JUNE 14-23

What the weather “was” like.  This is Riverside RV Campground and our lovely river side campsite.

 

June 14, 2022

There were severe rain warnings for two days so we mostly stayed in the trailer as it was pretty well always raining.  Ordering and picking up groceries and blogging.  Temperature is like a yoyo: hot sunny and shorts one day then 6°C the last couple of days.  Not much to say except getting ready to move to Cranbrook tomorrow with a stop at The Frank Slide Interpretive Centre.

 

This campsite at Riverside RV & Campground is really lovely.  The only negative is that there is no sewer hook-up, just electric and water.  So because of that we have been using the yellow/mellow protocol.  Needless to say, not my preference.

 

Rainy, cold days give us the opportunity to do chores like cleaning, sorting laundry, paying bills, grocery shopping etc.  These things still need to be done even when we’re travelling and it’s not fun if it’s a super day.

 

 

 

 

June 15

 

 

The vista as we move towards British Columbia

 

 

 

We stopped at Frank Slide interpretive center at Crow’s Nest Pass and toured the exhibits of the terrible land slide that happened in the mining town of Frank. At least 90 people were killed.  They have an excellent film presentation/re‑creation of the event.  It was quite informative.  It’s strange to look down on the town and see another settlement thriving and wondering if and when another slide might happen.  The Frank Slide Interpretation Centre has an interesting display of the technology that is now in place to monitor what is happening at Turtle Mountain.  They measure the width of cracks and movements in hopes of being able to know in time to warn the town of another slide.  Personally, (Elizabeth) I would be very wary of living in a house at the bottom of this mountain.  The indigenous people wouldn’t go near it, they called it the mountain that moves or something like that.    

 

We stayed in an amazing KOA camp in St. Eugene (near Cranbrook.)  They have a hotel, casino and golf course on the property.  The RV campground is only 5 or 6 years old and has been laid out with a lot of thought, large sites with a special designated space to park your vehicle.  It is wide open but has a great view of a mountain.

 

The hotel and casino is on the site of the Mission School, a former residential school, and the whole complex is owned and run by indigenous peoples.  At first, I thought that the people had done something good, turning a place of negativity and horrible memories into an enterprise that contributes to their tribe.  On further thought, I think it may be a little creepy turning a residential school into a hotel.

 

The brochures offered tours of their education/interpretive center and the Mission School that including a film of survivors telling their stories.  Jerry and I have appreciated other opportunities to learn more about these issues but we discovered that they no longer offer the tour.  On our way to the hot tub, we encountered a young man outside the interpretive centre.  He was rather intoxicated and without us asking he proceeded to tell us that he used to work at the centre and there were no tours because no one wanted to conduct them.  I think he was trying to tell us that it was too traumatic for the staff.

 

He also continued in a loud and angry (lots of swearing) way to tell us that as far as he and his people were concerned, the hotel should never have been created.  He didn’t mind being there for a golf tournament though.  I would have liked to talk with someone who actually staffed the exhibit.

 

June 16 to 19

Today we met up with a long-time friend of Jerry’s:  Fred Owen.  We hung out in our teens and have stayed in touch through the years.  Fred has been out in BC for 40+ years.  We went to a pancake breakfast fund raiser that was the launch of Sam Steele Days in Cranbrook.  After that we visited Fort Steele, a lovely “pioneer town” that has been created with many historic buildings, some relocated and a few still on the actual site of Fort Steele.  This was the first North West Mounted Police (now RCMP) outpost in BC established by Sam Steele in 1874.  Sam came from the detachment in Fort Macleod.

 

Caught ya.

 

 

 

Managed to snag this shot just outside of camp.  The next day Elizabeth saw a doe and a tiny spotted fawn.

 

 

 

Many provincial, national and private parks/camps are trying different ways to attract people to camping, offering luxury tents to cabins.  This KOA is trying “tiny homes” on wheels for those that want to try an alternative way to travel without investing in equipment and gear.

 

 

 

Amazing views!

 

June 20 -21

Our next stop was Kootenay National Park in the Redstreak Campground which is a couple of km from Radium Hot Springs.  We enjoyed a lovely soak.  The hot water starts 2.5 km down in the ground and flows up at 1800 litres/hour into what looks like a normal swimming pool.  The water was 39°C … nice.  While soaking in the warmth, I felt a rain drop on my head but then noticed it wasn’t raining.  Jerry confirmed that a bird dropped a poop right in the middle of my freshly washed hair!  He then proceeded to wash it off with the mineral waters. Oh well, my mom would have said that was good luck.

 

June 22

On our way to Banff, just outside Radium, we came across this herd of Big Horn Sheep.

 

They are following the man on the yellow sign to the crosswalk.

 

 

Bad ass eh?  Further along the highway, we met this Momma Grizzly helping her baby across the road.

 

For the next week we will be touring and camping in different national parks:  Banff, along the Icefields Parkway and Jasper.  In Banff, we stayed at Tunnel Mountain II Campground.  It is one of the strangest campgrounds ever.  It’s a lot of roads with picnic tables located along the roads.  You parallel park beside an electric outlet and a picnic table.  It’s like camping on a street.

 

We discovered that you need to make a reservation for everything, it’s so busy you can’t get parking downtown or near any of the National Historic Sites, traffic is congested everywhere and there are several different buses and shuttles to catch.  Our first day, we tried to find the Visitor Center and because of construction in many places, we drove just about all over town following the GPS only to find out that the Visitor Center is in the middle of a street closed to vehicles (as it is now summer) and turned into a pedestrian walkway.  By accident, we found the Historic Railway Station that offers FREE parking and a Parks Canada Information Kiosk in the station. Phew!

 

With some information and a weather check, we decided to ride the Banff Gondola the next day and perhaps a bike ride the day after.

We caught the shuttle at the railway station and arrived just before our gondola time.  It was an amazing ride up Sulphur Mountain.  The Cave and Basin NHS is at the base of this mountain and so are the hot springs.  The traffic was bumper to bumper and the parking lots were full – probably by 8 a.m. 

   

 

View from the top of Sulphur Mountain.  We took the Gondola up to look around and had a very nice buffet lunch.

 

After the Gondola, we went to the farmers market back in town.  Most of the “farmers” were from Calgary and the produce was jewellery, art and wood products.  We did find two vendors that had fruit and vegetables.

 

Our last full day in Banff, we managed to buy groceries (they had a guard for the parking lot as parking is so precious in Banff.)  We then squeezed in a late afternoon bike ride which was at times chilling – we rode through rain, hail, some  sleet and snow.  Our ride took us around the Vermillion Lakes.

 

Since I was at university in Edmonton, I heard wonderful things about the Banff Centre for Performing Arts.  Everyone in my theatre courses from western Canada wanted to go there to learn or get a placement there for the summer.  Actually, Banff has been a “magical” place in my mind and I have always wanted to visit the town.  At the end of our ride, we were trying to figure out if we could bike to the place that is now called the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.  A woman walking by on the trail asked if she could help us.  She was a delightful person who has lived in Banff for over 40 years.  It turned out that no we couldn’t bike there because both roads that went from the downtown area are closed for construction!

 

We had a great chat with her.  She told us that things have changed so much in Banff with increased tourism and then Covid.  She lives on the Mountain Road that goes to Sulphur Mountain and because of the bumper to bumper traffic cannot get out of her driveway – grocery shopping etc. has to be planned very carefully to avoid traffic.  This season has been particularly busy.  She is concerned because so many people are visiting now and she has no idea what July and August will be like.  She’s never seen the place so busy.  She told us it was lovely during the Covid shut downs, without all the tourists, Banff was like the place she knew 40 years ago.  I guess everyone just wants to get out and travel – we certainly do.

 

Just as we were winding up our conversation, she remembered a road on Tunnel Mountain that goes behind the town and past the Banff Centre, so we were able to at least see the famous Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.  Unfortunately, there’s not much going on there since Covid shut it down but it is slowly ramping up again. 

 

 

We both found Banff very busy, difficult to maneuver and find things in a vehicle and parking very difficult.  We were warned about parking at various locations and almost missed our bus shuttle to the Gondola (a timed ticket entry) due to the bus being full.  It would have been nice to visit the Cave and Basin NHS but given how much time we had and the complicated booking and bus/shuttle services it just wasn’t going to happen.  Banff is a place for hiking and walking – unfortunately, walking is not easy for me (Elizabeth) anymore.

 

The National Park Campground is mostly an asphalt parking lot and on our second last day was full!  It’s only June.  The showers were nice…that’s about it.  

 

Kind of disappointing but the views … the views are incredible of course.

 

So again we come to the end and our next stop, Silverhorn Creek Campground, Banff National Park, has nothing, no water, no electric, no Sani-dump, no WIFI or cell service so we’ll be cut off for the next three/four days.  But…we’ll be on the Icefields Parkway and have some exciting views and exploring to see/do.

 

Love from,

Jerry, Elizabeth, Misty, FJ (Flat Jesus), the guys, Miss Adventure Too, and Clifford the big Red truck.