US/Canada 2018

Edmonton 31st August, 2018 Westlock and Cross Lake Today we headed 90 minutes north of Edmonton to visit relations and who still live in the area and to see some of the places where previous generations lived. They are all connected by the Gurney name, a name which in England meant the Gurney Bank and was the maiden name of Elizabeth Fry. Janine's grandmother was a Gurney and it is through her grandmother's brothers that they are all related. The Australian connection came when Janine's grandparents left Gurneyville in 1914 and came to Australia. Some of the Canadians have visited family in Australia over the past 10 years. We saw the site of an old school and the remains of a log cabin where one of the Gurney brothers lived. We also went to a couple cemeteries where they are buried. At night we had a family get-to-together in Westlock.

Edmonton, Alberta 29th August, 2019 Archives: We started off this morning by visiting the Alberta Office of Archives to see what additional information we could find about Alexander Hall, Janine's grandfather. We didn't want to spend too long, but we did track down the record of his land grant following his return from the Boer War in 1909. We had to sign ourselves in, lock our cameras and phones away and then we could spool through the microfiche. We found around 15 documents which we printed out, so we'll need to go through them. Quite fascinating. We've also found his Boer War records. West Edmonton Mall This used to be the biggest shopping centre in the world. Inside there is a huge water park, under glass, with a beach with waves, lots of water slides and a zip line ride across the top. In winter, when it gets down to -20 deg C, it's a warm 30 deg C inside. There is also a large pirate ship surrounded by water in which a submarine used to run, but n...

Calgary 27th August, 2018 Motor Museum  Today we braved the Calgary train system and made our way south to Heritage Park. It's a bit like Ballarat's Sovereign Hill, in that it sets out the history of Calgary and surrounding areas. It was cold this morning - unusually so for August, they said, but we rugged up and headed off. Carriage restoration It was another lovely day as you can see from the photos. Right at the start there is a motor museum with scores of T Model Fords and other early American cars and trucks. But the main part was laid out like a mid-century town (1900) with every house or building showing a different part of early life in the area. Old restored church and 'Amazing Grace' First stop was a house that commemorated the 'Alberta 5'. Five women who changed the course of history as they argued and then petitioned the Privy Council in London for women to be recognised as 'persons'. Nellie McClung was the key person a...

Calgary 26th August, 2018 Lake Minnewanka Today we left the Rockies and headed for the plains of Calgary. After breakfast though we headed for Lake Minnewanka. about 20 minutes from Banff. We arrived reasonably early, which meant we missed most of the crowds who arrived from midday. Any food guys? A hiker This is another beautiful part of the Rocky Mountains. There are boats and canoes to hire (run by an Australian) and cruises. The lake is 21 km long and quite narrow. The level of water was raised some years ago with the addition of a dam, but it is a great place for scuba divers who dive down to an old township that was covered by the rising water. The clarity of the water helps as well. As we drove out, we again saw some magnificent scenery - no wonder people rave about the Rocky Mountains. We would love to see them under snow and with no bush fire smoke. Calgary is famous for the Calgary Stampede, held in early July. Calgary Tower - glass floo...

Banff 25th August, 2018 (Apologies for the weird layout this blog sometimes has. Google's blog backend needs some work. Really hard to get images and text to line up properly.) Today we have been in the US for two weeks with just over three and a half to go. Still lots more to see. This morning we used the midday checkout all US hotels seems to have to do a four kilometre walk to the end of the lake in front of the hotel and back again. It wasn't as clear as yesterday, but it is still a magnificent location. There were bear and avalanche warnings along the track, so we kept an eye out, but we didn't see any - just a ground squirrel. There were a number of rock climbing groups as well as horse riders along the trail. After coffee we thought we'd head for two more local scenic locations, but it seems so did many of the local population which led to their carparks being closed. A bit like the Royal National Park on Australia Day I suppose. We got to Banff mi...

Lake Louise 24th August, 2018 Today we saw the Rockies. Finally. After some rain overnight we headed south towards Lake Louise. We had booked tickets for a Glacier Walk and Glacier Rim walk on-line and needed to travel about 90 minutes south to the Athabasca Glacier on the Columbia ice field. The rain got heavier and the fog closed in as we finally pulled up at the Glacier's Discovery Centre. It was going to be a wet visit. But then ... the rain turned to snow and we boarded our Snow Transporter and headed for the glacier. It was magical ... it stopped snowing and the sky started to lighten. We stayed there for 20 minutes and then headed for the Glacier Rim walk with a glass floor. It's a great feat of engineering and it hangs on the edge of the canyon. We headed back to our car and continued south. It seemed that every corner we turned there were magnificent peaks reaching impossible heights while at the bottom was a naturally light...

Today we headed off to see Jasper and surrounds. Once again the sky was impacted by smoke from the bush fires further west. First stop was the Jasper Skytram, which rises 1,000 metres in 7 minutes. It takes you almost to the summit of one of the magnificent peaks around the city. Peaks that were almost invisible today. We set off up the mountain at the back of the top station and climbed another 300 metres or so. If there had been a view at the top, we would had the incentive to keep climbing, but sadly there wasn't much point. After we came down we picked up lunch and headed out to Maligne Gorge and Lake, passing Medicine Lake on the way. The gorge wasn't affected by the smoke as we were looking down, but the lakes were. We could just make out the peaks around the lakes and they looked magnificent and so high. We know they would have looked amazing if we could have seen them. We came across some local inhabitants on the road on the way back. Tomorrow we hea...