Summerland, Summerland, Sum, Sum, Summerland

Summerland, BC (a little work on the motorhome)

September 12 - September 14, 2016

We are now in Summerland, BC - more info to follow.


Yea!!!  I'm finally up to date.  It would be easier to do if I had Wi-Fi access all the time but that's not the way it works out in the hinterlands.

Back to British Columbia

Princeton, BC (camping with friends)

September 5 - September 12, 2016

Last August we met a Debra and Gerry, from Kamloops, when we were visiting Kelowna, BC.  I wrote about them in the very first blog of this series.  When we knew we were unexpectedly going to be back in BC, we called to see if we could get together for some camping.  They had a very busy summer with weddings, travel plans, anniversaries, etc. but they had scheduled a camping trip to Princeton from September 5th to the 12th and said we were welcome to join them.  We adjusted our plans, giving us a nice space of time to visit Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and lots of Alberta.  We all got together in Princeton on the 5th and spent a nice leisurely week eating and sitting around the campfire.  We were so relaxed that we didn't take any pictures until right before we left.  I guess that means we were having a good time.

Debra's brother Reg and his chocolate lab Julie.
She loves to ride on the back of his quad.
I wish we had a picture of the fantastic contraption the Reg
built to haul his quad.  He pulls a trailer behind the truck and
 he came  up with an absolutely ingenious way to haul the quad.

Debra and Gerry.  They both ride quads and bicycles and kayaks and boats.
Unfortunately they were a bit under the weather after catching a bug from Reg.

Happy campers. 
My new tee shirt defines the way in which Canadian's use the term Eh?

 I'm so sad there aren't more pictures.  Debra's daughter and her husband were with us for one night before they had to get home to Lethbridge, AB.  They had their two dogs with them and our dog Barney had a blast playing with them.  There were virtually no other campers in this park so Barney got to experience freedom for awhile.  He was such a happy boy.

Barney when we told him we had to leave Princeton.

Alberta..............(the end)

Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta to Princeton, BC (sightseeing)

September 3 - September 5, 2016

As we headed across Crows Nest Pass to BC we made our final stop in Alberta.  The large portion town of Frank, Alberta was wiped out in the early hours of 1903 when a huge portion of Turtle Mountain fell onto the southeast portion of the town below.  I don't think I'll ever look at a highway sign indicating areas where rocks might fall the same way.  It was all over in only 90 seconds.

The view of the slide area as you approach the turn off for the visitor's center.

The view from the visitor center.
The center does an excellent job of telling about the slide and the stories of survivors.



The section of Turtle mountain that came down.



Panorama from the visitor center.

 A sobering place to visit.  It's hard to imagine what the people in this small town went through.

From here we drove to Princeton, BC, staying in the towns of Cranbrook and Grand Forks enroute.  If you look at a map of BC you'll notice highway 3 zig zags across the southern border of the province.  That's the route we took!  Wow - what a drive. Lots of twists and turns!

Alberta............

Fort Macleod, Alberta to Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta (sightseeing)

September 1 - September 3, 2016

As we drove to Waterton Lakes National Park we stopped in Cardston, Alberta to see the Remington Carriage Museum.  It's another fabulous museum, dedicated to the period before automobiles, when horse drawn transportation was the name of the game.  I've always loved horses and my grandfather had several wonderful "carriages" of his own including a sleigh and a beautiful wagon so this museum really interested me.  I'm sure my grandfather would have also love it.

The number of "carriages" they have in this museum is phenomenal.  I say carriages but that would include sleighs, sleds, wagons, buckboards, sulkys, handsom cabs, hearses, covered wagons, chuck wagons, stages and many other types of "carriages" I've never heard of.  Like automobiles today, there were many makes and models.  Besides the carriages on display, the museum shows virtually every aspect of the horse drawn vehicle era including a blacksmith shop, livery stable, wheelwright's shop, carriage factory and carriage dealership.  The whole place is very well done and incredibly interesting.  As the AAA book says - sounds, lighting and audiovisual presentations enhance the experience.



A homebuilt "caboose". 
It's on sleds for use in the snow and was probably used to take children back and forth to school.

Another form of transportation to and from school.  An Omnibus!

Part of the wheelwright's shop

Wheelwrights shop.

Various parts that make the carriage wheels.

This illustration really shows what it was like before traffic lights in a big city.
I don't know how people got around the city and let's not forget about all the horse poop!
E-gads!

A Hansom cab.

Horse drawn hearse.  Of course the British Royals wouldn't use anything else!

This little beauty is knows as a "Park Drag".
It does look like it might be a drag to park!  (Sorry!)

The original 5th wheel.
It's the turning circle that allows the front wheel of a carriage to turn!

Covered wagon of course.

Stage Coach.  I wonder where Laura is headed to?

Example of restoration work.
What a job it must be to restore something like this to mint condition.

There is a complete restoration shop in the museum.  Oddly they only restore carriages
brought to them by paying customers.  They don't restore anything from the collection itself. 

The restoration facility is large and well lit with every conceivable wood shop tool you can imagine.
Only two fellows work in the shop and the one we talked to really loved his job.

They also have a number of specialty tools from back in the day.
This one stretches the rubber around the rim of the tire.  Another drills the wheel hubs. 
These types of tools are still used to repair their buggies in areas where Amish people live.

 After closing down the carriage museum we headed on to Waterton Lakes National Park.  It's located directly above our own Glacier Nation Park and together they form Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.  The park itself has a enormous and beautiful lake which stretches from the town of Waterton across the US/Canada border into Glacier Park in Montana.  Unfortunately the two days we were there it was windy with and it rained off and on.  It hampered our sightseeing a bit we could still appreciate the incredible beauty of this park.

Waterton Lake from the beach in the town of Waterton.
Somewhere done there is Montana.

Another view of Waterton Lake

Most of the big National Parks in Canada and the US have big old
hotels built way back when.  This park is no different.  This is
the Prince of Wales Hotel.  It sits by itself on a high promontory
giving guests a beautiful view of the lake.

Here it is up close.

The lobby with floor to ceiling windows for an unobstructed view.

The view from the hotel. 
The town of Waterton is the treed area on the right side of the picture.
The town is quite charming, probably more so because most of the tourists were gone.

Alberta..........

Longview, Alberta to Fort Macleod, Alberta (sightseeing)

August 30 - September 1, 2016

Fort Macleod is the site of the first headquarters of the Northwest Mounted Police (now known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police).  One of the major attractions is the Fort Museum of the NW Mounted Police which recreates the era of the fort back in the late 1870's and early 1880's.  If you ever watched Sargent Preston of the Yukon back in the 50's you'll appreciate this museum and the story of the Mounties.

Overall view of the fort and the parade grounds.

One of the buildings in the fort.

A typical NWMP outpost.  Anyone he jailed was close at hand.

Inspection time - by one of the audience members.
The little girl behind the Mountie took it all quite seriously.

Maple leaf design on the rump of each horse.

Mounted Patrol Musical Ride.
We were fortunate to see the last one of the season!
They aren't real RCMP but rather college students hired for the summer.
They do the inspection and show 4 times a day!

Time for a bath and some oats and hay.  Did someone say the season is over?  Hooray!

Near Fort Macleod is another outstanding attraction called "Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump".  The location is one of many used by the plains Indians to round up and kill large numbers of buffalo to provide food for the winter months.  The "Head-Smashed-In" refers to the sad story of a young Indian brave who stood under the cliff to see the buffalo as they tumbled over it.  As the bodies piled up he was crushed between the cliff and the buffalo.

There is a wonderful museum at the site with great information on how the plains Indians lived in this area long before Europeans arrived on the scene.  It really is one of the most memorable Native museums we've seen.  They show a 15 minute re-enactment movie which is a must see while you are there.





The Museum's depiction of the jump area.



The actual jump area. 
The area below the jump is now much higher than it was when the jump was in use.

Luck was with us when we went to this site.  We happened to visit on a Wednesday when they were having Native dancing.  It was their last performance of the season and we were there to see it. 



Can't dance without drummers!



At the end of the individual performances the entire crowd got up, held hands and danced until we had completed one revolution around the dance area.  After that we had a chance to talk to the individual dancers.



This made us chuckle.  The dancers on their cell phones!