Canada Travel Reflections
As a certified travel agent for four decades, international airline employee, researcher, writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for business or pleasure, has always been an important and integral part of my life. Some 400 trips to all parts of the world, by road, rail, sea and air, involved destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on those in Canada, whose coverage spanned all 14 provinces and territories.
Labrador:
Spanning 500,000 square miles between the Atlantic Ocean and Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada, Labrador stretched farther east than any other part of the North American continent. Its geological base, formed by the ancient Laurentian Shield, was created by internal upheaval, glaciation, and erosion, and is thought to resemble the surface before life began on the planet. Considered the last frontier of both Canada and the world, it was sparsely populated and virtually unexplored.
Although some places could be considered “places of interest” in the traditional travel sense of the word, such as the Labrador Heritage Museum, the Labrador Military Museum and 5 Wing Goose Bay, the “attractions” consisted of those that made life easier in this far north. location, specifically the seaplane base and natural topography, such as Grand Lake and the Mealy Mountains, which were observed from an elevated view on the North West River.
Road access was provided by the 530 kilometer gravel-surfaced Trans Labrador Highway that ran between Goose Bay and Labrador City. The First Nations population and the rustic atmosphere of the former were reflected respectively in stores, such as Drumdance Art and Crafts, and restaurants such as Trappers Cabin, where diners grilled their own steaks.
Newfoundland:
Newfoundland, part of the province of Labrador, was traversed end-to-end in a westerly direction by rental car, from St. John’s to Clarenville, Gander and Rocky Harbor, exceeding 700 kilometers and was followed several days later with a return.
Its various attractions include the Terra Nova National Park, the North Atlantic Aviation Museum, the Silent Witness Memorial, a tranquil park dedicated to the memory of the 256 who lost their lives on December 12, 1985 in an Arrow accident. Air Super DC-8, and Gros Morne National Park, where a long hike preceded a boat cruise on the 15-kilometer-long Western Brook Pond and Fjord.
Gander International Airport played an important role in the early days of piston aircraft as a refueling stopover, as these aircraft lacked sufficient range to fly between North America and Europe, and its on-site Gander Hotel, where countless passengers stayed regularly, it reflected an era of aviation with its Alcock and Brown restaurant, named for the two British pilots who made their transatlantic crossing in 1919
Cape Spear National Historic Site marked the easternmost point in North America.
New Scotland:
Nova Scotia, accessed through Halifax, was characterized by the city’s waterfront lined with shops, restaurants, and museums, beginning at the Halifax Casino and the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.
Old Lunenburg was one of only two urban communities in North America designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Peggy’s Cove, on a rocky outcrop on the eastern shore of St. Margarets Bay, was the location of the Peggys Point Lighthouse and offered a wonderful fresh fried shrimp lunch at their restaurant.
Significant tourist visits occurred on Cape Bretton Island. A 185-mile drive along the Cabot Trail, located in northern Victoria and Inverness counties and looping around the tip of the island, provided magnificent views of the Cape Breton Highlands and the Atlantic, beginning at Baddeck, which in turn It was once the location of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site.
The Fortress of Louisbourg, another Canadian National Historic Site, was the location of a quarter of an 18th-century French fortress reconstruction.
Prince Edward Island:
Prince Edward Island, accessed through Charlottetown, was identical to Anne of the Green Wires House in Cavendish.
The verdant forests of New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy offered a chance to get a taste of local life on St. John via Kings Square and Prince William Street, another National Historic Site.
Quebec:
Quebec represented Francophone Canada. Historic sights, dinners and pastries were enjoyed in Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal), preceded by an Olympic Park pass.
Quebec City, whose very symbol seemed to be the Chateau Frontenac, was the only walled city in North America.
Various meals enjoyed in its bistros with European reminiscences. A highlight was an autumnal flame ascent of their Mount-Ste Annie chairlift.
Ontario:
Ontario, a metropolis of skyscrapers, offered attractions like the CN Tower. A tour of Lake Ontario, to spend the night in St. Catharines, prelude to views of Niagara Falls and the participation of its many attractions and related places of interest. A ferry ride to Toronto Island was followed by a quad bike negotiation of its pedestrian and bike paths. A research trip on another occasion involved an overnight stay at Sault Ste. Marie.
Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian government, included tours of Parliament Hill on the south bank of the Ottawa River, and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian equivalent of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Manitoba:
Although Manitoba was accessed through Winnipeg and offered tourism opportunities at its Forks National Historic Site, it offered both natural and exotic locales, in addition to the Hudson Bay Company’s stone fur trading fort at Lower Fort Garry. Riding Mountain National Park, for example, was explored with a self-drive tour through its narrow dirt roads that served as arteries through the ubiquitous tall, spindly, white-barked birch and aspen trees that opened to the grasslands and the Bison Range, and a The Clear Lake boat cruise was like stepping on a pure blue mirror.
Churchill, considered the polar bear capital of the world and located in the extreme north of the province, was a repository in subarctic Canada. A tundra buggy expedition, in a specially built vehicle fitted internally with a furnace and externally offering a viewing platform for wildlife viewing, traversed the treeless tundra to the shores of Hudson Bay, encountering woodland caribou, white geese and the same polar bears. who ironically viewed the tundra buggy with the same curiosity that its inhabitants viewed them.
A subsequent zodiac ride down the Churchill River provided the opportunity to spot beluga whales.
Other attractions included the Visitor Center at Churchill Railroad Station, literally the end of the line for VIA Rail Canada’s Manitoba boreal forest and track through the tundra. Shopping at this near-top-of-the-world outpost was from places like the Arctic Trading Company, and dinner entrees appropriately featured arctic char.
Saskatchewan:
Neighboring Saskatchewan, with its main gateways to Regina and Saskatoon, offered sighting similarities and one notable difference. A drive up the dirt road into Prince Albert National Park, for example, revealed pristine views, while the access and infrastructure of the area could be studied at the Museum of Western Development. But a stay at Moose Jaw’s Temple Gardens Mineral Spa Resort provided peace for the soul and fine cuisine for the body, and a guided tour of the Moose Jaw Tunnels, an extensive system excavated in 1908 and used by Chinese immigrants and during the ban, revealed the “underground” purpose of the city.
Alberta:
Calgary and Edmonton served as gateways to the Canadian Rockies, offering endless views of towering snow-capped mountains, a visit to Banff National Park, a tram ride up Mount Sulfur on the Banff Aerial Tramway, and the sparkling blue jewel of Lake Louise. The perfunctory study of palaeontology, as evidenced by the dinosaur skeleton outside the Royal Tyrrell Museum, was introduced at Drumheller.
British Columbia:
Several stays at Vancouver’s Pan Pacific Hotel, part of the cruise terminal from which Alaska’s Inside Passage itineraries launched, became the base for sightseeing in British Columbia that included Capilano Suspension Bridge Park , Grouse Mountain and Skyride, and a ferry and helicopter. back from Victoria on Vancouver Island. Showcasing its British colonial past, the latter included attractions such as Butchart Gardens and its Victorian architecture, and afternoon teas were still held.
An additional trip to Whistler, one of the largest ski resorts in North America, not only offered the expected skiing, but snowshoeing, sledding and ski jumping were also available at its Olympic Park, home to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Its chalet-style pedestrian village at the base of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains provided modern overnight accommodation, and lunch was enjoyed after a cable car ride to the top.
Arctic and subarctic Canada was experienced in three territories that, spanning the country from east to west, included Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.
Nunavut:
The first, located on Baffin Island and serviced by Iqaluit, reeked of remote outpost life. Located above the tree line, it offered few paths and led neither in nor out. His community center looked like a self-contained module of Moon Base Alpha. And it was one of the few “cities” with regular air service to Greenland.
Northwest Territories:
Yellowknife, the largest population center in the Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River and above the 60th parallel, was marked by seaplanes serving as aerial arteries to its remote communities and caribou served at the Wildcat Café log cabin, though there was food more traditional available in more modern hotels and restaurants.
Buffalo Airways, with its fleet of antiquated Douglas DC-3s, Curtiss C-46 Commandos, Douglas DC-4s, and Lockheed Electras, was the lifeline of supply for the other communities in the area.
Norman Wells expanded rapidly due to its oil deposits.
And Inuvik, above the Arctic Circle, was accessed by the Dempster gravel road, which connected the area with Dawson City in the Yukon and facilitated a day trip, by chartered truck, to Detah, requiring a short crossing. by ferry on the Arctic Red River. attain.
Yukon:
The Yukon provided an extensive and multifaceted travel experience. In Whitehorse, its largest city, it included a stay at a hotel with Klondike Gold Rush decor; visits to the Old Church Museum, the now stationary SS Klondike, the largest of the 250 stern-driven ships to have bent the Yukon River and a Canadian National Historic Site. Other attractions included the Yukon Transportation Museum, the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center (Beringia was the subcontinent of the last Ice Age), and the Whitehorse Fish Ladder. A ride on the Copper Belt Mining Railroad, the Whitehorse Waterfront Trolley and a boat cruise to Miles Canyon on the Yukon River served as attractions and transportation, and a performance by the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue cemented the gold rush experience.
Secondary trips involved those to Haines Junction, where a stay at the Raven Hotel, owned and run by Germans who prepared the daily breakfast and cooked each individual dinner, and Kluane National Park, a subarctic nature reserve.
A trip down the Alaska Highway past Carcross led to the US border and Skagway, Alaska for a ride on the famous White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad.
