Out of the Frying Pan, into the Freezer – Alberta, Canada

After our crazy 14 months, setting foot back on Canadian soil was always going to be a bit anticlimactic.  We passed through customs without so much as a question or even really a word from the officer at the desk.  We were hoping for a “Where have you visited” question, or even a simple “Welcome home”.  But we were through it before we even knew what happened, and then it felt like just us. The airport was empty, with only our 40 or so fellow Air Alaska travelers getting their luggage and then lining up for Tim Horton’s.

Going to Edmonton in March, having recently spent a longer than normal amount of time in rather tropical places, was always going to be a tough transition.  But we thought it would help start the adjustment process by spending some time with family back in Canada, but not quite at home.  We knew it was going to be cold, but we weren’t ready for how quickly the snowy landscape overtook memories of Mexico.

The photos in this blog are going to be a little worse quality than usual.  At one time we had ambitions of writing a blog post about Alberta as if it was a new country to explore.  But somewhere between setting foot back on Canadian soil and seeing family, we decided to leave the “big camera” (aka DSLR) behind, and just snap random pictures with our phone cameras. And as it turns out, our phone camera’s don’t take the best pictures unless in fairly bright light. We also ended up taking fewer family pictures than we would have liked.

Our transit from Guadalajara to Edmonton was going to be bad.  Three legs, overnight in the Los Angeles Airport, and arrival into Edmonton finally after around 18 hours total.  This is the start of leg 3 of 3, Seattle to Edmonton over the Rocky Mountains on a relatively little propeller plane.  Emily is putting on a brave smile, but we were really tired.  Sleeping in an airport is never as exciting as it sounds.

We had come to Edmonton to visit Doug’s cousins Dan and Shanon, and their awesome daughter Norah.  And Emily had never been to Edmonton before, so it was a chance to show her some of the city.  In that sense Emily’s travels kept going a little longer than Doug’s, though its been quite some time since he was in the city.

Of course we had to take Emily to West Edmonton Mall.  She finally got to see the whale Doug always talks about all the time, though these days its been relocated to a rather empty section of the mall over by the sad-looking, empty Sears.

Norah was a bit intimidated at first, but kids always come to love the whale. We couldn’t get her out of there.

It was pretty weird being in Edmonton, especially at first.  For the first time in months we could understand the language that everyone around us was speaking.  We’ve gotten really used to just talking to one another, or maybe at best another traveler we randomly ended up with on some bus ride.  But Alberta is friendly, people love to strike up a random conversation with you on the bus, the LRT, in the line for coffee, etc.  That took some getting used to.

Despite the cold and our rather insufficient fake North Face jackets, we headed out into downtown to find the Oilers’ new home.  Another sports building named after Rogers, yay.

The Oilers’ press conference area is behind a glass wall, and you can see it all from the outside.  They have the five cups on display, as well as the Gretzky statue. Its a pretty cool tribute to the team and its history.

This building next to the new arena has all kinds of old signage on the outside of it, presumably on display.  Those of us from Southern Ontario might recognize the Pantages theater sign.

We were really surprised to hear peoples’ accents. Maybe its because we have been out of country for a while, and most of the English we have heard spoke was by Europeans.  It pains us to write this, but we can hear the “oot” a little more than we would have thought.  Maybe its just the hearing the “Western Canada” accent – it exists!

How do you know you’re in Alberta?  Its not a parking garage, its a parkade. And don’t even get us started on “roasters”.

And you can fill your growlers (large beer container) at the corner liquor store. People who complain about the LCBO should check out the selection of a random corner liquor store in Alberta. You’d be surprised how good the LCBO pricing and selection are.

McDonald’s had this fun seat to lean on, not quite sit on, while you wait for your McCafe.  We haven’t seen one of these anywhere else in the world, so take from that what you will. Doug will say that it was really quite comfy.

Need a psychic expert to help with such important topics as “Evil Eye Power” or, rather unsettlingly, “Child Mistake”?  You can get it sorted in Millwoods.  We had a moment to think that this sort of thing seems much more reasonable in India, but back in Canada you wonder why anyone even tries.

After a great visit with Dan, Shanon, and Norah, we headed south on the cheapest bus we could find.  Can you believe it costs as much as $72 for a one-way bus ticket from Edmonton to Calgary?  We ended up going with a cheaper company for $41 each, which still is much pricier than we expected.  So our final bus ride of this adventure was the three hour jump between the two Alberta cities.

After 24 countries (sleeping in the LAX airport doesn’t count), Calgary was our last destination.  What a strange thing to write.  We took even fewer pictures in Calgary, so what follows is a real smattering of randomness. But the important thing is that spending a week with everyone in Calgary was a great way to cap things off.  We’re calling it our “soft Canuck landing”. Thanks to Gwen, Jon, Jacob, and Jackson for having us! And it was great to spend time with Tracy, Dwayne, and Wes.

We spent more time at arenas than either of us ever have, and it was awesome to catch some of our nephews Jacob and Jackson’s hockey playoffs. This is Jackson doing some dirty dangles during practice.  His team ended up going to the City finals, losing in a shootout unfortunately.  We saw three of his playoff games, but had to go before the finals.

The new sports craze in Calgary, and presumably elsewhere – Disc Golf.  Those Seinfeld fans out there might remember it as Frolf, but its not the Summer of George right now so we’ll stick to disc golf.  You basically use a variety of specialty frisbees (one for distance, one for putting, etc) to play a golf-like course.  You can plan in snow or grass, and its free.

We were lucky to be in Calgary on the start of a chinook, so things were warming and melting.  It was 8 degrees C the day we played disc golf in the park, and we all ended up taking our jackets off. In general the Alberta weather could have been much worse during our visit.  We lucked out even in Edmonton, since we only had our fake North Face jackets that were purchased in the chaos of the Hanoi old town. If it had been a colder few weeks we would have been in trouble.

No trip to Calgary would be complete without a trip to the Pfanntastic Pannenkoek Haus.  Emily saw this place years ago on You Gotta Eat Here, so we went with Jon and Gwen for some pannenkoek (meal pancakes)

And here you have it, a savory pannenkoek with potato, steak, cheese, and sour cream.  The restaurant was pretty busy when we were randomly there on a Thursday before lunch.

When in Calgary we were hoping the weather and everyone’s schedules would work for a trip into the mountains. We love the Rockies – they’re so distinctive, and Calgary is lucky to have them so close.  Our nephew Jacob dreams of being a Wildlife Conservation Officer, so its no wonder he spotted so many animals on our drive into Kananaskis country.

 

We left Calgary early specifically to see moose. We saw six in total, including these three hanging out together just at sunrise.

Running away from the car noise.  They’re huge animals, but even with a longer lens they’re hard to photograph once they get moving.  

We saw three elk, as well as a bunch of deer and several coyotes.  Combined with backyard coyotes in Edmonton, we did pretty well for Western Canada animals during our time in Alberta.

We’ve been lucky enough to take some great pictures during our travels, but pictures like this remind us how great home is as well.  Surely any traveler would put a Rocky Mountain vista like the one below up there with the best landscape photos from anywhere else.  Next time we go through this part of the world we would love to have a wide angle lens; its really the only way to begin to capture the mountains.

In Spray Valley Provincial Park. We saw dogsledders setting up on the next lake over.

After a winding route through Kananaskis and eventually coming out at Canmore, we headed into Banff.  Banff is famous for backpacking travelers, as evidenced by every single store and restaurant employee being Australian (or maybe from New Zealand – sorry to our cousins down under, we’re still not great with identifying those accents).  Australians talk about traveling South/Central America only to run out of money and work three jobs in Banff in the same way Europeans, and to a lesser extend Canadians, talk about traveling Southeast Asia only to end up working on a farm in Australia.  It would be interesting to visit Banff as a backpacker, but that will have to wait for another time. Besides, we strongly suspect it is way out of our travel budget range.

Bow Falls, frozen for the winter.  It looks a little different then last time we were here.

What a difference 2.5 years makes. This is September 2015, the last time we were in Calgary. Bigger kids, and far more facial hair (on one of us!).

This will not quite be the last Canuck Walkabout post. We aren’t going to drag things out now that we’re back, subjecting everyone to endless pictures and stories. But we do need to finish Food Part 2, as well as some thoughts about being back in general. We’re finding it tough to write now, probably because the newness of being back is still very much in the forefront of our minds.  But we’ll get them up eventually.  Thanks to all our Alberta family – we hope its not another 2.5 years before we’re back out there.

• Em and Doug / March 22, 2018 @ 9:57am / Effingham Street, Pelham