Vancouver

Getting out of Yellowknife prooved to be just as hard as getting in. Because of Canada day, the whole busscedule was a mess, and it prooved to be impossible to travel on the day I planned, or the the next day. Because my busticket was about to expire, I decided to try to get a flight to Edmonton. Online, that did not work out, but lucky for me, it was no problem to get a ticket at the airport. The good thing of this was of course that I had yet another night with Roslyn...

The flight to Edmonton was unevenfull, but it was hard saying goodbye to Roslyn again. This time, there will be no suprise return any time soon, I fear. I really hope I'll see her again soon.
The bustrip to Vancouver wasn't too bad. It took about 19 hours, which I spend looking out the window, watching a movie, reading and sleeping. The bus arrived early, but not long after I took a strategic possition in the stations' hall, my cousin Leon came to pick me up. He took me to his house in Richmond (a bit south of Vancouver city) and introduced me to his wife and children. We spend some time talking and weeding the garden.

At night, I tried to visit the "night market" in Richmond, which was supposed to be a very nice attracktion. Unfortunatly, there was nothing to be found at the location discribed, so I rode the bicicle I had loaned for the occasion back to the house with a bit of a detour along the shore. It's really a nice area.

july 4
Today, I wend downtown to get a feel for the city. I strolled around and visited the Vancouver Arts Gallery which had a very nice exposition of Rodin, the sculptor. Then, on the the seafront and Stanley park. Both are really nice. Floatplains taking off and landing all the time, ships out on the water and in the marina, a park with ancient trees and a view over downtown and the sea... I could get used to this!

july 5
Today was a day for more sightseeing. I started my tour on Granville Island, a very hip area just south of downtown featureing small boutiques, one of a kind shops, a marker, galeries, bars, and more to make an area aliving. It was a very nice area to stroll around. After that, it was time to take a boat to Science World, followed by a short walk towards China Town. Vancouvers China town is the third biggest of North America, with lots of shops selling totally unrecognizable foods in huge quantities. Unfortunatly, the area is also littered with bums and drug addicts. After a stroll through the area, I set foot towards Gastown, the place where Vancouver was founded. It's a nice area with some historic buildings, lots of shops, restaurants and bars. It is also the home of the Storyeum, a refreshing change from the static glass covered displays of your regular museums. It tells the story of Brittisch Columbia, from the native people, the fur trade, the goldrush to the railway in a series of underground live theatre performances in different settings. Very cool, although a bit expensive.
The seabus took me to North Vancouver, allowing me a nice glance towards downtown over the water. Unfortunatly, the weather changed for the worse, with a constant rain. So, I headed to the Lonsdale Quai Market to browse around in an indoors environment, before taking the seabus back to Canada Place.

Back North

The title of this log entry may give you some clue on where I decided to go. That's right: back north, back to Yellowknife! Not to BC, but to NWT. I missed Roslyn so much, that I decided to head back and suprise her by just showing up again.

So, I hopped into the bus in Jasper headed for Edmonton, to transfer to a bus that would take me as far as Enterprise (just south of the Great Slave Lake, near Hay River). As we approched Edmonton though, I was told there was no connection to Enterprise, but that I could only get as far north as Peace River. Nice. I decided to head up anyway, trying my luck hitchhiking up. I started by taking a taxi to a decent starting point, the beginning of the highway north. While there was not a lot of traffic, it took an hour and a half to get the first ride, about 150km up. At least I would be at a better place than at an intersection in the middle of nowhere.
It did not take too long to get a next ride, to another intersection a bit south of High Level. "A bit" turned out to be about 60km, so that was not a very good place to be, especially since trafic was pretty low. I got a ride to High Level pretty soon though, and arrived there just after noon. Not too bad. I wend in for some bruch and tried to hitch a ride further north. A car that I had seen passing at the intersection passed me again, and stopped this time. Two girls in a small jeep were going to Yellowknife, but the car was already so packed that it wasn't possible to fit me and my luggage in there as well. Still, they assured me it should be no problem to get a ride, they had done it themselves on more than one occasion. Well, it turned out that it took quite a lot of time to get a ride. After trying for more than four hours I finally found somebody that was willing to take me, and he was going to Yellowknife (still a ride of about 700 km!). The rest of the journey was pretty uneventfull, except for the large amount of buffalo we saw along the way. Other wildlife spotted included a cayote, a wolf, a hawk, deer and moose with young. Not bad, for a single ride!

Roslyn could not believe her eyes as she saw me standing at her doorstep once more, just after midnight. It was good to be back...

Invermere and beyond

After spending another day around Banff (going up in the gondola, doing some laundry, building a little fire at the campsite at night...) it was time to head to Invermere. I made a phone inquiry, and agreed to just head over on wedsday, being there around noon. It's about a 150km drive from Banff to Invermere, again crossing some beautifull scenery. I made it to the airfield on time, but the weather didn't look too promissing yet. I had a chat with Trevor, the owner of the operation there and the one who was going to take me up in the Duo. He was confident it was worth waiting a bit, so that's what I did. I wend to luch with an American from Seattle who was flying there, and generally just chatted with the people hanging around at the field. Slowly the weather improved, and around four, it looked promissing enough to start putting some gliders together and opening some hanger doors. We took a tow at 16:30, and low and behold! Thermals! :-)
We climed using some thermals along the ridge, and although Trevor thought they weren't as strong as he'd like them, they did the job just fine (2-3 meter thermals). We first flew over the mountains to the east of te valley, and later on crossed to the west where conditions looked better and the scenery was even more spectacular with snowcapped mountains and glaciers everywhere. Unfortunatly, I got sick twice during the flight, but I did not let that hinder the fun too much. After two hours of flying and making lots of pictures, we landed back at the field.
Trevor had offered to let me camp out on the field for the night, and to stay for dinner, so I did not have to go anywhere. Nice! We spend a nice afternoon and evening out on the deck and in the clubhouse.

june 16
Time to head back into the Rockies again! I drove back to Lake Louise, hoping the road to the falls would be open by now. It was not (opens june 24), so I just drove on to the Columbia Icefields once more. I stayed at the same campsite just under the glaciers again, and when I arrived, I was the only one there. Later on more people showed up, but it wasn't full by any means. The weather had cleared again nicely, but by the time I though it was nice enough to head onto the glacier, the tours had allready stopped running. That could not be helped, so I headed back to the campsite, and build a little fire again, had a couple of beers, and thought about what was yet to come...
I wend to bed on time, but I had trouble catching my sleep.

june 17
I was up fairly early, and washed myself in the (cold!) stream that was rushing next to my tent. Still, it was nice and refreshing. I cleared away my stuff, and headed for the visitors centre to have some breakfast. While I was up in the restaurant, I saw the cloudbase comming down and it started to rain. What to do? I was planning to hike up Wilcox pass (a hike highly recommended in a guidebook I bought), but the weather did not look too cooperative. I asked the information what they thought about the plan, and they said to just go for it as long as I had decent gear. I judged that I had, so I went to the trailhead, put on my coat, and just walked up the trail. While it continued to rain lightly, it was still a very nice hike, with some great views of the glaciers (at least, of the parts not covered by clouds). The good thing about the weather was that it was very quiet on the otherwise bussy trail. Only at the top I met another group, and on my way down another couple. So, not too bad after all!

After comming down again, it was time to head back to the car, and drive on the Jasper. And that is where I am now, writing this log entry :-) Tomorrow, I have to hand in my car. I'm not exactly sure what to do next yet. The plan is to head into BC, but I'm not sure where I'll get of the bus yet. We'll see.

Columbia Icefields, Lake Louise and Banff

june 12
Today, the plan was to head up the glacier by foot and by bus. When I woke up however, it rained. I took a look outside my tent, and saw what I had allready feared: the weather did not look good at all. Not only was it raining, the cloudbase was so low that you could only see the lower edges of the glaciers. The mountaintops and the rest of the glaciers disapeared inside the clouds.
I decided to head up to the visitors centre and the glacier itself anyway, to at least take a look at it. Once up the small area you can walk on without a guide, it became clear that it would be useless to spend more time and money here to get futher up the glacier. Instead, I packed up my tent and headed for a slow drive with many stops to Lake Louise, including a stop at a very pretty view over Peyto lake. I tried to get to a campsite next to a waterfall a bit west of Lake Louise, but the road up was closed. I did manage to catch a train going through the famous figure 8 tunnel, build to decrease the slope of the rails. You see the back of the train going into the tunnel, while the front is comming out at almost the same spot but quite a bit lower. Very nice!

I ended up staying in the Lake Louise hostel. Staying in Lake Louise is expensive! Although the hostel is very nice, I find it a bit overpriced really. However, since the campsite was expensive too, and it was raining, I opted for the hostel anyway.

June 13
I had a good nights sleep, and got up early to beat the crowds at Lake Louise (the lake itself) and lake Moraine. It must be said: the lakes are beautifull. I may try to back on a better day however, as the much of the mountains around the lakes were still in the clouds.

I wend back to the hostel to check out and get my gear, and make a reservation to go rafting in the afternoon. The trip would leave from Banff early in the afternoon, so I took the old, scenic road from Lake Louise to Banff. Here I saw more elk (at leat, I think it was elk). I arrived in Banff with plenty of time to spare, so I wend to go look for a nice campsite right away. I ended up staying at the beautifully located site of Two Jack Lakeside. With a spot overviewing a lake surrounded by mountains, I was more than happy.

The rafting was very cool! The whitewater on horseshoe canyon made for a thrilling ride. We even had the the opportunity to jump a cliff into the river, several meters down. I took the plunge, of course, but it was quite scary to be honest!
The afternoon was passed when I arrived back in Banff, where I first wend to get something to eat and then headed back to the campsite. A bit of reading and a couple of cups of tea later, I wend to sleep.

Jasper

Thursday night, I had to say goodbye to Roslyn. It was a very hard thing to do, since I'm completely in love with her. Tears were shed, and promisses to see each other again as soon as possible made. I really, really hope I'll see her again soon. I love you, my Rose!

The goal was to get to Jasper, which takes a 27 hour busride from Yellowknife. I managed to get some sleep along the way, but not a lot. Worst of all: what to do when you arrive in Jasper at 4:15 AM? Lucky for me, it wasn't too cold and there was no rain, so I just hang around the visitors centre and even managed to get some more sleep. At 7:30, I took a cab to the Youth Hostel to drop my bags, do a bit of freshing up and rent a bicycle. I also posted a note asking if anyone is interested in joining me on the Rocky Mountains trip I planned and for which I have rented a car that I will pick up tomorrow. I hope so, as it would provide some company and would reduce the costs significantly.

I took the bike downtown, to get some information at the (now opened) visitors centre, and to check if the time I pick up the car really matters. It doesn't, so that is ok.
A lady in the visitors centre recomenced me a nice trail do do some mountain biking. Damn... That is hard work, especially uphill! I suddenly have huge respect for the people doing races in this sport... Anyway, a nice climb still awaits me, as the hostel - some 5 km outside Jasper - is at significantly higher ground than the downtown area. I guess I'll just have to take it slow, as I am getting pretty tired. I long for a shower and a nice long night of sleep in a bed.

Addition, done on june 14
Well, the bikeride back up to the hostel was hard work too. I had to step off the bike more than once. Halfway up, a pickup truck offered me a ride though, so I reached the hostel without being totally exhausted. I did take that shower and a change of clothes, and decided to head up the hill a bit further to take a ride in the Jasper tramway. It provides a very nice view of the area, overlooking six mountain ranges in the area. The climb to the top of Whistlers Mountain proved to be quite tiresome, as I had to hurry to be back in time for the last gondola down again. In terms of view, it was worth the climb however, and I took some very nice pictures.

I spend the rest of the evening quitetly reading, first outside on the deck, then inside, and then wend to sleep early.

June 11
I checked out of the hostel, and made a reservation for another hostel close by for the night from friday 17 to saturday 18 june. I picked up my rental car, a nice white Pontiac. First, I headed to view Medicine Lake and the famous Malinge lake, a bit futher up the road. Today, I also spotted my first big wildlife in the Rockies: Elk and mountain sheep.

In the afternoon, I drove up the famous Icefields Parkway, and made my way to the Columbia Icefields. I found a very nice campingspot almost under the glacier, right next to a wild stream rushing down the mountain. A small fire, a cup of tea, a rushing stream and a view on white-capped mountains... What more could you ask for?

Travel plans

To keep you all up to date on my travel plans, I'll use this blog. So... What do we have now?

I have started my trip in Calgary, where I arrived on may 14. On may 19, I have taken an evening greyhound to Edmonton. I stayed there untill may 23, when I'll hopped into yet another greyhound to Yellowknife. I have stayed here just over two weeks, because I left this most Northern point of my trip to go to Jasper in the Rocky Mountains on june 9. Of course, Banff and Lake Louise were of be part of the trip to that area of Canada. I took a about a week, including a visit to Invermere where I did a bit of flying. I ended up in Jasper again. Instead of heading into BC, I decided to go back to Yellowknife. From there, the plan is to head West to Prince Rupert. A boat trip trough the Inside Passage will take me south to Vancouver Island, where I plan to visit Long Beach and Victoria. At last, we're talking about early july now, I will go back to the mainland and visit Vancouver. My flight from there leaves on july 6.

As I have more details, I will update the above outline. So, keep checking back if you're interested in my plans!

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...