Our Trip to Banff (Part 7 and last)- Back to Banff, On to Calgary

We got up to a free hotel breakfast Saturday morning and then decided to back-track into Banff to pick up a few of the attractions that we missed yesterday. This is the main entrance into Banff National Park.

As we drove toward Banff again it started to rain :(. Really?? We were convinced that Banff was cursed- the weather had been fine in Canmore! We branched north onto the Bow Valley Parkway and headed to our first destination, Johnson Canyon, just west of Banff. We figured we'd sit in the parking lot and scowl at the sky for a bit in the hopes the sun would come out again. With luck there would be a Visitors' Centre or coffee shop to wait out the weather. There was nothing but washrooms in the parking lot, though, so we sat in the van.

And luck was with us, because within 30 minutes of arriving at Johnson Canyon the skies did clear up and the sun did come out. Yay. And we were amused that as we headed down the path to the canyon just beyond the trees there -was- a coffee shop/souvenir shop, so we could have been waiting out the rain in comfort.

I had done some research the night before on Johnson Canyon to decide if it was worth back-tracking for and though all reviews raved it was excellent, there were also several comments about how the walkways, riveted onto the side of the canyon, might not be best for those with a fear of heights- eek. But, no, they were fine. Sturdy and not see-through- thank you, Banff National Park. Because the view from the walkway did get quite deep after awhile!

Johnson Canyon was gorgeous, though, and well worth a trip back to walk through. There was an upper falls to walk to and a lower falls. We decided just to go as far as the lower falls, since the trail to the upper falls was longer and steeper and still slick from the rain.

The lower falls was very pretty and you could go through the hole in the rock in the background there to get an even closer look at the falls.

And, look! It's our furry friends the chipmunks hanging out in the rock junction between the upper and lower falls, playing as shamelessly for the tourists as the fuzzy guys at Lake Louise and the Athabaska Glacier.

Johnson Canyon was a beautiful walk and I am grateful the weather decided to co-operate on our last day in the park. I didn't know this woman below beyond a nod and a smile, but I liked her hiking spirit.

We stopped at the coffee shop for lunch and I bought my last handful of souvenirs and then we headed back onto the Bow Valley Parkway toward Banff for a final walk at the Vermillion Lakes. While going down the very narrow road we suddenly had to navigate a crowd of cars haphazardly parked on both sides of the road. We had come to learn that such situations meant one thing- a wildlife sighting. Sure enough, just off the road there was a -huge- elk with a stately set of antlers and a dozen tourists tryng to take his picture. We had come to learn that if anyone seemed to be randomly pointing a camera at a rock or tree instead of the incredible mountain vista behind them it usually meant there was some kind of animal to be found :).

Still, in our four days in the park we had not seen a bear. With the research I had done and the number of warnings throughout the park you'd have thought we'd be bumping into them everywhere :). Believe me, I was quite content not to run into a grizzly bear, and we had stayed off deep woods hiking trails to guarantee that fact, but John is now quite convinced they're mythical :). Rather like the moose in Newfoundland that we were told were everywhere, but we didn't see any during our trip there, either.

Our last stop in Banff was at the Vermillion Lakes, just north of Banff in sight of the highway. Very pretty and the sun made an appearance just in time to let me see that it doesn't always rain in Banff.

Very peaceful, very scenic and hardly any people (or bears). A lovely way to end off our time in the park.

From there we bid adieu to Banff and headed out onto the highway for Calgary, which was only about two hours away. We settled into our airport hotel, spent some time in the hotel hot tub, walked across the street for dinner and then collasped knowing we had to be up at five the next morning for our flight back to Toronto.

An amazing week. Banff is spectacular.

Our Trip to Banff (Part 6)- Banff

After leaving Yoho National Park we headed east down the highway toward Banff. We planned to spend the rest of the day there before heading to our hotel in Canmore for the evening.

One of the things I liked along this road were the wildlife crossings. I'd read about them before, but never seen one. They are bridges Banff Park has built across the busy highway to protect animals such a elk, deer, bears, wildcats. There are tall fences all along this stretch of highway and then several crossings that go under the highway or over the highway for the wildlife, like the one above.

By the time we got to Banff it was raining and it pretty much just kept raining for the rest of the day. The weather forecasts had predicted rain by the end of the week, so it really wasn't much of a surprise. We kept heading to all the places we planned to go to, but it was a bit challenging for photgraphy.

First place we headed was downtown Banff. Of everywhere we went in the Banff area, downtown Banff was the busiest. We got some lunch, checked in for some tourist ideas at the Visitor Centre and then hit the souvenir shops. John had been looking for a new hat all through the park and finally found a hat he was really happy with. Kind of an Indiana Jones thing- I like it, too!

One of the teachers I work with said she spent several summers working in downtown Banff and one of the most iconic sights in the park for her was standing on Main St. in Banff and looking down to see the majestic mountains at the end of the street. So I had to do that, too, so I can tell her I did.

The rain kept up relentlessly, but we headed on to our next attraction, down Main. St., across the Bow River and then over to Bow Falls. Chateau Banff was in this area, too, but we didn't get a chance to go in.

I was always disappointed trying to take photos in the rain, but sometimes I would look at the mountains in the rain or look at my photos later and it would give me pause. The mountains in all their moods were astonishing to look at. Rain and mist and clouds just made for different, formidable and gorgeous patterns around the mountain ranges. I remember thinking the same thing when we explored the Jasper Tramway in the rain. You can see Bow Falls above.

This is Surprise Corner on the opposite side of the Bow River. It's called that because the road comes down out of the city, turns sharply and then opens up onto this gorgeous vista with the mountains, the river and a marvelous view of Chateau Banff. So I was in a grumpy mood that the rain and overcast skies were ruining my iconic photos, so John turned the camera on the two of us and I had to see the humour in it all. Who cared about perfect photos when we were in Banff! And in the mountains! Getting rained on in Banff in the mountains! So, yeah :).

Last attraction we went to see in B|anff were the Hoodoos. Hoodoos are tall, thin spires of sentimentary rock protected by harder rock on top. We could kind of see them through the rain, but they were cool to look at.

After that, we decided to get out of the rain by striking forward to Canmore to find our hotel. Canmore took us out of the Banff Parks, though we would return there once more the next day before heading on to Calgary.

Our night in Canmore was low-key. It was still raining, so we bypassed the river and the trails and the pedestrian bridge made from an old railway bridge and wandered around downtown, instead. We checked out second-hand bookstores, electronic shops and then had excellent sandwiches and coffee in a small out-of-the-way restaurant.

I liked these sign-posts  in front of the Canmore Museum pointing out the nearby mountains.

Back in our hotel we puzzled over where to spend our last day in the area and after considering the Canmore area and the Kananaskis area just south of where we were, we decided we would go back into Banff National Park to pick up a few of the sights that we had missed today. And I'm glad we chose to do that.

We'll finish up this report next time.

You can see the rest of my photos of Banff and Canmore here: Banff

Our Trip to Banff (Part 5)- Lake Louise and Yoho

We got up early Friday morning, headed to a deli for bagels and coffee, and then drove north to the actual Lake Louise. Very pretty and peaceful and at that time of day there were only a handful of us roaming around the shore. The water was an extraordinary opaque blue-green, but because it was overcast and misty in the mountains it was hard to get those picture postcard photos.

Chateau Lake Louise was right on the edge of the lake, too, and we walked through and I bought a Lake Louise t-shirt. The crowds started growing as we wandered about and we had a few fun encounters.

This was a typical moment- lots of people in the parks would ask you to take their picture or would offer to take a photo for you. John and I took a lot of the "Here, get close, and I'll turn the camera around and take a picture of the two of us together!" photos, but in Banff that usually meant someone would come over and offer to take our camera from us to take our picture :). When I first got to the lake a lady who was by herself asked me to take her picture and she told me she was from Taiwan. We told her we were from Ontario and she looked confused, so we explained we were from eastern Canada. Her face lit up and she said, "You're from Canada! You are lucky! So lucky!". It's good for me to remember that :).

Further down the lake I ran into a woman who was communing with some really adorable chipmunks. I tell you, the "Don't feed the wildlife" signs are all over Banff, but the chipmunks and squirrels are so ridiculously tame everywhere you go that it's clear they've all been playing up to the tourists since birth. The woman was feeding the chipmunk unsalted peanuts and she asked me if I would feed him a couple of peanuts so she could snap some photos.

Yeah, this guy was climbing right up my jeans. Ridiculously tame, but undeniably cute. It wouldn't be our last time with tourist-entertaining chipmunks this trip. Note, too, the Clark's Nutcracker on the rocks. These grey birds were hopping all around Lake Louise, too.

As the crowds started getting bigger, we hopped in the van and headed west toward Yoho National Park. It was cool we were going to get to a -third- national park during our trip and, even cooler than that, the border between Banff National Park and Yoho National Park is also the border between Alberta and British Columbia, so it was my first time in British Columbia!! Whee!! Which means I've been to all ten Canadian provinces now, except Saskatchewan. Though I'm not sure if Nova Scotia counts, since we just stopped at the Halifax airport there on the way home from Newfoundland.

Yoho Natioanl Park is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, so being that Canada's national park system is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year (and Banff National Park was our first national park) I guess Yoho was around awhile before it became a national park. Also interesting, "Yoho!" is a Cree phrase that expresses awe or amazement. Perfect for this park.

Here was our first Yoho stop, The Spiral Tunnels. Railway lore looms large in the Banff area and The Spiral Tunnels are a series of switch-back tunnels that spiral through the mountains. Supposedly if you stand at this look-out long enough you could see a long train coming out of one of the upper tunnels while the caboose is still going into one of the lower tunnels. We didn't get that lucky. One other thing- take note of the highway in this photo- we travelled west on this highway into Yoho and then back east along it to head back to Banff. Now, look at the photo below:

Same highway twelve hours later. Holy cow. We were watching TV news in Calgary two days after we left Yoho when they showed scenes of this mudslide on the main highway in Yoho National Park. We drove this road 11 in the morning- the mudslide happened 11 that night causing major chaos and detours most of the next day. You see the avalanche warning signs on roads all over the area, but, man, that picture (taken from an Internet newsite) brings it home. Here's the article I pulled that photo from: Mudslide Closes Trans-Canada Highway

Anyway, still avalanche-free, we continued down the highway to the small town of Field, where we walked around a bit and checked out a few stores. There was also a Vistors' Centre in Field which had what had become my favorite chain of stores in the parks- the "Friend of the Parks" stores. They were a series of souvenir shops set up in Visitor Centres in all the Banff Parks. I came across the first one in Jasper, where I bought this sweatshirt:

Cute logo, John bought a hiking hat with that logo, too, and I really liked the fact that not only were the souvenirs in their shops less expensive than most other places, they were also often hand-made and better quality, plus a portion of all sales went back into maintaining the parks. By the time I hit Yoho and Banff I was specifically looking for "Friend of the Parks" stores to buy my souvenirs.

Our last stop in Yoho was Takkakaw Falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in Canada. "Takkakaw" is another Cree word that means "it is magnificent". And it was.

From there we turned back east and headed out of Yoho, back into Banff National Park, past Lake Louise and onward toward the town of Banff. Our afternoon in Banff can be described in one word- wet. But more on that next.

You can see the rest of my Lake Louise and Yoho photos here: Lake Louise and Yoho

Our Trip to Banff (Part 4)- Glaciers and Lake Louise

We left Athabaska Falls and continued down the Icefields Parkway until we got to our next stop, the Columbia Icefields Glacier Adventure. We had gotten tickets for this attraction the day before in Jasper, too. On one side of the highway you can see the Visitors' Centre where you catch the bus to start the glacier adventure. On the other side of the highway you can see the Athabaska Glacier itself.

The Centre starts you off in a regular tour bus that takes you across the highway and down to the edge of the glacier. The bus driver gives a running commentary on glaciers and moraine and the geology of the area.

Once you get to the edge of the glacier you transfer onto a second bus with huge wheels equipped to deal with travelling acrosss the terrain of the glacier. As the bus travels slowly to the center of the glacier the driver continues the commentary about the area, plus a series of safety rules that must be followed once you leave the bus to walk on the glacier. Stay inside the blue pylons. Don't walk behind the buses. Common sense stuff.

That's our ice bus. Once you get off the bus you have 25 minutes to explore the glacier and, believe me, that's enough, because it is, not surprisingly, incredibly cold on top of a glacier, even in July. We had been told that glacier water was OK to drink, and I had intended to try that, but once I realized how cold it was I decided to fight the icy wind to snap a few photos and then keep my hands in my pockets!

We walked on a glacier- yay. Then we piled back into the two buses back to the Visitors' Centre where we bought more souvenirs and had a bite to eat. We noticed that this glacier visitors' centre was by far the busiest and most crowded place we had come across in our trip to Banff so far. We hoped it wasn't a sample of the rest of the trip to come (and in most cases, it wasn't).

We got back onto the Icefields Parkway then and headed straight south to Lake Louise. And somewhere on that stretch of road we left Jasper National Park behind and entered Banff National Park.

Once in Lake Louise we headed right to our hotel, which was easy to find. I was surprised at how small the town of Lake Louise was. We pretty much walked everywhere from our hotel and the main area of town was a small cluster of stores and restaurants, plus a Visitors' Centre, that seemed quite a bit smaller than Jasper. There was a residential area that we didn't get into, though.

Settling into our hotel we had our next major encounter with Banff wildlife (though we both had seen deer on the way to Maligne Canyon).

That's our hotel- we were on the first floor there where the lady is standing. Everyone bunched in the corner there were looking at some of the cutest little varmits we'd seen yet. A little girl (the balcony lady's daughter)was feeding sunflower seeds to little animals that looked like mini-gophers. A man with authority nearby told me they were marmots, but later we were to learn that they were actually Columbian ground squirrels.

The girl and the woman spoke Russian and neither of them knew English, but the woman talked to the girl and then gestured to me when she saw me trying to take photos and the girl came shyly over to me and offered me a handful of the sunflower seeds. I sat down on the grass with her and we fed the two or three ground squirrels and took their pictures. Very cute! Later in the day when I came out onto the balcony again the girl was still there gesturing down at the grass. I figured her two or three furry buddies were still there, but when I got to the edge she was courting about ten of the fuzzy guys! A regular Columbian ground squirrel whisperer.

We walked out into Lake Louise that night, had some dinner, checked out some more gift stores and discovered that the prices were way higher than we were used to! Touristy area, indeed. A bag of John's favourite Coffee Crisp bites that we would buy for $3 at home were selling for $7 here. Eek. Still the area was laid-back and pretty and, surprisingly for mid-July, not crowded.

And here is the view from the parking lot of our hotel that night. Again, just amazing mountains.

Next- Seeing the actual Lake Louise, and my first trip to British Columbia!

You can find the rest of my glacier photos here: Jasper National Park

And you can find my Lake Louise photos here: Lake Louise

Our Trip to Banff (Part 3)- Rain and Snow and All Points Between

We knew we wanted to take a gondola up a mountain sometime during our trip in Banff, it was just a matter of when and where. There are major gondolas in Jasper and Banff and we discovered one in Lake Louise, too. Now, all my long-term weather forecasts suggested that we might see more rain late in our trip so it seemed to make sense to book the gondola earlier in Jasper. Everything I had read had said don't do the gondola on an overcast or rainy day as the visibility can't compare to a sunny day. So we had crossed our fingers when we had bought tickets on the first gondola up the mountain on Thursday morning.

And then we woke up to rain. And grey, overcast skies. I was incredibly, bitterly disappointed, still the tickets were already bought and it was still an adventure, so off we went to the Tramway.

The picture above was actually taken on Wednesday afternoon when we went to buy the tickets. See? Clear skies. By the next morning, not so much. So huddled in our sweatshirts with three or four other hearty tourists we boarded the first gondola of the day and headed up the mountain. Here's the view we saw most of the way up:

Yeah :). You can kind of see the Athabaska River down there and beyond it the town of Jasper. Surprisingly, though, by the time we were going up in the gondola we were in good spirits about it all and taking the wet adventure in stride. We were still going up to the top of one of the Rocky Mountains! Our tour guide was fun and she and John told jokes back and forth.

The visibility at the top of the mountain was absolutely nil, white as far as the eye could see and actually it was pretty cool. The whole atmosphere has this misty, other-worldly feel to it, like we had drifted into some kind of fantasy novel. We had breakfast in the chalet and watched the mist from out the window and then braved outside long enough to go on the short boardwalk around the top of the mountain.

That's the tramway/restaurant behind John there. We were the only ones who risked the trail while we were there, but, hey, we had to say we did it, right?

It turned out our very friendly tour guide on the way down the mountain was from Toronto! She told us she was spending the summer in Alberta and working at the Tramway. Awesome summer job.

At the bottom of the mountain we headed  south onto Highway 93 with our next hotel being in Lake Louise. Highway 93 from Jasper to Lake Louise is also known as the Icefields Parkway and has a reputation for being one of the most scenic highways in the world. And it was. Along the entire 200 km. there was an endless display of mountains, gorgeous turquoise lakes, small waterfalls and rivers that were just stunning to look at.

We had two stops planned on our way to Lake Louise and the first of them was Athabaska Falls. Flowing off the Athabaska River, it's one of the biggest and most powerful falls in the Banff area.

Luckily, by the time we hit the Athabaska Falls the weather was starting to clear up, too, which would become typical in the mountains. The weather could change on a dime- sometimes it would start to rain on the road and a kilometre down it would be blue and sunny. We learned to roll with the weather punches.  Athabaska Falls were very pretty with craggy rocks and sea-green opaque water. There were walkways above and below the falls and viewpoints out over the Athabaska River.

Then we headed back south along the Icefields Parkway toward the Columbia Icefields Glacier Adventure. And that's where we'll pick up next time.

You can see the rest of my photos in Jasper National Park here: Jasper National Park

Our Trip to Banff (Part 2)- We Finally See Mountains!

When we first started planning this trip about six months ago we knew we wouldn't be able to stay away more than about six days. As I did my research of the Banff area the trick became to see just how much of the Banff area we could get through in six days. Seems most people fly in through Calgary, as that is the closest airport to the mountains, but we came to realize that driving from Calgary to Banff, Lake Louise and then further north to Jasper couldn't happen in six days if we were also going to backtrack and fly out of Calgary again. That's when Edmonton came into the picture, even though it's a further away airport. By flying into Edmonton we could drive through Banff in one direction and then fly out of Calgary a week later. And since the trip from Edmonton to the mountains is twice as far as coming from Calgary we decided to do that stretch at the beginning of our trip while we were still fresh. Also, there would be the excitement of driving the longest stretch -toward- the mountains, so we'd have something to look forward to.

And so we headed out from Edmonton for Jasper. And Highway 16 was really nice, not too busy, and picturesque even before the mountains were in sight.

But actually -getting- in view of the Rocky Mountains for the first time, well, that's one of those life-defining moments and it lived up to the hype. As we travelled into Jasper National Park we were in proper awe. The mountains started cropping up all around us and I spent the first half-hour switching off between John's 3-D video camera and my own still camera to capture as many scenes as I could. It would take me awhile to realize that there wouldn't be a place I would be standing or driving for the next four days that wouldn't be a breath-taking panorama of mountains.

We stopped at the Jasper National Park gate and paid a three day admission, that would also allow us to travel freely through Banff National Park and Yoho National Park later in the trip. My parents had given me a hard-cover photo book of Canada's national parks for Christmas (Canada's Parks are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year) and there was a coupon in that book for a free day in any national park that we finally got to cash in.

We passed the first two attractions we wanted to go to, Miette Hot Springs and Maligne Canyon, on our route to our hotel in Jasper, but we'd backtrack later in the day to get to them. It was onto Jasper first.

We pretty much fell in love with Jasper on first sight. In fact, of all the towns and cities we saw during our trip it was my favorite. It was quaint and rustic and laid-back and it never seemed too busy or over-crowded, even in the height of tourist season. That stripy building with the pointy roofs above was our Jasper hotel. It was also an older building and quaint and the friendly staff gave us a room right away even though we arrived four hours early.

This was the view from my hotel window. I never got over the fact that I could see mountains from every hotel room window where we stayed :). It was nice that we got to settle into our room early, because it meant we could head off for the rest of the day to take in attractions in Jasper National Park.

We started by heading to the Jasper Tramway, a gondola that goes up to the top of a mountain. We had decided to take our gondola trip first thing the next morning and have breakfast on the mountain before heading off down the Icefields Parkway toward Lake Louise. Choosing Thursday morning for our gondola ride would be a fateful decision, but more on that in turn. We picked up our morning tickets and moved on.

We travelled next to Maligne Canyon, a hugely impressive channel carved through the rock by the Maligne River. Now, I must say I've always had some fear of heights, especially above water, but I am -grateful- that everywhere I went in the Banff Parks the bridges and canyon trails I travelled were very sturdy, and, most significantly, NOT SEE-THROUGH. Many such trails, bridges and stairs in Ontario are made of metal mesh, so you can see the height right through your feet and such trails just set my irrational phobias soaring. There were no trails in Banff, despite a lot of height and vertigo, that triggered my fears much. Which is good, 'cause we were crossing bridges over canyons that looked like this:

Impressive, like whoa. Maligne Canyon also had fossil displays and a gift shop, where I bought a fridge magnet and then John warned me I couldn't get a fridge magnet at -every- place we went to because we were running out of room on our fridge, so it was the last fridge magnet I bought until Banff :).

Moving right along we headed back down Highway 16 to Miette Hot Springs. Now I know the three hot springs are very popular attractions in Banff, but we weren't really interested at first. Still, more and more people kept putting them on the top of the list of places we should visit in Banff, so curiosity got the better of us and I figured the hot springs in Jasper would be much less crowded than the hot springs further on in Banff. To show how infrequently John and I tend to go swimming, both of us had to buy swimsuits in Richmond Hill especially for this visit to the hot springs.

I am so glad we decided to go to the Hot Springs! It was wonderful to sit in the warm water on such a gorgeous day with stunning mountains all around us. The pools were all different temperatures, so we started in a warm pool and then moved to an even hotter pool. So relaxing!

And it was right outside the Hot Springs that we encountered our first Banff wildlife! Mountain goats! About six or seven of them wandering about the roadside munching on grass. I especially liked this little guy.

Back in Jasper we had some dinner, did some shopping and I bought a Banff National Parks Hoodie, as I was already starting to sense that breakfasting on a mountain in the morning might prove to be chillier than first expected. And then since it was still early evening we went to the movie theatre to see "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows- Part 2" and it's cool I'll always be able to say I saw the last Harry Potter movie in Jasper. As always, my first viewing of a movie based on a book I know so well was a love/hate experience, but we're going to see it a second time (in 3-D) now that we're home again.

Next: the Jasper Tramway, Athabaska Falls, walking on a glacier and the world's most beautiful highway.

You can see all my photos of Jasper National Park here: Jasper National Park

Our Trip to Banff (Part 1)- Edmonton

We got up bright and early in Richmond Hill, made our way to the airport, where we arrived in Edmonton around noon on July 19. Yay! It was my very first trip to Alberta and I would pick up one more new province before the end of the trip, but I get ahead of myself. Our game plan on the first day was to make our way to a hotel on the western outskirts of Edmonton, which would put us right on Highway 16, so we could head off to Jasper National Park first thing the next day. In the meantime, we planned to explore a couple of attractions in Edmonton.

We started by heading north of the city to "Jurrasic Forest", a new Edmonton attraction featuring animatronic dinosaurs set up along two short hiking trails. John had his heart set on doing something dinosaur-y while we were in Alberta and being that it was on-route this seemed like a fun place to check out.

The park was actually a lot cooler than I had first surmised. It is clearly designed for dinosaur-crazed kids (big and small), but the animatronic dinosaurs were well done and were set off by sensors triggered by people that were walking down the paths. It was surprisingly atmospheric to come around corners on the trails and see huge dinosaurs moving in the distance. The trails were pretty, too, with lots of flowers and sign-posts giving information about the dinosaurs and the wildlife in the park.

The day was gorgeous and warm, too, something we were to learn in the mountains we could never take for granted. The park was crazy busy with LOUD kids and it seems to be a popular destination for summer day camps. It was fun and a great way to start what was to be five days packed full of attractions.

We headed to our hotel after that and continued to get the lay of the land. For one thing I was surprised by the weird traffic lights in Alberta- they're sideways! In Ontario traffic lights are vertical, with the three lights on top of each other. In Alberta, the three lights are horizontal, side by side. John tells me he's seen them like that in Quebec, too, but I haven't been to Quebec since I was quite young, so I don't remember. We had a quick bite to eat and then headed for the West Edmonton Mall.

West Edmonton Mall, of course, is advertised as "the biggest mall in the world", so we had to go and take a peek. In general, though, we were kind of underwhelmed by the experience. As others had warned me the largest mall in the world is still essentially... a mall. Yes, it had a swimming pool and an ice rink, big movie theatres, an amusement park and an aquarium and stage for sea lion performances (the last two which were closed, because it was evening), but mostly it was three levels of stores not all that different from what we already knew in Toronto.

That's John in Galaxyworld, the large amusement park in the mall. Anyway, we're glad we went and can say, "been there, done that". We ate a couple of yummy green tea puff pastries and then headed back to our hotel. The next day would be the longest drive of our trip and our first look at the mountains!!

You can find the rest of my Edmonton photos here: Edmonton You can click on any of the photos above to see them larger.

Next: Jasper National Park!