Travelogue, August 16 to 29, 2023

This was my first road trip as an adult (in a car, not now actually owning a car for the last decade or two). It was organized by my girlfriend (hereinafter referred to as J) that we would travel to Winnipeg and back in two weeks staying at major cities along the way in a variety of Holiday, Sandman and Best Western Inns. It was her car and her itinerary so I was really just tagging along. However, I was still missing Saskatchewan from my list of Canadian provinces visited, so I thought it an opportunity not to be missed. Furthermore, she wanted to do all the driving (though she did accept my offer to pay for at least half the gas) and she promised we could stop along the way to take photos of wheat fields and grain elevators, among other things, to satisfy my photography needs!

Leaving Vancouver on a hot, sweltering day, I was glad that her car had air conditioning. Our drive out was uneventful and we arrived in Kelowna in the Okanagan valley about 4ish. Kelowna was the only place we were not staying in a hotel as her sister and entourage lived there. When I say entourage, not only did this include her husband, her mother-in-law and her 40-something-year-old daughter, but also an adopted First Nation's son in his twenties, and the grand-daughter of another adopted daughter, plus two young fostered children younger than her grand-daughter. This woman has spent her entire life, it would seem, fostering problematic and not-so-problematic children (behavioural issues as well as serious illnesses) and adopting a few, something I personally could never do so she is much to be admired in my view. She has a large house for all these individuals but still managed to find two rooms for J and me to sleep in!

There was a smell of smoke on the air, and after dinner, J and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood near the shores of Lake Okanagan with its haze from forest fires and poor visibility. Little did we know that the next day West Kelowna was to suffer a huge and serious forest fire and many Kelownans were forced to abandon their homes. Luckily, our hostess and her family were safe.

Thursday, August 17, 2023: Kelowna to Trail, B.C.

Pulling out of Kelowna mid-morning, we drove south to Highway 3 and our first stop was Greenwood, B.C. for bakery items at the Copper Eagle, the location of which was marked by a large, red, vintage car. Just as we had parked on the side of the road, a female deer came out from a side path in front of us and started walking down the middle of the highway. As there was no moving traffic on the road at the time, the deer was unharmed. After refreshments and a few photographs, we then stopped in a clothing shop where my girlfriend bought a dress. It was pretty hot so neither of us felt like walking much. Greenwood used to be a town for copper.

  

   

Our next stop was Rossland, the home town of a high school chum. I took a few photos to send her and picked up a map at the local library, which had a couple of nice murals. At the end of the afternoon, we arrived in Trail and since it was about 34 degrees Celsius, I decided not to go out right away. I let it cool down to 31 degrees first and then headed out on my own with my camera to see if I could find all the murals listed. I think I did pretty well and even crossed over the Columbia River twice in my search. Don't worry, they are not all here. Merely a selection. Trail used to have a large Italian population back in the days.

  

   

  

Friday, August 18, 2023: Trail, B.C. to Lethbridge, Alberta

We started seeing farmland, wheat fields, giant rolls of hay, and advanced methods of irrigation as soon as we arrived at the BC/Alberta border, having climbed through the foothills and the Rockies and seeing more evidence of forest fires burning in the distance. We stopped by the highway to photograph our first grain elevator, which was to become a new passion as a subject for photography. Since we arrived late into Lethbridge, after a short stop in Cranbrook, and were somewhat far from the town centre, I begged off the evening drive to visit some Japanese gardens and instead spent the evening in my hotel room loading up my photos

  

  

 

Saturday, August 19, 2023: Lethbridge, Alberta to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan via Medicine Hat, Alberta

Today's delight after crossing the Alberta/Saskatchewan border was an unplanned four-hour visit to Medicine Hat, all because we needed a bathroom stop otherwise we might never have known how nice it was! We first noticed a huge teepee, which we drove toward and found out it was right next to the Visitor's Centre hosted by a delightful and colourful young-ish woman who answered all our questions about quite a few places around. She certainly knew her stuff.

  

  

  

“The Saamis Tepee was originally constructed for the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics. Each of its 10 masts features a large storyboard depicting aspects of native culture and history.” The teepee is the world's largest, apparently, and had some paintings and explanations of the Cree, Black Foot and Plains First Nations heritage. We then drove into town and found there were murals to photograph. We separated and later met for lunch at Inspire Studio Gallery Café, which, as it sounds, doubles as an art gallery. There were a couple of paintings inside that fascinated me but I wasn't allowed to photograph them. I also admired some paintings of very colourful grain elevators - much more colourful than those we saw in reality however - and we got talking to the owners, two sisters about our age who had been born in the UK.

  

   

  

  

We arrived rather late in Moose Jaw as a result of our long visit to Medicine Hat, in addition to a couple of visits to smaller towns, which we thought might be interesting but weren't (such as Maple Creek). In fact, we had taken so many side trips we had to stop en route to fill up with gas. And as it was after 8:00 p.m. by then, we decided to have dinner at a Subway inside the gas station building.

  

  

Sunday, August 20, 2023: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

I did quite a bit of walking today. My hotel was about 5 kilometres from downtown Moose Jaw, while J had chosen to stay at a different one in town. Consequently, I walked into town on an overcast cooler day across fields full of crickets, which leapt out of my way in front of me as I progressed. Again my goal was to photograph the town's murals. Although the Visitor's Centre near my hotel, located next to statues of the world's tallest moose, called Mac, and a somewhat smaller bison, did not have the mural brochure I was looking for, I was told I would find an unofficial visitor's centre in town.

   

  

  

As it was, that particular place - an ice cream shop run by young women entrepreneurs - was closed until noon so I went across the street to a shop selling underground tours about bootlegging, the depression, and the early history of Chinese immigration, and picked up one there. The map inside the brochure had divided the murals into two sections, so I visited and photographed the southern section before lunch and the northern section after lunch. On the recommendation of the aforementioned ice cream place, I had lunch at Rosie's, named after a famous prostitute. Apparently Moose Jaw, also known as the Notorious City, is famous for its prohibition past. Al Capone was a temporary resident and ran liquor from the United States into the town.

  

  

  

My chosen lunch place too has a story. Apparently, according to Rosie's menu, “Rosie Dale, the infamous Madam of River Street, ran afoul of Police Chief Walter Johnson, an interesting chap who for more than 20 years ruled the streets of the city with a baton in one hand and dirty money in the other. Unable to pay her protection fees, she was banished from the city by Johnson, but the feisty madam didn't give up. Rosie set up shop several blocks southeast of town, outside of Johnson's jurisdiction, and her business took off again. The only problem: 'clients' now needed a way of reaching her new location, so horses were trained to find their way to the brothel and back by themselves. Rosie's customers just hopped aboard the buggy and grabbed the reins; the horses did the rest.” I sat outside on the patio of this restaurant to enjoy the fresh air, but the ceiling and walls inside were quite crowded with interesting memorabilia.

  

  

  

I ordered a wrap and a salad together with a 'hard' apple cider but was disappointed to see that the latter was from the USA when BC has so many nice ciders. The city had also decorated their benches, garbage cans, and fire hydrants. On the nature side of things, I managed to photograph a pair of magpies and later, on the long walk back to my hotel, a couple of hawks!

   

  

  

Monday, August 21, 2023: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba

We photographed more grain elevators today as we drove from Saskatchewan to Manitoba. Again, due to our need for a bathroom, we stopped in a small town called Wolseley, which had an opera house, a swinging bridge, and a mural or two, and saw our first white pelican. We also stopped at a diner for lunch called L & A Family Diner in Whitewood, where I had a chance to speak some Tagalog. We then crossed into Manitoba and drove all the way to Winnipeg, our easternmost destination, where I found to my surprise that my hotel, a Holiday Inn, was in a rather dodgy part of town, though surrounded by universities. As it was getting dark by then, and I was too tired to go out and I ate the other half of my sandwich from yesterday in my room.

  

  

  

  

  

Tuesday, August 22, 2023: Winnipeg, Manitoba

I must say I was not impressed by the breakfast at the hotel. I found it quite expensive for not much. I should have gone out to Timmy's. However, I did get talking to the handsome young waiter, who from the way he spoke English I thought might be German, but he was in fact Ukrainian and he explained to me the struggle his country is currently facing.

  

  

It was my first real time discovering Winnipeg, though I had flown into its airport a couple of times. It was easy to walk i.e. flat, as long as you didn't mind the itinerant population and fellow strollers with mental health issues. I headed out to the Legislative building where a colleague of mine works - more about him later - and had to dodge the serious deposits of Canada goose droppings on the wide sidewalks. I ended up at the Forks, which I had thought would be similar to Vancouver's Granville Island, but it was not. Among other things, it contained a Visitor's Centre, a market (small, compared to Granville Island), a statue of Mahatma Ghandi, and the curiously shaped Museum of Human Rights.

  

  

I walked for a while along the banks of the Assiniboine River before it joined the Red River and then over the bridge into francophone (or so I imagined) St. Boniface. I was told by my colleague at the Legislature building that I could order a meal in French at the Café Postal, so after wandering around photographing Saint Boniface for a bit, including the outside of Gabrielle Roy's house museum (it was closed), the Université de Saint-Boniface and Louis Riel's grave, I headed to the café in question to order a light lunch and indeed was able to order in French, although all those around me were, annoyingly, speaking English, and was answered in French by the staff. However, I could tell they were not native French speakers. I suspected they had learned the language as immersion students, so that was quite a disappointment.

  

 

I then walked back into downtown Winnipeg and along the dodgy area finding murals galore, although I was using my iPhone to photograph, not feeling completely confident about taking out my big camera in such an area. I had arranged to meet a colleague for dinner and had offered to interview her in person for the CTTIC.org website, as we are both board members. We met at Stella's, which had been recommended by my hotel (but also coincidentally suggested by my colleague). It was located inside a building belonging to one of the aforementioned universities and I was delighted to be served a B.C. pear cider.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023: Winnipeg, Manitoba

  

  

  

My plan this morning was to visit two more areas of Winnipeg that I read had murals: the West End and the Exchange District. To get to the first area, I walked through Ethiopia town along Sargent Avenue and found quite a few murals. Next I walked through a more residential section to the brick warehouse area, which I expected to be the main business district and full of business people in suits. Instead, it was quite empty. Then I returned to my hotel along streets parallel to the dodgy street my hotel was on and picked up lunch at Timmy's. (I was rather shocked to arrive back at my hotel and see a prostitute hanging about in front of it!) I then took a 3-hour nap I was so exhausted.

  

  

  

Around 5:00 p.m., two of my colleagues came to my hotel and we walked to a Danish restaurant for dinner called Bistro Dansk where the helpings were copious. My colleagues and I spoke French all evening to my delight. I was hoping they'd be able to give me tips about Franco-Manitoban vocabulary but neither of them was actually Franco-Manitoban, I discovered to my surprise. One was Quebecois while the other was half Fransaskois. The half chicken I ordered was so big I ended up taking it back to my hotel fridge and then on the road (we had a cooler in the trunk/boot) and managed to make it stretch to three meals!

  

  

 

Thursday, August 24, 2023: Winnipeg, Manitoba to Regina, Saskatchewan

Back on the road after three days, we first drove slightly northwards to Alonsa to visit the hometown of J's mother. It was small and in the middle of nowhere, hence we ended up having to fill up with gas again. I was happy to photograph more grain elevators and, finally, fields of sunflowers. The first sunflowers we had seen some days ago were disappointing because all the plants had their heads hanging down, no doubt due to a lack of sunlight. Today, however, they were in better fettle. Unfortunately, they were all located just a bit too far from the roadside, so I wasn't actually able to take a selfie of myself in amongst them as I had hoped. In fact, since we had a long way to drive, we didn't end up taking many photos today.

   

 

  

  

  

After my free Holiday Inn breakfast, which included a cinnamon bun, I walked through town noticing that, just as in Vancouver, Jim Pattison also owns advertising billboards and supports a children's hospital in Regina. (I noticed an ad for it on a bus bench.) I ended up in Wascana Park, a 2,300-acre oasis in the middle of Regina, apparently larger than Stanley Park. The original lands of the Cree, Ojibwe, Saulteaux, Dakota, Nakota, Lakota, it includes a large 150-hectare man-make lake and the Saskatchewan's Legislative Building. I walked quite a way round the park keeping the said building in sight, and spoke to a few friendly Reginans. I found that this particular weekend the lake was hosting dragon boat races.

  

  

  

  

I mostly ended up taking photos of nature: squirrels, ducks, Canada geese (although we have them in Vancouver) and pelicans (which, as I said before, we do not). Just as I finally arrived inside the building in question, whom do I meet coming out of her private tour of it but J! I decided to take the free tour too and convinced the young guide to give it to me in French, which he managed quite well, despite once again being an Anglophone and having learned French as an immersion student. I then continued past the University of Regina (more about which later) and into a residential section, using the toilets at the hospital. As I had not seen many murals, I found a visitor's centre in an obscure shared office, but was told by the young people there that the visitor's centre was there no longer and they didn't know where it had relocated to. So I asked them if they knew of any murals in Regina for me to photograph and they directed me to the Cathedral area. To guide me there, one of them put the address of a café into my Google maps app on my iPhone.

  

  

  

  

I decided to walk there right away, although it was lunch time, and the area ended up being exactly what I was looking for. At the end of the artistic strip (13th Avenue), I came to the café designated in my app (13th Avenue Coffee House, a vegan and vegetarian restaurant and café) and decided to go in and see what they had for lunch. I ordered a sloppy salmon sandwich and talked not only to the proprietor, but also a student of social work from Gibsons, B.C., who was picking up an order, and an RCMP trainee studying at the Regina Depot, who was from the Comox Valley, BC! Small world! I also ordered a Saskatchewan cider with blackberries.

  

  

  

  

I later learned, coincidentally, that J stumbled upon this same café and ate her dinner there.

  

  

  

 

Saturday, August 26, 2023: Regina, Saskatchewan

Convinced it was too far for me to walk, I accepted J's offer of a ride to the RCMP Heritage Centre (horrors! a museum, I found out.) I had had a different idea of what to expect, thinking I'd see lots of young RCMP trainees in red serge whom I'd be able to photograph and learn about their training, but that was the Depot tour apparently, and it did not operate on weekends. However, I did pick up a couple of RCMP clothing items at the RCMP Heritage Centre shop.

  

   

Our next visit was to the Lieutenant Governor's House, most of which was closed up for a special event (although the tour guide wouldn't reveal to us what said special occasion was). He took us round the parts we were allowed to see and they were interesting. Our final stop was the Royal Saskatchewan Museum to see the world's largest and oldest T. Rex, Scotty, before picking up lunch at Timmy's. We then spent some minutes at an outdoor and indoor market, after which I took another long nap in my hotel room. At 5:00 I was collected by my Regina colleague, who is also a geology lab instructor at the University of Regina. Also a French speaker, though it is possibly a third language for her, she took me out to an Afghan restaurant where I had a healthy vegetarian meal.

  

  

Afterwards, she drove me to the university and we walked through several buildings as she explained what they were all used for and how foreign students there pay three times the tuition of a Canadian but then have everything taken care of, i.e. forms filled out, housing found, etc. We saw a few hares or rabbits hopping across the field and my colleague described to me how they turn completely white in the wintertime. I was also delighted to watch a pod of pelicans fly overhead in a V-formation just like Canada geese do. Part of the land around the University of Regina belongs to the First Nations University of Canada, whose building contains the shape of a teepee and has no right angles. At dusk, seeing crowds gathering, we were curious and stumbled upon the Shake the Lake rock music festival at the Conexus Arts Centre and listened to a couple of songs.

Sunday, August 27, 2023: Regina, Saskatchewan to Lethbridge, Alberta

  

  

  

 

Back on the road again, it was our last day in Saskatchewan, so we wanted to make sure we captured photos of remaining oil wells and grain elevators as well as the signs (you are leaving) Saskatchewan, the Land of Living Skies sign and (you are entering) Alberta, Wild Rose Country. After a brief stop in Taber, where the mother of a mutual friend of ours used to live, we were able to visit a bit of Lethbridge we hadn't seen our first time here, including the famous trestle bridge (plus some deer, magpies and robins). The plaque indicating the trestle bridge says as follows: “Rising 307 feet from the valley floor, this bridge over which runs the Canadian Pacific Railways though the Crows Nest Pass, spans the valley in one mile and forty-seven feet. Completed in 1909, it is the longest highest bridge of its type in the world.”

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Monday, August 28, 2023: Lethbridge, Alberta to Trail, B.C.

As we left Lethbridge, and the yellow-and-purple-flower-trimmed no. 3 Crowsnest highway and headed toward the Rocky mountains where the landscape changed considerably, we took our last photos of wind turbines, grain elevators, and prolific crowds of yellow and white butterflies, hundreds of which unfortunately committed suicide on the car's front fender. We also photographed horses, the hamlet of Lundbreck, with its curious double-decker outhouses, and finally reached the BC border sign (the Best Place on Earth) before stopping in Fernie for lunch and clothes shopping.

  

A propos of the aforementioned unusual double-decker outhouse, the sign says “ Built in 1905 at the same time as the original hotel, it was the latest in convenience for the patrons. In an era of outdoor toilets, who ever heard of accessing the facilities without having to leave the building? By using the walkway, occupants of the second floor did not have to go downstairs to use it, nor did the ladies have to go through the tavern. Public passers-by could also access it and it became quite the tourist attraction. By design it was offset with metal chutes and worked very well. In 1963 the hotel was razed by fire. Despite a valiant attempt to extinguish the blaze, all that was saved was the double-decker.”

  

We finally reached our hotel in Trail in the evening and celebrated our last road trip dinner at Pino's Authentic Italian restaurant, since the other, more famous Italian restaurant, the Colander, was closed on Monday nights. The Sicilian owner greeted us personally and presented us with a long-stemmed red rose each. As we had nowhere to keep them, and knew they wouldn't last the road trip, we consequently gave them to our very friendly hotel receptionist, who had recommended the restaurant to us.

  

  

  

On our final day, we wound around a number of mountain routes, and were held up twice in traffic for road workers to clear away accidents. One was a large 18-wheeler and the other, closer to home near Abbotsford, were two small cars that curiously both had their back ends smashed in. We stopped for lunch at Timmy's in cloudy, smoky Osoyoos, and photographed a deer sitting in a row in a vineyard, but missed the opportunity to photograph a mother quail and three chicks as they hurried into the same vineyard. We bought some apricots and pots of uncommon flavours of jam at fruit stands in the Keremeos area, and made a final bathroom stop at the visitor's centre in Princeton before continuing on to Vancouver and home.

  

On reflection, it was a great trip and I am grateful to the various people I met and dined with, and for J's careful, albeit stressful, driving that got us there and back without incident. Photo opportunities certainly abounded and what you see on this page are only a fraction of what I captured (although a larger fraction than usual perhaps!) If you get a chance to do a road trip across Western Canada, or across the entire country, I say go. Don't hesitate! But do drive carefully.