returning to the depths ninety feet below from whence I had lured him onto a herring-bated hook fifteen…