As a certified travel agent for four decades, an international airline employee, researcher, writer, teacher, and photographer, travel, whether for business or pleasure, has always been an important and integral part of my life. Some 400 voyages to all parts of the world, by road, rail, sea, and air, involved destinations both mundane and exotic. This article focuses on those in Canada, whose coverage spanned all 14 provinces and territories.
Labrador:
Spanning 500,000 square miles between the Atlantic Ocean and Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada, Labrador stretched farther east than any other part of the North American continent. Its geological base, formed by the ancient Laurentian Shield, was created by internal upheaval, glaciation and erosion, and is believed to resemble the surface before life began on the planet. Considered the last frontier of both Canada and the world, it was sparsely populated and virtually unexplored.
Although some places might be considered “sights” in the traditional travel sense of the word, such as the Labrador Heritage Museum, the Labrador Military Museum, and 5 Wing Goose Bay, “attractions” consisted of those that made life easier in this far north. location, specifically the seaplane base and natural topography, such as Grand Lake and the Mealy Mountains, which were observed from an elevated view on the North West River.
Road access was provided by the 530 kilometer gravel-surfaced Trans Labrador Highway that ran between Goose Bay and Labrador City. The First Nations population and rustic First Nations atmosphere were respectively reflected in shops, such as Drumdance Art and Crafts, and restaurants such as Trappers Cabin, where diners grilled their own steaks.
Newfoundland:
Newfoundland, part of the province of Labrador, was traversed westward from end to end in a rental car, from St. John’s to Clarenville, Gander and Rocky Harbor, over 700 kilometers and was followed several days later with a return.
Its various attractions include Terra Nova National Park, the North Atlantic Aviation Museum, the Silent Witness Memorial, a peaceful park dedicated to the memory of the 256 who lost their lives on December 12, 1985 in an Arrow crash. Air Super DC-8, and Gros Morne National Park, where a long hike preceded a 15-kilometre-long Western Brook Pond and Fjord boat cruise.
Gander International Airport played an important role in the early days of piston aircraft as a refueling stopover, as these planes lacked sufficient range to fly between North America and Europe, and its on-site Gander Hotel, where countless passengers regularly stayed, reflected an era of aviation with its Alcock and Brown restaurant, named for the two British pilots who made their transatlantic crossing in 1919
Cape Spear National Historic Site marked the easternmost point of North America.
New Scotland:
Accessed via Halifax, Nova Scotia was noted for the city’s waterfront lined with shops, restaurants, and museums, beginning at the Halifax Casino and the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site.
Old Lunenburg was one of only two urban communities in North America designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Peggy’s Cove, on a rocky outcrop on the eastern shore of St. Margarets Bay, was the location of the Peggys Point Lighthouse and he hosted a wonderful lunch of fresh fried shrimp at his restaurant.
Significant tourist visits occurred on Cape Bretton Island. A drive along the 185-mile Cabot Trail, located in northern Victoria and Inverness counties and looping around the tip of the island, provided magnificent views of the Cape Breton Highlands and the Atlantic, beginning at Baddeck, which in turn was the location of the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site.
Fortress Louisbourg, another Canadian National Historic Site, was the location of a quarter of the reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress.
Prince Edward Island:
Prince Edward Island, accessed via Charlottetown, was identical to Anne’s House on the Green Wires in Cavendish.
The green woods of New Brunswick, on the Bay of Fundy, offered a chance to sample local life in St. John via Kings Square and Prince William Street, another National Historic Site.
Québec:
Quebec represented French-speaking Canada. Historic sights, dinner and cakes were enjoyed in Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal), preceded by a pass to the Olympic Park.
Quebec City, whose very symbol seemed to be the Chateau Frontenac, was the only walled city in North America.
Several meals enjoyed in its bistros with European reminiscences. One highlight was an autumnal blazing ascent of his Mount-Ste Annie chairlift.
ontario:
Ontario, a skyscraper metropolis, offered attractions like the CN Tower. A tour of Lake Ontario, spending the night in St. Catharines, prelude to views of Niagara Falls and participation in its many related attractions and sights. A ferry ride to Toronto Island was followed by an ATV negotiation of its pedestrian and bike paths. A research trip on another occasion involved spending the night in Sault Ste. Marie.
Ottawa, the seat of the Canadian government, included tours of Parliament Hill on the south bank of the Ottawa River, and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian equivalent of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Manitoba:
Although Manitoba was accessed through Winnipeg and offered tourism opportunities at its Forks National Historic Site, it offered places both natural and exotic, in addition to the Hudson Bay Company’s stone fur-trading fort at Lower Fort Garry. Riding Mountain National Park, for example, was explored with a self-drive tour through its narrow dirt roads that served as arteries through the ubiquitous birch and cottonwood trees, tall, thin, and white-barked, opening up to the grasslands and the Bison Range, and a Clear Lake boat cruise was like slipping on a pure blue mirror.
Churchill, considered the polar bear capital of the world and located in the far north of the province, was a repository in subarctic Canada. A tundra buggy expedition, in a purpose-built vehicle internally fitted with an oven and externally offering a viewing platform for wildlife viewing, traversed treeless tundra to the shores of Hudson Bay, encountering woodland caribou, white geese and the same polar bears. who ironically looked at the tundra buggy with the same curiosity that its inhabitants looked at them.
A subsequent zodiac tour of the Churchill River provided an opportunity to spot beluga whales.
Other sights included the Visitor Center at Churchill Railway Station, literally the end of the line for VIA Rail Canada’s Manitoba boreal forest, and the track through the tundra. Shopping in this near-top-of-the-world outpost was done at places like the Arctic Trading Company, and dinner entrées appropriately featured arctic char.
Saskatchewan:
Neighboring Saskatchewan, with its main gateways to Regina and Saskatoon, offered sighting similarities and one notable difference. A drive up the dirt road into Prince Albert National Park, for example, revealed unspoilt views, while the area’s access and infrastructure could be studied at the Museum of Western Development. But a stay at Moose Jaw’s Temple Gardens Mineral Spa Resort provided peace for the soul and fine cuisine for the body, and a guided tour of the Moose Jaw Tunnels, an extensive system dug in 1908 and used by Chinese immigrants and during the ban, revealed the “underground” purpose of the city.
Alberta:
Calgary and Edmonton served as gateways to the Canadian Rockies, offering endless vistas of towering snow-capped mountains, a visit to Banff National Park, a tram ride up Mount Sulfur on the Banff Cable Car, and the sparkling blue jewel of Lake Luisa. The superficial study of paleontology, as evidenced by the dinosaur skeleton outside the Royal Tyrrell Museum, was introduced to Drumheller.
British Columbia:
Several stays at Vancouver’s Pan Pacific Hotel, part of the cruise terminal from which Alaska’s Inside Passage itineraries launched, became the base for British Columbia sightseeing that included Capilano Suspension Bridge Park , Grouse Mountain and Skyride, and a ferry and a helicopter. Victoria’s return to Vancouver Island. Showcasing its British colonial past, the latter included attractions such as Butchart Gardens and its Victorian architecture, and afternoon teas were still practised.
An extra trip to Whistler, one of North America’s largest ski resorts, not only offered the expected skiing, but snowshoeing, sledding, and ski jumping were also available at its Olympic Park, home of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Its chalet-style pedestrian village at the base of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountains provided modern accommodation for the night, and lunch was enjoyed after a cable car ride to the top.
Arctic and sub-arctic Canada was experienced in three territories that, spanning the country from east to west, included Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.
Nunavut:
The first, located on Baffin Island and staffed by Iqaluit, reeked of the life of a remote outpost. Located above the tree line, it offered few paths and led neither in nor out. Their community center looked like a self-contained module from Moon Base Alpha. And it was one of the few “cities” with regular air service to Greenland.
Northwest Territories:
Yellowknife, the largest population center in the Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River and about the 60th parallel, was scarred by seaplanes serving as aerial arteries to its remote communities and caribou served at the Wildcat Café log cabin, though there was food more traditional available in more modern hotels and restaurants.
Buffalo Airways, with its fleet of outdated Douglas DC-3s, Curtiss C-46 Commandos, Douglas DC-4s, and Lockheed Electras, was the lifeline of supply for the other area communities.
Norman Wells expanded rapidly due to its oil deposits.
And Inuvik, above the Arctic Circle, was accessed by the Dempster gravel road, which connected the area with Dawson City in the Yukon and made it easy to drive a day, by rented truck, to Detah, which required a short crossing. by ferry on the Arctic Red River. attain.
Yukon:
The Yukon provided an extensive and multifaceted travel experience. In Whitehorse, its largest city, it included a stay at a Klondike Gold Rush-themed hotel; visits to the Old Church Museum, the now stationary SS Klondike, the largest of the 250 sternships to have crossed the Yukon River and a National Historic Site of Canada. Other attractions included the Yukon Transportation Museum, the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center (Beringia was the subcontinent of the last Ice Age), and the Whitehorse Fish Ladder. A ride on the Copper Belt Mine Railroad, the Whitehorse Waterfront Trolley, and a boat cruise to Miles Canyon on the Yukon River served as attractions and transportation, and a performance by the Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue cemented the gold rush experience.
Side trips involved those to Haines Junction, where a stay at the Raven Hotel, owned and run by Germans who prepared the daily breakfast and cooked each individual dinner, and Kluane National Park, a subarctic nature reserve.
A trip down the Alaska Highway past Carcross led to the US border and Skagway, Alaska for a ride on the famous White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad.