Yellowknife

After 23 hours in (or around) the bus, I arrived in Yellowknife tuesday night. The drive there wasn't too bad, though the endless berches along the way do get a bit boring in the end. However, nearer to Yellowknife the road began to become more interesting. Not only did the landscape become rougher with more rocks, but also the ferry crossing over the Mackenzie River was quite spectacular. Large chuncks of ice floating aroud, and the ferry ploughing through them... Nice! A bit further up North, we drove past Meckenzie Bison Sanctuary. That area is apperantly not called like that for nothing, as we saw several of these impressive beasts along the road. The nearer I got to Yellowknife, the more nervous I got. However, when I arrived in town, Roslyn was there to pick me up from the busstop, so all was good with the world ^_^ We drove around town a bit, and stayed up late and talked. Not that you noted that it was getting late, as it did not get really dark. One of the advantages of summer here in the North...

Edmonton

After the Drumheller tour, it was time to get into a Greyhound heading for Edmonton. The first part of the trip, I talked a bit with a bloke that had to get in Red Deer, but the girl that came to sit next to me after that didn't say a word. Whatever...

Derek came to pick me up at the terminal in Edmonton, and we drove with his mother to his house in the northpart of the city. I had a pretty good nights sleep on the couch, and after a good breakfast, Derek and I headed into town. I got to take a look at the (in)famous West Edmonton Mall. It's big. Really, really big. It has a water park inside, a rolercoaster, a casino, several movie theatres and much, much more. Considdering the lack of nice shopping areas downtown, I think it's not too bad a replacement. It actually looks pretty nice, and I can imagine that in winter, it's more comfortable to be able to shop inside than it would be to do so outside.

The downtown area was a bit like the downtown area of Calgary: lots of high glass buildings, with little to do in between. Still, some parts were pretty nice there, and Derek and I sat on a small terras (very rare indeed!) for a beer. We then headed off to the other side of the river, to an area that actually has quite a number of small shops, bars and restaurants along the street. It reminded me of 17th Avenue in Calgary really. Pretty nice. Still, for me the rush of the 4-lane avenue ruins the atmosphere a bit. Maybe it's just something to get used to...

may 21
Today, we wend out on a boat trip on the river with Derek, his brother and a collegue of his with his wife and kids. From the river, you get a very nice view of the downtown area of Edmonton. You also get an idea of why this river streams so much lower than the surrounding land. There is evidence of massive erosion everywhere, including some pretty spectacular landslides that distroyed a road and a couple of houses, while making others uninhabitible. We landed on an island in the river just within the city limits (although you wound not be able to tell by the surroundings) where we roasted some hotdogs above a fire. Nice!

At night, Derek and I wend to first pick up my camera that I had left in the restaurant we had eaten the night before, after which we wend to see the new Starwars movie (episode III: revence of the Sith). It was ok, I think, and at least it tied up a lot of loose ends. They did manange to let it run out of focus for awhile though, which was pretty annoying.

may 22
Today is a slow, relaxing day. We started out with getting "Dinsum": basicly a Chineze brunch buffet that is brought to your table. Nice, but not quite my taste. Most dishes had some kind of fish or other sea fruit in them.

Drumheller, badlands and dinosaurs

Well, it finally happened! I wend on my tour to Drumheller. At 8am a van came to pick me and some other folks that wanted to go along as well up from the hostel. Petar (from the formal Yoegoslavia) was to be our guide. I finally got my first view of the famous Alberta prairies. They are wide and open indeed! Still, since it's not too flat, I think it's an appealing landscape. Petar had lots of interesting (and less so) facts to tell about Calgary, the prairies, Alberta and Canada along the way, so there was no need to get too bored on the way to the badlands...

Our first stop was at Horseshoe canyon. It's was the first of a series of impressions on the weird way the landscape is formed in this part of Alberta. At one moment, you're driving on a prairy, then suddenly a canyon opens up, 14 km long, 1 km wide and over 100 meters deep. A remnant of the ice age, much as the rest of the landscape really. Next stop: the Royal Tyrell Museum near Drumheller, in the middle of the badlands. This museum is really very impressive. Lots and lots of fossiles of dinosaurs and other life forms since basicly the beginnings of life untill the more recent times of the Mammoths. The displays are set up in an appealing way, and you really get a good overview of the development of these massive creatures over time. Of course, the T-Rex is there, but so its the Albertasaurus (what's in a name?) and lots of other, equally impressive animals. Lucky for us, it wasn't too crowded...

After the museum, there was just enough time for me to take a quick hike around an interpretative trail in the badlands, telling something about the geological history of this area. Then, it was time to carry on with our trip, and take a look at the biggest dino in the world: a four times larger than life T-Rex in the middle of Drumheller. If you're into kitch, it would have been just your thing. There's a lot of dino sculptures scatered around the town everywhere, but none quite reach the kitchiness of this specimen.

Next up: the hoodoos. Basicly an area where erosion of sandrocks have created some very odd, almost mushroom like shapes. Mother nature can pull some nice tricks. Further into the valley, we drove up to the Last Chance Saloon. You pass eleven bridges (all the same river) within 4 miles (6,5 km). Supposedly a world record. The Last Chance Saloon is basicly just that: last chance for a beer (or anything civilized, for that matter) for quite a stretch of land to come after that. Nice place, breathing an old atmosphere, and for us indeed the last chance to get something to drink before driving back to Calgary. The owner had a Dutch flag flying, but it turned out he didn't speak or understand a word of the language. He did have a Dutch father or something like that though...

Petar brough a Japanese girl and me to the Greyhound station, after picking up our stuff from the hostel. I don't think she made her bus, as the traffic made progress downtown quite slow.

Calgary

Yes! It's finally come true: I'm actualy in Canada now. I landed in Calgary last saturday evening from Amsterdam, where I was suprised by having both my parents, my sister and my brother, all with partners and children drop by to see me off. I guess they wanted to be sure I'd really left the country :-) Anyway, after a nine hour long, rather uneventfull flight, I stepped on Canadian soil for the first time. Awsome.

One of the things with flying West is that your day ends up being quite a bit longer than your body expects it to be. So, I was spend when I arrived at the Youth Hostel, even though the sun was still shining brightly. I found out the next morning that the downside to tugging in early is that you're fully awake early too, so around 6AM I was up and about, wondering what the hell to do at that time on a sunday... It took untill 8 or so before I headed into town. I started out by getting a nice overview of the city from the Calgary tower, after which I just wondered around. The city center was pretty dead, but it was nice to hang out on Prince' s Island (a park on an island in the Bow river.) I headed into Kensinton, which is actually quite nice. Dropping into an internet café got me an email by Aaron Siego, a KDE developer based in Calgary whom I send an email just before I left home. We met up to get something to eat and a couple of beers afterwards, and we had a nice conversation about KDE, technology and the differences between Europe and North America. I also got to meet his son Peyton, a very nice little fellow. So... good day all in all!

may 16
Today, it was time to get to see some of Calgary's sights. Unfortunatly, the Heretage Park is still closed, so I made due with seeing Ford Calgary to learn something about Calgary's history. After that, it was time to visit the Zoo, but I decided to get a cup of tea in Inglewood first. At the deck of the pub, I met a couple of people that turned out to be local glider pilots. What are the odds? Anyway, it turns out there are three glider sites within a 100km radius of the city! There' s also one near Edmonton, so who knows, I' ll be able to check that club out when I get there.
The Zoo was pretty good, and quite big too! I spend most my time in the Canadian section, trying to get a feel of what I might run into later on. Those Grizly's are pretty big....

Tonight, I got to know the benefits of being in cattle-land: great steaks!

If all goes well, I'll go checking out the dinosaurs at Drumheller tomorrow. Let' s see how that goes....

may 17
Well.... it didn't go. And neither do they tomorrow. *sigh* Anyway, thursday the trip will go on, so thursday it is.

Today I spend most of my time on or around the Campus of the university of Calgary. Quite a nice campus by the way! Twente, eat your heart out... I tried to get a look at the Olympic Oval, but it was closed. I did get to point out a mistake in one of the displays though, where they interpretted the "zaterdag" on the page of the Algemeen Dagblad article on Whotherspoon as the title of the newspaper. You'd think it doesn't sound that different from "saturday", right?

During my walk back to the C train station, I ended up in the Social Sciences building, looking for postings on interesting positions. I did not find any, but I did find a leaflet on a program they offer called "Science and Technology Studies". That sounds an awfull lot like what I did, so I wondered into an office to get some more information on work opportunities with that group. I ended up with an appointment with the associate Dean, with whom we came to the conclusion that my masters is a perfect match for what is being done there. He refered me to another professor there. I send him an email, to try to get an appointment with him. Who knows... They do offer a Phd program, but it's supossed to be "highly compatitive". Well, we'll see what happens.

The rest of the day I spend getting to the airport to see the aviation museum, but I ended up there too late. So, I wondered around the airport a bit, and then headed back to town. The busride from campus to the university did give me a nice impression of the suburbs though.

This night, I met a couple of Dutch girls in the hostel, who were traveling from Vancouver where they did an internship. They were really nice, and we rented a movie from the hostel to watch on the big screen. The movie turned out to be rather dull, but the evening was still nice.

may 18
After a tip from the girls, I decided to go and see the Olympic park today. The park houses the bobsled run, the ski jumps and the downhill skiing facilities. There is also a nice museum that displays something about the history of the Olympic Winter games and about the games in Calgary in 1988 in particular. The staff was very friendly, and I ended up having my picture taken holding an original torch at an honor podium. Also, I had my picture taken with one of the jackets of the Dutch equippe from that year.
From the ski jump tower, you really get an excellent view over the city. It's actually a higher point than the Calgary Tower that I visited before. Nice visit.

Afterwards, I traveled back to the other side of the city, to try again to visit the Aeronautical Museum. This time I was there at a decent time, so I wondered around a bit in there. There were some very nice artefacts on display. One of the aircraft they had hanging from the ceiling intrugued me. It was a sailplane that I did not recognize. Since there was no sign for it, I asked a member of the staff. He dug up a folder with the information on this glider. It turns out it is a mix of two other types.... Figures...