Travel Western Canada

W. Canada 2000

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This page last updated on July 8, 2000

The Alberta Badlands, 100 miles NE of Calgary, are renowned for the dinosaur bones and fossils found there. The Royal Tyrell Museum at Drumheller houses a large collection of them and many museums around the world have dinosaurs from here, including the ROM in Toronto.


Entrance to Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller	Horseshoe Canyon, Drumheller, site of many dinosaur excavations.	T-Rex

We had a couple of trips to Calgary, one to visit Christine and Elaine (friends from Oakville who moved to Calgary two years ago) and again to go to the Stampede. It's really the CNE with more horses. A huge midway with some rides at $35 and $40 EACH, lots of music, horse/steer/cow/etc contests, and the famous Rodeo and Chuckwagon Races. We didn't have tickets for the rodeo or Chuckwagon ($30 each for each event) so it really wasn't any different to the EX, but we did go to Nashville North and see Shania Twin (unfortunately I can spell properly - it fooled us when we read the program!!).


Chris and Elaine's beautiful home in Calgary	Shania at the Stampede

We took the scenic route from Banff to Kelowna - via the Kootenays. Stopped off at Radium Hot Springs to check out the pool but it was no different to the others we'd seen - just a big swimming pool with hot water. We are holding out until we find one that has natural rock pools. Next stop Cranbrook and the up Kootenay Lake to the ferry at Kootenay Bay and past the Glass House. This was built entirely from embalming bottles! Sunday was a bad day to go for the longest free ferry ride in Canada - we had a three hour wait in pouring rain. Got to our destination in Nelson, BC just before they locked up for the night. Nelson turned out to be a great place - the town is built on a steep hillside and there are great views everywhere you go. (Nelson is where they filmed Steve Martin's Roxanne).


The Glass House, near Boswell	Our campsite at Nelson	Kootenay Lake	The Boat House, Nelson	Granite Point GC, Nelson	Boneyard MTB trail, Nelson	Slocan Lake	Near Kaslo

Check back on the first page if you want to see the maps for the trip out here - just revised page 1 to add them. I did these maps using Microsoft Trips & Streets 2001, which I bought at Costco in Calgary for $52 with a $30 mail-in rebate. I am truly impressed with it - I really didn't think Canada would be covered very well and I was expecting to use the 30 day money back offer. I tried to "Find 1210 Old Colony Road" and couldn't believe that in seconds it zoomed in to a map of the streets around us in Glen Abbey. Guess I'm keeping it !!!

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