All was ice, white curving fingers spilling from mountain valleys. Dark lines of ground rock defined each icy highway
KLUANE NATIONAL PARK AND RESERVE, Yukon – I’ve been a geography nut since I was a kid. My noggin is full of useless facts. In pre-metric days, I memorized details of the world’s highest and lowest: Mount Everest, 29,028 feet; Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, 35,814 feet. As a proud Canadian, I knew that…
Discovering Virginia Falls, a remarkable UNESCO World Heritage Site – and learning a little German
ON THE ALASKA HIGHWAY – In German, weichei means soft egg. It defines a person’s character. In Canada, we call them wimps. Charly Kudlacek is from Frankfurt in the German state of Hesse and, as eggs go, is hard-boiled. We met Charly and his wife Marion in a remote campground at Summit Lake on the…
Comfy beds and incredible food await after a long, fulfilling day
As we gaped in awe at Talc Lake, a deep blue expanse hanging above Egypt Lake in the distance, a passing hiker said to us, “It only gets better.” Better than this? we wondered. How is that possible? In the vista before us, a waterfall ribbon from Talc seemed to put the cherry on top…
Jasper's spectacular ski resort may offer slopes less travelled but it certainly deserves wider attention
Cue the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Duct tape a sombrero onto your helmet. Find a half-burned cigarillo (good luck!) to chomp on. The bad boys have arrived at Marmot Basin, Alberta’s quieter, family-friendly Rocky Mountain ski resort in Jasper National Park. These new rascals are Tres Hombres – a series…
The view along the Fundy Trail offers something at every compass point – crashing waves, rocks, hills, forests, waterfalls and streams
This is the first of a five-part series on travel on Canada's East Coast. On my recent trip to New Brunswick, I finally drove the Fundy Trail and saw Fundy National Park. It inspired me to sell the province a new tourism slogan. The slogan, worth millions, is “Get Off The Road!” I’m also considering…
Forty years ago, it was a deserted ground, tinged in sadness. Today, the region is enriched with spirit and purpose
Forty years ago, in 1978, my wife and I agreed to cap our first year of marriage with an adventure. We decided to follow in the paddle-strokes of good friends who had just kayaked to what was then called the South Moresby archipelago of the Queen Charlotte Islands. We chose the first two weeks of…
The popularity of Canada's parks and protected areas is creating problems that will require more than simply banning people to solve
Canada’s national parks are having a big year. It’s both a blessing and a curse. In July, the parks and historic sites saw nine per cent more visits than they did in 2016, which experienced 24.6 million visits for the year. And that was a big jump from the 23.2 million in 2015. In one…