Short trips from Calgary

Here is a list of some of the interesting visits we made around Calgary:

Banff town is in a valley of the Banff National Park. It is at the right distance from any place (Calgary/Golden/Jasper) and a good stop over for some delicious food or drink. For all the foodies, this is a go-to place as the town is filled with all kinds of restaurants, bars and cafés due to the high volume of visitors all round the year. People like us would love to just drive to this place as both the drive and the meal would be worth the visit. Being a tourist place, there is something for shopoholics too. Also, in winter, Banff is close to many popular ski lodges.

Lakes of Banff National Park: If heaven is a place on earth, it probably would be in the Canadian Rockies and Banff is in the heart of it all. This bewitching place is a must visit for nature lovers. This park is home to a host of flora, fauna and lakes. Be it the massive Lake Minniwanka, serene Lake Louise, pristine Bow Lake or the blue-green Moraine Lake, each comes with its own charm and grandeur.

Columbia Icefields Experience: One doesn’t need to fly or sail to Alaska to experience Glaciers. Situated on the ice fields parkway of Jasper National Park, Athabasca Glacier presents a unique opportunity to visit a glacier on specially designed vehicles. The trip from the base to the glacier also allows one to experience the glacier on foot once you reach the summit. Though the glacier is slowly receding over the past decades, the colossal Athabasca Glacier is still quite a spectacle.

Note: A Glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. It forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years. Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Glaciers move constantly. So every few years, they have to make a different approach road to the Glacier. Receding glacier is different from a moving glacier. (Source: Wiki)

Edmonton: This is the capital of Alberta province. The North Saskatchewan River flows right through the city, giving a panoramic view of downtown Edmonton. Though not many people like visiting Edmonton, we’ve always found it to be a pleasant place. We visited the Royal Alberta Museum and Muttart Observatory apart from checking out the Legislature and Old Strathcona area (including the very popular Whyte Avenue known for its resturants). There is a good arty feel about downtown as well. Edmonton houses 1 of the largest shopping malls in the world (largest in N.America) – the West Edmonton Mall. This mall hosts more than 800 shops, a hotel, an amusement park, a water park and other attractions – all indoors. We also managed to go for a late night standup comedy show as well. (Refer an older post on Edmonton here). 

Drumheller: Also known as the dinosaur valley, Drumheller has the largest deposits of dinosaur fossils in the world. The Royal Tyrell Museum here is considered as an authority on the subject and is often invited to other parts of the world during excavations, symposiums, etc. Allow for at least 2 hours at the Museum (we took 3), which has an excellent collection and is very well maintained. Apart from dinosaurs, Drumheller is also known for its unique terrain – the badlands and hoodoos.

Badlands is a type of arid terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water. It can resemble malpaís, a terrain of volcanic rock. Canyons, ravines, gullies, hoodoos and other such geological forms are common in badlands. Badlands often have a spectacular colour display that alternates from dark black/blue coal stria to bright clays to red scoria. (Source: Wiki)

A Hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, and earth pyramid) is a tall thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Hoodoos are composed of soft sedimentary rock and are topped by a piece of harder, less easily-eroded stone that protects the column from the elements. (Source: Wiki)

Saskatoon Farm, Okotoks: A 45 minute drive from downtown Calgary, this place is a 1 stop shop for organic needs. The farm is mainly known for growing Saskatoon berries and hence you get ample of jams, sauces, pies, ice creams - all made from Saskatoon berries. The farm has a huge nursery selling seasonal & perennial flowers, plants and trees. They have an interesting shop sells bits and odds including garden accessories, paintings and furniture. They also sell farm products and their Saskatoon berry food items. Apart from all the above, they have a lovely restaurant on site. We had a scrumptious brunch here before we toured the farm.

Head-smashed-in-buffalo jump: A UNESCO world heritage centre which showcases customs followed by native Indians for 1000s of years. Due to their vast knowledge of topography and of bisons in general, they killed these bison by chasing them over cliffs and subsequently carving up the carcasses in the camp below. They would use the carcasses to make food, clothing, jewelry, items for trade. Though the cliff itself isn’t a great sight, the interpretive centre is definitely worthy of a visit.

Waterton Lakes National Park: Also called as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, is to the South of Calgary and borders US. Infact the huge Waterton Lake is mostly in Canada (Alberta) and partly in the US (Montana). If you take a cruise around the lake, it is probably one the easiest borders to cross without paperwork (just kidding). This park is popular for wildlife including hosting a Bison Paddock. A variety of camping sites and hiking trails are available including Crypt Lake hike which is one of the most popular hikes in Canada!

On the way to Waterton or Head-smashed-in-Buffalo Jump (or Southern Alberta) and you have the time, it is worth dropping by the Aviation Museum in Nanton. This museum has a decent collection of war planes including Lancesters. The other place worthy of a mention is Cardston which is home to the Remington Carriage Museum. It is the largest horse drawn carriage museum in North America and gives a wonderful insight into travel before cars.

Apart from the above mentioned sights, there are a host of other national and provincial parks worth visiting. Apart from their sheer beauty, nature and outdoor lovers have plenty of activities they can choose from in these parks. Experiencing and exploring this part of Canada can easily take weekends off your calendar very easily.

Places of visit on map:

View Folks visit Calgary in a larger map

Folks visit Calgary

I have always lived with or been in the same city as my parents. Hence after moving out (read: after marriage), there were hardly any opportunities for either of us to stay over. Drop-ins and occasions were always there but it was a first time experience to have my folks staying over for long period of time and I was quite looking forward to it (I will ignore the one time they stayed at our place in Bangalore when I was recuperating from a surgery – it cannot be counted).

I was also a little anxious on how it would go. Firstly, I work from home these days. I would be busy with my work (teleconferences, emails, office internal messaging and MS Office – I’ve worked just using these 4 tools ever since I started working from home. It is amazing that I have had no issues in delivering what is expected of me ). But it meant no distraction or noise while I was working.

Secondly, I wasn’t sure how I would entertain them on a daily basis. They were staying for 6 weeks (Apr-May 2010). They have always been such social bees. I hardly knew anyone in this city we moved into just over 7 months ago when they arrived. Who would they call upon? What would they do everyday? Will I be able to work with them around? So many questions kept popping in mind.

Luckily for us Sharan works 10/4 so all weekends could be considered as long weekends. Hence we made an itinerary for 6 weeks with heavy-duty long weekends so that it took them most of the weekdays to recover from it :)

My folks took around a week to fall into routine. As expected, Mom took full charge of the kitchen. She was churning out different dishes three times a day - a gastronomical bliss for the rest. We managed to get Dad our friend’s spare laptop. He would get up late in the morning and then get on to his usual ‘computer’ing business. The only instruction given to both of them was that there should be absolutely no noise during my telecons – that means no using blender, pressure cooker, telephones or shower (they are really noisy in our guest bathroom), no talking loudly, so on and so forth. A difficult proposition but they followed it diligently :)

After my office hours, we would usually watch the telly for a bit, snooze for a while (yea I got into the habit, thx to them!) and then go for a walk by the river (weather permitting of course). Once Sharan got home, we would go out if there was a need (grocery, sight seeing, etc). But most days we would just stay at home watching a movie or a documentary or play Settlers of Catan – a board game we have got addicted to (also check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan).

We took them around sight seeing in and around Calgary from Friday through to Sunday. By the end of 6 weeks, they would’ve probably seen more Alberta than an average Albertan  . The net result was that my folks had hectic time (and I thought they would be bored), they got to see some really unique places and we still were left with some places of visit which they could go to - Jasper and Waterton National Parks were pretty much closed as it was still Spring and not completely opened after Winter Closure.


Some of the places visited with folks have been covered in this post - Short Trips Around Calgary

Edmonton

The Labor Day long weekend (5-7 Sep’09) was just a week away and we weren’t even aware of it. After a frantic search, we nailed down on visiting Edmonton. Sharan’s colleagues assured him that it was a bad choice. “There’s hardly anything in Edmonton”. they said. But we were determined to go and more importantly, have a good time. Sharan did most of the research by burning the midnight lamp. I just booked the hotel from the shortlisted ones for 1N-2D due to the high costs of last minute booking. We packed our bags in the last minute as usual. Sharan took hazaar (1000s) print outs of maps (which was extremely handy in the end). Luckily for us the company car was also free.

We started around 7:00AM. With a couple of brief stops, the drive to Edmonton was more or less peaceful. We reached outskirts by 10:00am and headed straight to the Queen Edmonton Cruise (not quite straight as we lost our way inside the city). Since we hadn’t had any breakfast we ordered a sandwich and some coffee/beer (you can guess who had the beer) on the cruise. It was a pleasant day, with localities either jogging along the river, or musing over life at the banks, or even playing with their pets in the water. We spotted many ring billed gulls basking in the sun as well. The cruise lasted an hour and wasn’t really money’s worth (CAN$18/- per head, http://www.edmontonqueen.com/) as it was not only slow but the path was too short because of the slowness. We would recommend canoeing or kayaking down the river as a better option for those interested.

After the cruise we checked into the hotel (very good rooms) and quickly freshened up and headed to Whyte Avenue. This place seemed to have all the buzz. We chose to have lunch at a much recommended Greek restaurant called Yanni’s. The food was indeed outstanding but with a farily slow service. But I don’t really blame them because of the rush they had. We then headed to the Winston Churchill Square. It’s adjacent to the city hall and is a huge open space with beautiful landscapes. They also have a small open air amphitheatre and in evenings a large screen is put up for viewing movies on the square for free. Most of the time latest animation movies are played here. The art gallery is close by as well.

We then headed to the Beaumont Blues Festival after a short stop at the hotel for freshening up. The festival was located in a picturesque place – in the middle of farms just outskirts of Edmonton. There were grasslands till the horizon in every direction. It started to get cold in the evening with the open surrounding and wind. The festival had some stalls at one end, a beer garden at another end (surprising to see how popular Beer is despite the cold). Most people had got foldable chairs (a must buy for us now) and fleece rugs to keep themselves warm. Though we had a mat and fleece rug, we had to drink lots of HOT coffee to keep ourselves warm. Music was of superior quality. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. (http://www.beaumontblues.net/)

Next day, checking out of the hotel early, we went to a popular breakfast joint by the high level bridge in downtown Edmonton. The food was again note worthy. After a scrumptious meal, we walked up to the legislature building which is on the other side of the high level bridge. It was a very enjoyable walk across the Saskatchewan River and back. We then visited the famous West Edmonton Mall (WEM, http://www.wem.ca/). It supposed to be the largest mall in the world. I don’t have a doubt. Hosting over 800 shops, it also has an amusement park and water park inside the mall apart from host of other things (ice skating rink, sea lion show, a ship replica, etc). We strolled around for an hour or 2, tried a hand at adventure golf and saw the sea lion show. We finally reached the water world park. This park has some amazing water slides. Slides are marked as beginners, intermediate, advanced and dangerous. I tried mostly the last 2 categories. It was tiring to climb stairs for each of the rides but it was well worth it. The wave pool was also good and the hot tub relaxed our aching bones.

We left back to Calgary after a quick and short meal around 7:30pm at Funky Pizza (nothing worth talking about). We managed to keep ourselves awake through out the return journey despite being exhausted from all the stair climbing and adereline pumping water slides. And for all those people who said Edmonton would be boring, we had a splashing time.

Link to our photo album: http://picasaweb.google.ca/akshatakaranth/LabourDayWeekendAtEdmonton

Fact File:
Edmonton is the capital of Alberta Province in Canada. The Saskatchewan River flows through its centre dividing the city into half. Though known mostly as the home of the largest mall in the world, Edmonton has more to it than just the mall. The Old Strathcona area and Edmonton Oilers (NFL) are popular as well.

Getting there: Edmonton has an international airport. Greyhound Canada buses also ply to and from various destinations. Edmonton also has a small train station. Edmonton is 300 kms from Calgary by road.
Transport: Edmonton has city buses running every 30 mins and a 10 stop LRT. Taxis are plenty.
Attractions: Old Stathcona, Royal Alberta Museum, Murrat conservatory, North Saskatchewan River, Alberta Legislature, Edmonton Art Gallery, Ukrainian Heritage sites, Alberta railway museum and West Edmonton Mall (WEM)
Getting away: Red deer, Yellowhead Hwy & Elk Island National Park are nearby places of visit.
Know more from: www.edmonton.ca or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton