We went on our first family trip to Canada from August 2-9, 2022. My husband was born in Edmonton and grew up in Blackfalds, Alberta, so we spent all our time in that province. Even though they have Canadian citizenship, our kids still needed passports, so we had to get that in order and meet some annoying Covid requirements--vaccination proof was required via the AirCan app for all but Sister, and we had to wear masks on the flights in and out of Canada--but we made it through without any problems.
We stayed at an Airbnb in Canmore while we did things in Banff. On the first day, we did the boat tour of Lake Minnewanka:
walked around Cascade Gardens that had lovely flower displays like these:
and went on a trail next to the Bow River that had art installations along the way:
and we wandered around the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel. I had looked into staying there, if only for one night, but it cost $1100 on the low end!
We rode the Banff Gondola, and the views were spectacular! You can see the Fairmont's golf course in the upper middle of the picture:
My favorite hike of the whole trip was Johnston Canyon. It was very good to get there early, and I was amazed by the engineers who found a way to safely bolt walkways to the rock walls:
Canadian family selfie:
Lake Moraine was so stunning that I got teary as I came up to the overlook:
We were ultimately grateful for the rain on the second day because it thinned the crowds and let us get parking instead of taking shuttles. But it did make us decide not to canoe on Lake Louise, which I had been looking forward to. We got this picture in front of it instead:
We took a worker's recommendation and drove 40 minutes into British Columbia to try to canoe on the aptly named Emerald Lake:
But the rain/lightning was still a factor, so we ate at the yummy Cilantro Cafe there instead. We also saw the roaring Takkaka Falls in Yoho Park:
Sister and my husband wanted to get close and got soaked by the mist:
On our way of town on the third day, Sister and 1st Brother joined me in checking out Cave and Basin National Historic Site, a hot springs area whose protection led to the Canadian national park system. The grotto was very cool:
and there was a huge paved-over swimming pool that was used by the public until the 1980s. The site was also used as an internment camp during World War I, mostly for Ukrainians. I didn't know Canada had internment camps too, and before the Japanese WWII ones in the U.S.
When walking around the grounds, we came upon this woodpecker. It was huge and one of the most fascinating animals I've ever seen in the wild:
Our next stop was the Columbia Icefield:
We drank some of the cold running water like the young adult workers said we could--the colors were pretty neat:
Before we went the rest of the way to Jasper National Park, we did a hike near the extremely powerful Athabasca Falls:
and had some happy family time throwing rocks in the water/trying to ricochet them off specific boulders:
We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Hinton because it was cheaper than staying in Jasper itself. It was about an hour away though, and I probably wouldn't do that again.
The Jasper Skytram and steep high-elevation hike that we did to start off the fourth day was a good time:
as was the 1-hour guided horseback ride we did through the forest with Jasper Park Riding Stables. Sister has taken horseback riding lessons for several years now, and we knew she would be into this:
We ended the day doing the sometimes-scary 5 Bridges hike in Maligne Canyon. Here's me near a less-frightening portion of the river:
On the morning of day five, it was time to look awesome while rafting some level 2 rapids:
If anyone ever says, "Tell me about a time when you were insanely itchy," then I'll have a good answer: "It was when I was wearing a clammy wetsuit in the direct sun for 20+ minutes while listening to safety instructions for a river rafting excursion. My whole-body eczema got very irritated by the heat and sweat, but I could do nothing about it because I was entombed by my life vest and a layer of neoprene." My itchy skin is often an issue, and my starting to take Curex allergy drops (like allergy shots) 6 weeks prior to our vacation helped set me up for some very bad times.
We did part of the Valley of the Five Lakes hike in the afternoon and saw water that reminded me of the Yellowstone hot pools:
The next morning, we made the spontaneous decision to go to the West Edmonton Mall, which is the largest in North America. It had a Toys R Us (which sadly closed in the U.S. several years ago), a cool Lego store, an indoor amusement park, ice skating rink, and this water park that also had a zipline above it:
Then we showed the kids the places where my husband grew up: the Wetaskiwin house he lived in until age 4, his home golf course, high school, and LDS church in Lacombe (which he helped build as part of the construction crew), his elementary and middle schools in Blackfalds as well as the Essie gas station where he worked, and the Blackfalds house he lived in from age 4 until he left home:
We stayed at the Drumheller Ramada Inn for our final night, then visited the very cool exhibits in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology on our final day:
My candy favorites were Maltesers (like Whoppers but better), and Maynard's Fuzzy Peaches:
The McCain's frozen chocolate cake was pretty good too:
Our best meal was at L&W restaurant in Jasper where I had some delicious chicken souvalki; there is a lot of Greek food in Alberta. Boston Pizza has many locations and was a family favorite:
It was fun to look around Canadian Tire, which is kind of like Walmart:
Most things had English and French translations. This sign made me laugh because "les chutes" is a funny thing to call waterfalls, don't you think?:
Evidence that bathrooms are called "washrooms" in Canada:
The two hotels we stayed in not only had pools but waterslides in them! I did not partake because of my horrible skin, but my husband was a good sport and took the kids. That splash is him coming out of the bottom of one slide:
Some of the woods near the roads had wire fences, and we would periodically see these wildlife crossing bridges:
We saw several elk and bighorn sheep as well as this black bear from the road:
