Golden, BC to Edmonton, AB

 Writing this as we cross the plains of Alberta, I realise now how much I miss the mountains and the ocean.  It is hard to explain why I feel a comfort and a peace in those environments.  I certainly didn't grow up around mountains and my ocean going experience was confined to the Solent and the English Channel.  I don't know if it is the weather or something deeper in the mysticism of those environments that so ostentatiously overwhelm us.  Some people find their peace in the desert landscape or the deep forest.  Suffice to say I have loved spending so much of the year close to seas and mountains but I am only now fully appreciating that.

Approaching Revelstoke

And so it was that we enjoyed threading our way through the Coast Mountains and into the Rockies.  There is a wildness to the communities dotted through these parts and a sense of living on the edge of the wilderness.  Where Europe's mountains have in many places been tamed and civilised with roads and ski resorts, and rid of their dangerous beasts, here it feels much more like frontierland.

We stopped in Revelstoke, taking a drive as far as we could up the spectacularly descriptive Meadows in the Sky Parkway.  The Parks staff were there to share information about the abundant resident bears and we took a short walk on the Broken Bridge Trail to see a broken bridge.  And views down into the valley.  Following the unfortunate incident of the surgical glove formerly filled with flour and water, we high tailed it to Golden and the Dreamcatcher hostel.  A former tavern, this hostel was a little more spacious and a little less intimate than Squamish's Adventure Inn.  But we did have our own bathroom.  Sadly this part of Golden subscribes to the North American model of clear-cut and construct: a mess of gravel worksites, utilitarian retail units and overgrown parking lots.  But a short walk took us to a nice arcade of shops and the sweep of Spirit Square that leads on to the stupendous covered wooden bridge that is emblematic of this small town.  

Broken Bridge trail above Revelstoke

The Kicking Horse mountains looming over the car dealership in Golden, BC

Spirit Square in front of the covered bridge, Golden

Frolicking in the fountain

The tremendous covered bridge in Golden, built in 2001

Golden's newest attraction is the Skybridge, a tourist development that consists of two dizzying pedestrian suspension bridges and a zipline criss-crossing the canyon as well as a high ropes course.  A canyon swing and mountain coaster are coming soon.  My pervasive heights-induced panic disorder kept me rooted to the ground while the three musketeers set off across the 130m high bridge.  A little while later, ropes course complete, Toby and Crystal came screaming (literally) across the canyon at high speed, suspended by harness under the zip wire.  I think they had a good time.  

My family, separated from 130m of fresh air by a couple of inches of plank board 

Incoming! Toby and Crystal approach the end of the zipline

The hostel had a battered, out of tune piano that provided a more sedate diversion.  Felicity was all over it.  Her ability to stay focused on repetitive practice for long periods of time is delightful.  We visited Cedar Lake, a rustic spot with a beach and a dock and we enjoyed wandering around town.  Wednesday night was free open air concert night and the Heavyweight Brass Band was in town.  

Piano. Forte.

Cedar Lake

The Heavyweight Brass Band performing in front of a mountain backdrop, Golden

She does

Onwards to Brooks, our staging post for exploring Alberta's Badlands and dinosaur heritage.  Our drive to Brooks took us out of BC, through the Rockies of Alberta and onto the plains that lie below.  We stopped for lunch at a mountain reservoir above Canmore and then settled into our Motel 6 in Brooks.  

Lunch stop, Spray Lakes Reservoir above Canmore

Bighorn sheep on the road back down to Canmore

Leaving the gas station with a whole lot of flat ahead of us, Alberta

There is seemingly a dearth of decent accommodation in this great flat part of the world.  The Motel 6 was immaculately clean, newly renovated and very cheap.  Beyond that it was difficult to get excited by Brooks, a highway town overwhelmed by the pungent smell of silage used to feed cattle at the slaughter house, one of Canada's largest.  Redemption was almost found in a pleasant walk through the cemetery to the lake until we were attacked by marauding mosquitoes.  Finding the Mexican restaurant closed and being sent scampering by a looming thunderstorm into "Taco Time" for dinner did nothing to change our impression.  In fairness this is a town whose bustling economy has created a thriving example of the Canadian dream of inclusion and multi-culturalism, and nowhere was this in greater evidence than at the Canada Day festivities in the main park.  And who doesn't like free cake?

Motel 6, Brooks

But we weren't here for cake, we were here for the dinosaurs.  We were booked on the 9am Explorers tour in Dinosaur Provincial Park in the Badlands.  It is hard to make sense of 75 million year old fossils, especially when they are just lying there in the dirt.  Most of us have a pretty foggy idea of what has been going on for the last 10,000 years; 75,000,000 years is simply incomprehensible.  And to think of the millions of years that it took for the dinosaurs to evolve into the awesome beasts that they were only to then be almost entirely wiped out in an instant, well...  While I am awestruck by the dinosaurs and I understand the scientific valley of studying their era, I only wish that we were as interested in our current, and very real, here and now extinction event.

This rib cage has been left in situ and protected by a Plexiglas dome

This is how they lift packaged fossils 

A 75 million year old piece of fossilized rib

The unique landscape of the Badlands

A hoodoo at dinosaur provincial park

The almost completely intact Corythosaurus fossil

A ton of fascinating information about this fossil

And this is where is was chopped out of, in one big piece, to be moved to the shed that was subsequently constructed around it a few metres behind where I took this shot from

Our trip across Alberta continued, past the nodding donkeys, hauling the once again precious black gold out of the earth.  We took a nice walk through Horseshoe Canyon on our way to the Royal Tyrrell Dinosaur museum. Maybe it was the time of the afternoon or the huge crowds making it hard to focus, but we struggled a little to engage with this undoubtedly fantastic place.  As I said earlier, it's really hard to get your head around these time frames and they do a good job of making that as accessible as possible.   

Nodding donkeys dotted across the Alberta farmlands

Romping around the wild topography of Horseshoe Canyon

Can't beat a wild lily, Horseshoe Canyon, AB

A rare family selfie at Horseshoe Canyon

Us, the dinosaurs, and a whole lot of other people, Royal Tyrrell Museum

One of a series of beautiful renderings of dinosaurs

Sushi!

It's all about the dinosaurs around here

View of Drumheller from the mouth of the world's largest dinosaur

World's. Largest. Dinosaur.

Back to Drumheller for a night at the Travelodge including a good dinner at the nearby sushi restaurant and a trip up the world's largest dinosaur.  On our short road trip in Canada I have been reminded a little of Bill Bryson's funny but poignant "The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America".  Written in 1990 it was already a lament to what has been lost as chasing the dollar has spawned homogeneity, social dislocation, and environmental degradation.  Canada is not the US but so much of what has made the US an economic powerhouse leaches across the border and pervades our landscape, insatiable as it is in its rapacious desire to subsume all that is novel, interesting or different into its efficient machine of throughput and profit.  Note to self: do more to support local, independent businesses. 

Ground squirrels everywhere

And finally... our final stop on this year long journey is St. Albert, Alberta, satellite city of Edmonton and home to Crystal's cousin Scott, his wife Marianne and their four children.  As a bonus we coincided our visit with that of Aunt Susan and Uncle Drew who normally reside in Burlington (and Florida).  The kids have never really met but are getting on great.  We even got a bonus bonus visit from Doug and his daughter Kiera, soon to welcome their second child. Three nights here then it is Swoop back to Ottawa, Ontario.

Lucky, the Nameth's dog

Hunter and Toby (airborne)

I will keep the blog going at least for a while when we get back because I want to complete the circle and record the Uhauls, house-sits and reunions that will see us, 14 months later, back to where we started, older, more well traveled, less well heeled, but richer in oh so many ways.