Is It Time For A Vacation Yet?

[1-Kinney Lake]

This photo is of Kinney Lake in Mt Robson Provincial Park in British Columbia taken near the Berg Lake Trail at approximately the 7 km mark. The upper portion of the Berg Lake Trail is the Snowbird Pass Trail, a place I would dearly love to go to but am currently unfit for such an undertaking.

Now that mid-February has arrived it is time to start thinking of locations for summer vacations, and my thoughts immediately transcend to the Rockies...of where I might like to go for a week or two.


[2-Mt. Norquay and Bow River]

Of course, there is always the town of Banff nestled just inside the Rocky Mountains with many local sights to visit with mimimal exercise required. An easier hike is the trail up to what used to be the old fire tower on Tunnel Mountain.

Contemplation is half the fun.

Photo Credits: [1]-Alaskan Dude CC=flickr; [2]-Satoru Kikuchi CC=flickr. Click to enlarge.

Hiking Trails - Sawback Trail - Day 7

[68-Great-Horned Owl. This bird lives in a varied habitat of woodlands, desert and urban areas. With a voracious appetite it hunts squirrels, rabbits, snakes, skunks and geese. Click to enlarge.]

The Sawback Trail follows the rugged Sawback Range from the town of Banff to Lake Louise over a distance of 74km (about 45 miles). The trail is rated moderate to challenging.

On Day 7 the hike will be passing over Pulsatilla Pass (2545m) to the Wildflower Campground (Ba15) covering an approximate distance of 10 km after leaving the Badger Pass Junction Campground (Jo29) at the 43.5 km mark.



[69- Up to Pulsatilla Pass - click to enlarge]




[70-Going to Pulsatilla Pass]




[71-Sign direction - click to enlarge]


There are open meadows and larch stands enroute to Pulsatilla Pass.



[72-Wildflowers - click to enlarge]





[73-Hiking up to Pulsatilla Pass - click to enlarge]




[74 - Looking back and south. Click to enlarge.]

On the ascent to Pulsatilla Pass, stay left beneath the glacier draped cliffs of Pulsatilla Mountain and follow the trail that climbs to the obvious low notch.


[75-Pass - click to enlarge]




[76 - click to enlarge]




[77 - Almost to the top]




[78 - click to enlarge]


Pulsatilla Pass with an altitude of 2345m is a large open area with many vistas. A large alpine lake sits above treeline at the north end.


[79 - View of Pulsatilla Pass - click to enlarge]




[80 - Pulsatilla Pass looking south- click to enlarge]



[81-View from Pulsatilla Pass]




[82]




[83 - Looking north to Pulsatilla Lake. Click to enlarge]



[84-North to Pulsatilla Lake]




[85]





[86 - Forget-me-nots - click to enlarge]




[87 - click to enlarge]




[88 - Pulsatilla Lake]




[89 - Pulsatilla Lake - click to enlarge]




[90 - Hoary Marmot -click to enlarge]



[91 - down Pulsatilla Pass]


The trail is very rough and steep here, dropping down the narrow Wildflower Creek valley to Baker Creek and the Wildflower Creek campground (Ba15). This is where the hiker's compass, map and route finding skills will come in handy.



[92 - Rocky Mountain Goat wih kid - click to enlarge]



[93- Downy Woodpecker. These are the smallest of the woodpeckers in North America. The males have a red patch on the back of the head. - click to enlarge]




[94 - Yellow-rumped Warbler can be found in the summer across the north and western portions of North America, and in the fall it migrates south to Central America. It eats insects, spiders and berries. This bird prefers a habitat of coniferous and mixed woodland, parks and gardens. - click to enlarge]




[95]




[96 - near Wildflower campground]

TO BE CONTINUED

Sources:
ParksCanada – Banff
Backcountry Overview
Trail Conditions
Backpacking Equipment Checklist
http://waputik.tripod.com/gdt_sawback.htmGem Trek maps for Lake Louise and Skoki
Gem Trek maps for Banff and Mount Assiniboine
HI Hostels Intl Survival Guide
A Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Michael Vanner (2006)

Photo Credits: [66][93]-Chris and Lara Pawluk CC=nc-flickr, [69][73][74][85][86][87]-meganpru CC=nc-flickr, [70][72][76][78][79][80][81][82][84][88][91][95][96]-lafalott CC=nc-sa-flickr, [71][75][77][83][89][90]-Kris Griffon CC=nc-sa-flickr, [92]-Silvain de Munck CC=nd-flickr, [94]-ru_24-real CC=nc-nd-flickr.

My Town Monday - Conditions in the West in 1872

In July 1874, Samuel Steele began his trip west in service with the North West Mounted Police with the rank of sergeant-major from Manitoba. The NWMP was formed due to the state of lawlessness that pervaded from the territories of the United States to the south into the North-West Territories of the Dominion of Canada (recently acquired from the Hudson’s Bay Company). Large numbers of reckless men made their way north and did what they pleased. No restraint had been made against them with the result the Indians were in possession of weapons and “fire water” in exchange for buffalo hides and furs. The interlopers from the south moved into Canada setting up stockades as protection from the Indians.

Although the Indians’ numbers had been reduced from the effects of smallpox, they were still powerful and capable of inciting wars.

The province of Manitoba in 1873 was small, not extending more than 100 miles west of Winnipeg. The land west into the North West Territories did not have any justice of the peace. Any travel across the prairies was fraught with danger.

[Fort Edmonton c. 1856 by Paul Kane]

Close to Edmonton and the east slope of the Rocky Mountains the Indians were friendly. The Rev. George McDougall, a Methodist minister, had established a mission in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Any person traveling from the Calgary area through the country now occupied by Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, and across southern Saskatchewan needed an escort of armed men.

Prior to the formation of the NWMP the Hudson’s Bay Company posts had difficulty maintaining their trading posts south of the Red Deer River. There was continuous warfare between the tribes, enhanced by the abundance of whisky brought in by traders south of the Red Deer and South Saskatchewan rivers. When the Indians burnt down the Old Bow Fort on the Bow River, the Hudson’s Bay Company built Mountain Fort (Rocky Mountain House) to pacify the Blackfeet who were determined to keep white and red intruders off their hunting grounds. Whenever the natives met at Fort Edmonton for trade, the Crees and Blackfeet would fight, causing the occupants of the fort to close the gates until the fight was over. There were many massacres at Forts Carlton, Pitt, Edmonton, and Mountain. Any Indian who boasted of his ability to take horses and scalps was considered virtuous by members of his tribe. Wherever there was plentiful hunting, the Indians would massacre any intruder found in those locations. The Metis hunters and others of the Red River settlement never ventured west of Moose Jaw, except in well-organized armed bands.

One of the stockade posts in the west (southern Alberta) was Fort Hamilton or more commonly known as “Fort Whoop-Up” at the fork of the Belly and St. Mary’s rivers. It was well fortified with braced heavy logs with log partitions, heavy log roofs, iron bars across chimneys to prevent Indians’ access, a thick gate of oak with a small opening to trade through. Inside, the trader stood at the wicket with a tubful of whiskey next to him, and when an Indian pushed in a buffalo robe to him, he would hand out a tin cupful of the ‘whiskey’. A quart bought a horse. When spring arrived, wagonloads of the hides and furs were escorted to Fort Benton, Montana, about 200 miles south.

'Whiskey' and 'firewater' are terms to be used loosely as it was made up of the following ingredients: alcohol spiked with ginger, molasses, red pepper, coloured with black chewing tobacco, watered down and boiled.

Photos of Fort Whoop-Up here.

TO BE CONTINUED

Part 1

Sources:
Forty Years In Canada by Col. Samuel B. Steele, 1915, Herbert Jenkins Limited

Photos: wikipedia

Travis Erwin from Amarillo, Texas is the founder of My Town Monday. For other locations to visit please go to Travis' site here.

My Town Monday - Samuel B. Steele

[1 - Samuel Benfield Steele]


Samuel Benfield Steele (5 January 1849 to 30 January 1919) was a famous member of the North-West Mounted Police and in later years a distinguished soldier. (This post and the next cover only his early life in the military and the NWMP as it relates to Canada.) He was the fourth son born to Elmes and Anne Steele (2nd marriage) in Medonte Township in Upper Canada. His family had military connections and in 1866 he joined the militia at the time of the Fenian Raids.


[2-The Red River Expedition below Kakabeka Falls by Frances Anne Hopkins circa 1877]

In 1870 he participated in the Red River Expedition that had been authorized by Sir John A. MacDonald to confront Louis Riel and the Métis at the Red River Settlement (near current Winnipeg, Manitoba). The expedition was headed by Colonel Garnet Wolseley (later Field Marshall Viscount) when he joined them at the Sault. The military crossed through a Canadian route as the U.S. government refused them access over U.S. soil.

The troops were required to transport all their provisions, weapons including cannons over hundreds of miles of wilderness. In each of the boats the loads weighed about 4,000 pounds made up of: barrels of biscuits, flour, pork, sugar; tea chests, sacks of beans. cases of potatoes, ammunition boxes, arm chests, ball pouches, tents, soap cases, candles, boat nails, and one bottle of mosquito oil. At numerous portages special roads were required to be built with logs over muskeg (swampy areas). The one place they did not portage was the Winnipeg River, where the rapids and cataracts had to be navigated. This trip was undertaken during two months in summer heat combined with swarms of blackflies and mosquitoes.


[3- Voyageur Canoe Passing Waterfall by Frances Anne Hopkins 1869]

Steele made note in his biography of a voyageur carrying two barrels of pork and 1,000 rounds of ammunition with a combined weight of 528 pounds without showing any distress.

When the troops arrived at Fort Garry, they found Riel had abandoned it.


[4-Upper Fort Garry - early 1870s]

At that time, Winnipeg, was located half a mile north of Fort Garry with about forty houses, lining the Stone Fort trail (now the main street of Winnipeg). There were: nine stores, three chemist shops, one saddlery, one hardware store, several saloons named “Hell’s Gates”, “The Red Saloon”, etc.


[5-Three Piegan Chiefs by Edward Curtis 1900]

Shortly before Steele had arrived with the military contingent at Fort Garry, smallpox had been spreading in the far west from the Missouri River to the North Saskatchewan River. The disease had been brought into Montana by a merchant who had left a blanket on a Missouri steamboat from St. Louis, the blanket in turn being stolen by an Indian. He caught the disease and spread it through his tribe which killed them. A war party of Bloods who had gone to steal horses, found no one alive, took the horses and as many buffalo robes as they could, not realizing their mistake. The disease spread throughout all the Indian tribes: Peigans, Blackfeet, Crees and Stonies, and then to the plains hunters, the employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company and missionary families. The chiefs of the Blackfeet nation were gone, leaving few capable of leading their people. One tribe whose lodges had numbered 2,000 in their main camp, with each lodge containing eight persons, was reduced to one-tenth of its number.

For the whisky trader who had brought in the contagion to the North West Territory (as the Canadian prairies were then known), a member of the military, Lieutenant Butler, undertook the duty to prevail upon him “that British law was supreme”. Butler travelled there and back on horseback and by dog train over 2,700 miles to perform his task. [What Butler did to the whisky trader is not revealed in Steele’s narrative, though a book The Great Lone Land is mentioned.]

TO BE CONTINUED

Sources:
Wikipedia -
Forty Years In Canada by Col. Samuel B. Steele, 1915, Herbert Jenkins Limited

Photo Credits: [1][2][3][4][5]-wikipedia.

Travis Erwin from Amarillo, Texas is the founder of My Town Monday. For other locations to visit please go to Travis' site here.

My Town Monday - Grand Hotels of the Canadian Pacific Railway

When the Canadian Pacific Railway was built between 1881 and 1885 it became the only connection between eastern Canada and British Columbia. The CPR, as it is known, built several ‘grand hotels’ across the country in varying ‘chateau’ styles: the Chateau Frontenac, the Banff Springs Hotel, the Royal York Hotel and the Empress.



The Chateau Frontenac was opened in 1893 after its sister hotel, the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff did 1887. William Cornelius Van Horne, the newly appointed president with the CPR, envisioned a string of grand hotels across Canada to draw visitors from abroad.

According to Wikipedia:

“The Château Frontenac was named in honour of Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, who was governor of the colony of New France from 1672 to 1682 and 1689 to 1698. The Château was built not too far from the historic Citadelle, whose construction Frontenac had begun at the end of the 17th century.”

Two historic posts about Louis de Buade can be found here and here.

The Château Frontenac, like its sister hotels below, has Old-Fashioned Tea . Hours of operation are June to October, Thursday to Saturday, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Reservations are required.

The original Banff Springs Hotel became such an immediate sensation among the tourists that the CPR encouraged the federal government to establish the first national park.



The Banff Springs Hotel with its unique blend of opulence and seclusion has been a symbol of Rocky Mountain magnificence for more than a century. Styled after a Scottish baronial castle, the Fairmont Banff Springs offers stunning vistas, golf courses, skiing, classic cuisine and a European-style spa. I can provide a personal recommendation for staying in this luxurious hotel. There is nothing quite like this magnificent hotel with the surrounding pristine wilderness. For those visiting Banff and the surrounding area it is a wonderful experience to take Afternoon Tea, available daily, Monday to Friday from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The price is quite reasonable, starting at $32Cdn.




The Royal York Hotel opened on June 11, 1929, with 28 floors made it the tallest building in Toronto at the time. State of the art, the hotel had ten elevators, a radio in each of the 1,048 rooms, and what we take for granted now: a private shower or bath in each room.

Something new I was unaware of: in 2008 the hotel installed 3 beehives (three queens and 40,000 workers) on the 13th floor rooftop terrace to produce the chefs with 700 pounds of honey.

All the original Canadian Pacific Railway Hotels had afternoon tea, and the Royal York Hotel has continued this tradition but with an additonal treat: a tour of their Rooftop Garden on the 13th floor. The afternoon tea and rooftop garden tour began on May 23, 2009, continuing every Saturday and Sunday afternoon until September 6, 2009. The tea menu can be seen here. Reservations are required, and subject to availability.







The Fairmont Empress Hotel is considered to be the oldest and finest hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. This Edwardian, chateau-style hotel was designed for CPR Hotels as a terminus hotel for the CPR steamship line terminal a block away. It opened in 1908, with additional wings being added in 1909, 1914 and 1928. Later when the CPR ceased its passenger service, the hotel was successful as a tourist resort in the 1920s.



The Empress Hotel has always had an afternoon tea service in the summer months with sandwiches, fresh scones, preserves and Jersey Cream in its ‘Tea Lobby’. Reservations are required.

The Tea and Garden Package which includes one night accommodation, an afternoon tea and a round trip motorcoach tour to The Butchart Gardens. Prices start at $239Cdn during the off season and is subject to availability.

Some years ago I attended one of these sumptuous tea services at the Empress and found a similar delightful atmosphere at the Claridges Hotel in London, England. Purely divine.

Update:
Travis Erwin wanted to know the distances between these hotels.
The Chateau Frontenanc in Quebec City, Quebec is about 313 miles (504 km) from Toronto where the Fairmont Royal York Hotel is.

Toronto, Ontario is about 1,746 miles (2,811 km) to Banff, Alberta where the Banff Springs Hotel is located.

And the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia is about 395 miles (635 km) from Banff, Alberta.

For anyone wanting to hotel hop this is a long way to go.

Photo Credits: Wikipedia.

Sources: wikipedia – frontenac , http://www.fairmont.com/frontenac,
Wikipedia – Banff Springs Hotel , http://www.fairmont.com/banffsprings,
Wikipedia – Fairmont Royal York, http://www.fairmont.com/royalyork,
wikipedia – Canadian Pacific Railway
Wikipedia – Canada’s railway hotels
Wikipedia – The Fairmont Empress Hotel , http://www.fairmont.com/empress.

Travis Erwin from Amarillo, Texas is the founder of My Town Monday. For other locations to visit please go to Travis' site here.

Bar U Ranch

[1-click to enlarge]

The Bar-U Ranch became a historical site on December 31, 1991 to preserve the history of the ranching industry and its contribution to the development of Canada. The site is 148.43 hectares / 367 acres.

Located in the foothills of southern Alberta near Longview (SW of Calgary) the Bar-U Ranch was established in 1882, one of a small group of very large corporate ranches in western Canada. Others included the Cochrane, the Oxley, the Walrond and the Quorn. This ranch was one of the best managed of the large ranches through several owners and served as a training ground for many cattlemen.

[2- Harry Longabaugh (Sundance Kid) and Etta Place just before they headed to South America]

Through its history many “colourful characters” are associated with the ranch such as John Ware, the Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh) in 1891 at 25 years old was a working ranch hand [photo], H.R.H. Edward Prince of Wales and two of four who founded the first ever Calgary Exhibition and Stampede: George Lane [photo] and Patrick Burns.

[3- a sculpture, donated to the Friends of the Bar U Historic Ranch Association and Parks Canada by Mr. Bert Sheppard, is a representation of an incident in the life of George Lane as depicted in a 1914 watercolour "George Lane Attacked by Wolves" by Charles M. Russell]

From 1881 to 1902, Fred Stinson and the North West Cattle Company practiced open range ranching. Initially a few buildings were confined to one area, and gradually Stinson added more buildings, corrals and fences. During 1902 to 1925, the Bar-U achieved international repute for breeding quality cattle and purebred Percheron horses.

[4- Range set-up]

During the Burns era (1927-50), the Bar U was part of a multi-ranch cattle operation. An experienced and resilient owner, Burns piloted his ranches through the depression, cutting back operating expenditures and investing in long-term improvements. Much of the ranch's infrastructure became redundant as he scaled down the Percheron operation. Several buildings were adapted to store grain, which was grown in huge quantities during the Second World War. The Bar U remained one of the largest ranches in the country until 1950, after which date the executors of the Burns estate sold land to other ranchers.*

[5- Chuckwagon where the ranch cook made meals and doctored injured cowboys]

While most of the large ranches of the 1880s went out of business in the early 20th century, the Bar U has survived to the present day.


Sources: *Parks Canada


Photo Credits: [1][5]-Sabel CC=nc-sa-flickr, [2]-wikipedia, [3]-ecstaticist CC-nc-sa-flickr, [4]-outofsocks CC=nc-sa-flickr.