The Road Goes On…

Category: 2017 Northwestern Canada

  • Canada 2017 Trip Summary

    Coming home gave us the feeling as though we are living between two worlds. Before we enter back into our everyday life with all its responsibilities we look back on six weeks of excitement and adventure. We’re happy we wrote the blog so that we don’t forget all the things we saw and experienced.

    What worked well:

    Roadtrek 190 Popular: We love our Roadtrek! It is small enough to go virtually anywhere and has everything you need – kitchen, bathroom, fridge, furnace, air conditioning, etc.

    InReach Explorer+ Satellite Communicator: We bought one of these units to be able to communicate with friends and in case of emergency in areas where there is no cellular service. It worked like a charm and has the ability now to request weather reports as well.

    Public Mobile: We were travelling through areas where our cellular provider (Freedom Mobile) doesn’t have their own network so instead of paying roaming charges we chose to get a Public Mobile pay-as-you-go subscription with 6GB of data for the 6 weeks we were on the road. Public Mobile uses the TELUS network which covers western Canada very well.

    Freedom Mobile’s Unlimited US Roaming. We’ve been Freedom Mobile customers for a number of years now and their price just can’t be beat. For $15 a month we had unlimited voice calling, texting and 1GB of data for the days we were in Alaska. This allowed us to keep in touch and look up things on the road.

    Good Sam Membership: This RV club membership cost $25 a year and give you 10% discount at member campsites.  It definitely paid for itself.

    Garmin GPS: We love our Garmin nuvi 2689LMT GPS system.

    Allstays Camp and RV App: We use this app on our iPads all the time to look for campgrounds. It shows the location of campgrounds and gives information about their rating, facilities and distance from your current location.

    Visitor Centres: These are always a source of great information and have invaluable knowledge of local conditions and opportunities.

    Here’s a map of the entire trip. This is an image grab from Google Earth as it wasn’t possible to use the entire GPS track on a live map.

  • White River, ON to Six Mile Lake, ON

    We got up at 7:00AM, gassed up the van, and had really fresh breakfast at the A&W next door. Now we were ready for a long drive.

    Today the weather was a lot better, starting cloudy and then turning into a great sunny day. When we saw Calm Bay on Lake Superior we decided another swim was in order, this time in calmer waters and with a sandy beach. It is so great to have a van that has a built-in change room.

    The drive through northern Ontario was stunning and we promised ourselves that we would come back and spend some time here again soon discovering, hiking and kayaking.

    The road had lots of construction which slowed us down a bit and in one place a rock slide had blocked one lane of traffic.

    After Sault St. Marie the picturesque rocky area was behind us and we moved through forest and farmland. A road sign promised a farm market so we turned off and found a Mennonite farm area. The farmer’s wife was dressed in very traditional garb and even her two little daughters showed up in floral bonnets. We bought some blueberries, tomatoes and pickles.

    The last stop was at French River for a milkshake and a look through the gift store.

    We are spending our last night on the road at the Six Mile Lake Provincial Park with a waterfront site. The water is about 50ft down a rocky slope, but it is waterfront.

  • Ignace, ON to White River, ON

    So much for the planned swim. Today it was raining cats and dogs and the mosquitos were taking cover under the window flaps on the van waiting for fresh blood.

    We decided to spend the day driving as far as we could but we still had some fun and we did get to swim. Think of a cold stormy, windy, rainy day. Then imagine Lake Superior looking almost like the North Atlantic ocean. To us it looked like a cool challenge. We glanced at each other, nodded in agreement, put on our bathing suits and headed into the big waves. What hilarious breathtaking fun it was.

    After this exhilarating swim and a couple of hours of driving along the shoreline of Lake Superior we deserved a nice dinner. Nothing in our fridge was tempting so we stopped at Drifters in Terrace Bay and had their Sunday night $12.99 pizza special. It was delicious but we only made it through half of the pizza. Lunch for tomorrow.

    We continued on to White River, arrived at 9:30PM, and decided to camp by the Visitor Centre with a couple of other overnighters.

  • Falcon Lake, MB to Ignace, ON

    On our trip we’ve been woken by Pepsi, trains, a guy driving around the parking lot honking his horn but now it was a rooster’s turn. We got up and had a shower. Martin got to go first to check out the facilities and came back with a big smile and said the shower was very clean. Not more was revealed but he did suggest taking a camera.

    We left this kind of awkward campground as soon as possible and drove to Falcon Lake where we had camped on our outbound trip and stopped for gas, groceries and the dump station. Now we were ready to make it to Ontario.

    We stopped at a beautiful rest stop at a lake and made grilled cheese sandwiches which were served in the skillet on the picnic table outside.

    We drove to the Sandbar Lake Provincial Park where we spent the night and are looking forward to a swim in the morning.

  • Moose Jaw, SK to Falcon Lake, MB

    The Walmart parking lot was a busy place. At least 20 campers, some looking like they were there for the long haul, and hundreds of seagulls.

    Now we were ready for the Tunnels of Moose Jaw adventure where history comes alive. We took two of the tours of the underground network of tunnels of the thriving Moose Jaw of the late 19th and early 20th century. We visited the secret city of Chinese living beneath the streets of Moose Jaw and learned about the difficult life of Chinese immigrants working in a laundromat. Then we became bootleggers in Al Capone’s empire and almost got caught for seeing and knowing too much. We truly enjoyed these two staged and interactive tours and highly recommend them to anyone visiting Moose Jaw.

    We were not permitted to take pictures on the tour, so you’ll have to come and take it yourself!

    After so much fun we had lunch across the street and briefly explored the historic downtown area.

    Al Capone was definitely following us…

    We thought it better to quickly leave town before we beginner bootleggers got caught and shot so we raced all the way to close to Falcon Lake in Manitoba and hid in a secret campground off the highway.

  • Lake Louise, AB to Moose Jaw, SK

    After a luxurious breakfast, with heavy hearts we looked out of our hotel room window at the Chateau Lake Louise one last time and departed eastward.

    The second farewell was to the Rocky Mountains which very quickly turned to plains. The day was mostly driving with only a stop for lunch in Calgary at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  We were very determined to make it to Saskatchewan and we did. We made it to Moose Jaw and noticed some attractions that enticed us. Maybe something for tomorrow morning?

  • Lake Louise, AB

    Ruth woke up not feeling well so we started the morning slowly. She spent most of the day lying down and resting and Martin went for a nice hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House.

    Along the way he saw a number of people rock climbing, two grizzly bears from a distance, and tons of chipmunks.

    The hike is 5.3 km one way and had a 370 meter elevation gain.

    No map today as the van didn’t move.

  • Jasper, AB to Lake Louise, AB

    The night was not as calm as expected. Pepsi was also a paid guest of the Fairmount but she made it very clear that she preferred sleeping in the van over the five star Fairmount. After this battle was settled we had a great night sleep and Pepsi was happy to go for a walk in the morning.

    After breakfast we left for Lake Louise on the Icefields Parkway. We stopped several times to take in the amazing beauty and visited the Athabasca Falls.

    Later on in the afternoon we stopped at the Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre and hiked a short distance to the glacier. There are a number of markers that show where the toe of the glacier had been in previous years and it became very obvious that global warming has taken a huge toll on this glacier.

    We arrived at the Fairmount Chateau Lake Louise and our van was too high to fit into the parking garage. Therefore it was ‘valet’ parked right out in front of the hotel along with four other RVs.

    When we had made the reservation we had also included Pepsi as one of the guests and when we arrived in our room we found a welcome gift for her.

    After the issues with her sleeping in Jasper we decided to have her sleep in the van again.

    We had a nice swim and trip to the steam room followed by a cheese fondue at the Wallser Stube restaurant.

    Lake Louise is an exceptionally beautiful location and we decided to try and stay for another night. This took a bit of work, but Jeff, our front desk agent, pulled out all the stops to make it happen. Yay!

     

  • Prince George, BC to Jasper, AB

    The morning started out with a swim, whirlpool and sauna at the Prince George Aquatic Center. We were refreshed and felt fit for our drive to Jasper. Despite the rain we made it in good time and didn’t see any evidence of the forest fires burning in BC.

    On our way to Jasper we saw our first Elk feeding by the side of the road. It is close to mating season and the signs said to stay away from the animals as they may charge. Remember, these animals have big horns. Nonetheless, a number of tourists felt the need to take selfies with the Elk or otherwise get within 5 feet of them. Hopefully everyone made it back in the car safely.

    In Jasper we stayed at the Fairmount which has log cabins right beside the lake. Ruth had received a teaching award four years ago and one part of the gifts were certificates for a stay at a Fairmount hotel. Since we hadn’t used them we thought this was the time and place to be pampered a bit. Quite a difference from Walmart the night before.

  • Devil’s Creek, BC to Prince George, BC

    Today was a driving day and we had relatively few stops. The first place we did stop was the Gitanyow Totem Pole Park which has one of the largest and oldest outdoor totem pole collections. The totem poles show the clan status and are carved from bottom up.

    Shortly after our visit to the totem poles we left beautiful Highway 37 and turned onto Highway 16 to begin our journey eastward. Our next stop for gas and a short break was Smithers. Since it was Sunday not many stores were open. The town was designed after an Alpine village and thus has a sculpture of a Swiss man with an Alpenhorn. Smithers also had the first traffic lights we’ve seen since Whitehorse.

    We continued on to Prince George and since it was already relatively late and dark we opted for a Walmart parking lot.