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BigJohnD wrote:

 

So Mrs BJD and I are making plans for the summer of 2012 now.

 

Early June will be The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, so we want to be part of that, and we have some tickets for the Olympics in August (which is another story).

 

So we're making plans to visit Canada from mid June, when there's lot of daylight oop north.

 

The oultine is:

 

Fly to Vancouver.

Couple of days in Vancouver.

1 week cruising up to Juneau via Ketchikan and back to Vancouver.

Rent a car for a week, and travel through the Rockies to Jasper via Kelowna, Revelstoke and Banff (I thought Banff was in Scotland?)

Catch the ViaRail Canadian from Jasper to Toronto.

See Niagara and get wet.

Fly back back to the UK.

 

Despite being away from home for over three weeks, there's not likely to be much slack in the programme, but if anyone can suggest any "must sees", not just the wonders of nature, architecture and heritage, but the micro-breweries, hosteleries and places to eat good food, it'd be apreciated.

 

Et pour les Canadiens français, je vous promets que je vais essayer de parler français. La dernière fois que j'étais en France, j'ai été ravi que, la plupart du temps, les habitants ont pu me comprendre!

 

Roger, I'm sorry and very disappointed, but we can't stretch the ££s to make a visit to Anchorage.  Please forgive me.  (Goes into the garden to self-flagellate)

 

Our best car hire deal looks like a Ford Escape, which I don't think is available in the UK.  The official 25mpg frightens me, as it's bound to use more - I'm used to 60mpg, albeit on a larger UK gallon.

Well, on the Jasper/Toronto leg of your journey, if your train doesn't just whiz thru Winnipeg, you could consider stopping in at "The Forks" historical site (http://www.theforks.com/); it is VERY close to the Via Railway station. And of course, no trip to Winnipeg is complete without visiting the world-known concert-pianapanpipist G. Hoban and listening to him play his 9' concert grand.

Si vous voulez tenter votre français, la région de Saint-Boniface de Winnipeg possède la plus grande population de langue française au Canada hors du Québec. (Et, coïncidence assez, M. Hoban vit aussi à Saint-Boniface.

As for microbreweries hostelries & etc., we do have such things here, but I am a terrible home-body & don't go out much. We do have several British-style pubs (The Toad in the Hole; The King's Head Tavern) as well as lots of restaurants - Winnipeg is known as a diner's city due to the high number of restaurants. I can find out more if'n you think you might have the time & inclination - while I am a homebody, many of my friends make a point of going to microbreweries & restaurants. (A number of them are micro-brewers themselves. One friend is especially known for his mead.)

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BigJohnD wrote:

 

Winnipeg sounds wonderful.  Sadly the train is in Winnipeg for only three hours from 20:30h to 23:30h, so I doubt much more than a swifty in the station bar is possible.

That's too bad, though when I said the Forks was VERY close, I meant it - the Train Station is just to the west of the Forks - about a 5 minute walk. There are quite a number of restaurants and shops there, & depending on the day of the week, many of them might still be open. The famous Mr. Hoban also lives within walking/riding distance & would probably be able to make it down; though he would have to leave the concert grand at home he probably would have his panpipes as he almost always has them when he goes out so he can have music while he walks.

According to the Wiki on Winnipeg's Union Station,it was designed by the same architects who built Grand Central Station in New York. It will be a worthwhile stop,John,even for three hours.

I wish there were more rail stations. Rail stations in Washington DC and Philadephia,PA are palaces with a good assortment of restuarants,bookstores,and other cool things.

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gener7 wrote:

 

According to the Wiki on Winnipeg's Union Station,it was designed by the same architects who built Grand Central Station in New York. It will be a worthwhile stop,John,even for three hours.

 

I wish there were more rail stations. Rail stations in Washington DC and Philadephia,PA are palaces with a good assortment of restuarants,bookstores,and other cool things.

Yes, the Union Station is quite an impressive building (for the Colonies anyway ); it was built when railways were still a going thing AND Winnipeg was a bustling city - that was before the building of the Panama canal (prior to that time, Winnipeg's central geographic location gave it advantages for shipping, which apparently it lost with the building of the canal).

okay--I just reread this thread.  Disregard my previous question/comment!

The Canadians will have to weigh in on the Scotch.  We get prices in Anchorage not too dissimilar from other parts of the country (USA), so make your purchase before you're in some tiny town someplace where it costs much more just to warm up!

When I was 21, I went on a week-long camping trip in Banff with my friend and his extended family.  We backbacked, swam in alpine lakes, caught fish for dinner, etc.  It was beautiful, but not relaxing.  You see, I went with my friend's father to the Park Headquarters the day we were planning our route, and he asked to see a map of the park showing brown bear concentrations.  Orange was for moderate numbers of grizzlies, and red and dark red showed the heaviest concentrations in the park.  I thought to myself, 'I'm so glad he thought to ask so we can avoid the areas with the heavy concentrations of grizzlies'.  Turned out, he planned our route on purpose into the heart of grizzly country!!  Dark red all the way!   We had no guns or bear spray, and no whiskey to kill the pain before death.  Most of us survived.

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D. McCahill wrote:

 

You do know that the train ride across Canada is one big snooze. The only good part is the Jasper to Vancouver bit, or Banff to Vancouver. Driving that will be fun for your passengers, but hell for you, unless you really, really like driving on roads with a 500 foot drop 10 feet to your left, and a potential rockslide 10 feet to the right. It is not fun for the driver ... which is why I would only do it on the train.

 

And for the part you plan to go by train ... I have done it several times. It is 48 hours of boring flat (well, you will get hills for the first 6 to 12 hours, then there is a section where seeing a tree somewhere in the distance will be an exciting event. Then there are the next two days, through northern Ontario, where you get to see hours of boring musk-keg swamp passing by. Here you might see some wildlife ... bear or moose, in the distance, usually running away from the sound of the train. Plan on 15 to 20 minutes of excitement in the 48 hours of boredom.

 

The best things about western Canada and northern Ontario are the people, and you really won't meet any of them going by train.

 

If I was doing the trip, I would plan it by taking the train from Vancouver to Banff, and then driving from Banff to Toronto, taking short trips of three or four hours on the road each day, and sightseeing in all the little towns and cities along the way, where you can meet some of the people.

 

Just an idea from someone who has crossed Canada by train, by bus (ugh), hitch-hiking (the best way, but only if you are young and it is still 1970) and by car.

 

Don

Hey Don, long time. I wonder if you know there's a FB group for the Photoshop Lounge? It's become a lot more active lately. Just a-sayin'.

John, sadly, Don speaketh sooth of the boring flatness of the prairies. I disagree slightly about his take on northern Ontario, but I guess it depends on what you like. I find the small (but ancient) hills, the little rivers and lakes charming, but it certainly does not have the grandeur of the Rockies.

The rolling prarie in Kansas was beautiful when I passed through in March.   Did you guys flatten it all out up north?

The Blackfeet Indians lived north of present day Montana and North Dakota.  There is a grandeur to the open prarie that is quite powerful.  A chief of the Kiowa Indians once said, "We were bent and blind in the mountains.  So we moved out onto the plains."

Sadly John, you won't see any of the tens of millions of bison that used to roam the North American plains before the 'Mericans slaughtered them in the 1860s--1880s.  

When horses arrived from the old world (Coronado brought 558 on his 1539-1542 expedition alone!) they were traded and smuggled north from Mexico.  By 1659, the Navajo from northwestern New Mexico were raiding the Spanish colonies to steal horses. And by 1664, the Apaches of the Great Plains were trading captives from other tribes to the Spanish for horses. The real beginning of the horse culture of the plains began with the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico in 1680 when the victorious Pueblo Indians captured thousands of horses and other livestock. 

The Cheyenne people of Montana spoke of 'going to war on foot', which meant they would travel several days to (ideally) steal horses in the night without being noticed until they could escape.  The plains indian culture . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians

. . . collapsed amidst increasing conflict and war with the white people heading west.  The year's 1860-1880 were the war years when the tribes went from traditional hunters . . . to captives on reservations, those that survived.  I studied the Cheyenne in college and wrote my senior history thesis about them, which is why I know this schtuff.  I only lifted one paragraph from Wikipedia.  You should definitely travel across the plains and imagine what was.  See the sun set and rise.  Drink some beverages of your choice, and don't fall off the train!!  If you want to read some history about the plains culture, check out my thesis advisor's books: Patricia Nelson!  http://centerwest.org/about/patty/

To close, a few sentences from my 1978 senior thesis which I haven't opened since 1987:

"While there was an emphasis on individual freedom, tribal customs did not allow it to harm the Cheyenne as a people.  The entire religious, political and social organization of the Cheyenne revolved around maintaining the essential unity that the tribal culture hero, Sweet Medicine, brought to the tribe.  Sweet Medicine brought the four Sacred Arrows, Mahuts, through which the supernatural life of Maheo, the Great All Father, flowed into Cheyenne lives."

You're going to have a great trip!

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Roger Benedict wrote:

 

The rolling prarie in Kansas was beautiful when I passed through in March.   Did you guys flatten it all out up north?

 

 

Yes we did! Flat flat flat!