By: MJ + PJ
Western Canada was a delight. Everything you hear is true. This is the impression we got, but we were only there for about a week and only saw a region of what is a large country. We crossed the border three times in the first 36 hours to enable a private stay literally right on the US side of the border, before heading for the mountains.
We were questioned about our intentions on the first crossing of the border into Canada. Being too descriptive led to us being asked more questions with greater scrutiny by the border officer. “Where are you coming from?” quickly became a complicated question for us. “Where do you live?” was just as difficult. But the most poignant was “Why are you entering the country with a carload of gear, for just one day, and then going back over the border?” (We were staying on the US side the following night.*)
Lessons learned: a) know your audience and b) just give the simple answer.
After clearing the border we seamlessly drove to the terminal, parked our car, caught a shuttle bus, obtained a ticket and boarded the ferry from the Tswwassen Terminal to Vancouver Island to visit family. We were picked up after the 90 minute trip and were toured around the region between Sidney and Victoria, having a sandwich lunch on the beach on what was a glorious day. We headed into Victoria where we were staying at a 100 year old house. Our relative had held a 100th birthday party for this house several years ago, inviting previous owners and residents. An awesome idea! The quick recap of the evening is as follows: Beacon Hill Park and the petting zoo (baby goats!), a walk to the Beacon Hill cliff/beach, a drive around the harbour area to end at Spinnakers Pub for dinner, tree climbing and garden foraging for berries, and a late evening cello and flute introductory lesson for AJ. A long day given we had blasted out of Anacortes at about 6:20am.
On our return to the mainland we headed though Vancouver city area to the Capilano Suspension Bridge for the afternoon. This was our pick of the things to see in the city – we had limited time if we were to make our reserved campsite in Banff. We had reconvened with Cousin and the boys, so the boys had fun on the Treetop Adventures bridges. There are numerous other bridges and walks to do in addition to the main bridge attraction, and some interesting stories about the history of the bridge (one including hiking in underwear). Then we headed south back into the US for the night, and had a chance to visit the arch at Peace Arch Park that lies on the US/Canada border coastline. There you can see the impact of and read about the goodwill from British and American surveying teams, and from each country’s schoolchildren.
We left early the next morning for the two day drive to Banff National Park. Friends who were familiar with the region had advised us to drive north first, via the west coast and Whistler region. This did not disappoint despite being a longer drive. We elected not to use our phones so as to avoid roaming and data charges, this being feasible but requiring some habit change. (See post on COMMUNICATION: It goes two ways and also NAVIGATION: GPS Based)
On the Thursday evening we arrived via Golden to head south east into Banff National Park. We paid our dues for the day ($19/car for 24hours) at the Yoho National Park station, where the ranger encouraged us to see Emerald Lake and Takakkaw Falls in that park. Our campsite was a welcome sight after a long day of driving. After setting up camp we decided the Johnston Falls trail near us was worth doing in the daylight remaining. We were three of the five people on the trail that evening, in contrast to the hundreds of people we saw there the following morning.
It came to our attention that we were in one of the jewels of the Canada parks system on the long weekend for Canada Day. Since we were only able to get a single night campsite, we needed another one for the rest of the weekend. See that story described here.
Our first of the two full days in Banff was awesome but we didn’t cross paths with Cousin and the boys after the first half of the morning hike, so we had a lot to talk about when we ended the day at camp. See that story here if you didn’t just read it. Saturday we explored the Banff city area and the lakes to the north east, before sadly parting ways with our traveling buddies. We headed back into Banff to look around and consider our exit plan of events, since there was so much to do on the ‘free parks access’ day.
The first big family regret of the adventure was that we messed up being able to canoe on Lake Louise, this being a combination of not taking an opportunity and thinking we could do it early the next day. It turns out that the canoes were not available on Sunday because of canoe races planned for the national holiday. The trade off was seeing black bears walking up a trail as we drove the area in the early morning, and seeing a grizzly from the safety of a gondola around midday. A Canada Day parade was held in Lake Louise, so we got to see some national pride on display including traditional dancers, Mounties, and kids on bikes.
The long drive towards Montana was next. Along the highway we stopped at the Marbled Canyon in the light rain. This was well worth it and provided us with numerous memories: clambering along fences to avoid trail puddles, deep colorful canyons with vivid water, innumerous photos, and a spectacular momentum fall causing embedded rocks in someone’s hand. A few hours driving through more spectacular valleys and farmland, and our Canada time was over.
Some things in Canada that we noticed:
- Things are quite clean and well cared for in general.
- Their greeting “‘Ello, Bonjour!” Is probably the ultimate reflection of their country. It is welcoming, appreciative of differences, encompasses integration and multi culturalism, reflects their identity and heritage, and frankly makes you want to hug them.
- They are casual and polite and have things to do, but give you the time of day.
- There is certainly a colonial and Commonwealth feel to the experience of Canada (which MJ noticed, being also from a Commonwealth nation).
On our exit of Canada into Montana we had our second experience with US Customs. This time it was simple as we were seasoned veterans and had had time to consider our answers to the common questions. The hardest part was changing our odometer settings back to miles from the kilometers it had been set on for Canada.
*Our first experience re-entering the US was after the day trip to Victoria on Vancouver Island, we had an interesting encounter with the border. Our answers were better, but the officer was not hearing MJ clearly: “We are staying here tonight up there (pointing east) on D Street with a family friend.” Officer: “At Smugglers? Why are you going there? I wouldn’t stay there with a kid. There are better places if you go right, to the west. Smugglers is an old hotel… it can be a rough crowd there. If you have a kid I’d go somewhere else”. Us, in our heads, “Uh, what? Smuggling? What is going on?” So MJ repeated the “family friend” bit with an emphasis on “private residence”. The customs officer was quite relieved, and off we went.
Believe it or not, earlier that morning the other part of our traveling group had set off the border sensors near the house we were staying at, causing a visit from US border patrol! We were all clearly winning!
