June 13 and 14, 2022

On Monday morning we woke up in Wabasso Campground in Jasper National Park. An elk walked right down the road in front of our campsite, perhaps looking for a place to birth her calf?

We headed south on Icefields Parkway through Jasper and stopped at Athabaska Falls.

We continued south into Banff National Park through the Columbia Icefields.

We stopped at the Columbia Icefields visitor center and drove on to Lake Louise. We stayed at the park campground, ruled by the magpies, who drove Lucee crazy trying to steal her food.

Tuesday was rainy, so we used the Park Coach Tour to visit Lake Louise and the Fairmont Lake Louise Hotel. A grand old place, but overrun with tourists brought in by coach!

We had dinner at Deer Lodge – it was excellent.

June 12, 2022

The herd of elk came through Wapiti Campground the next morning, even some calves, though they could hide pretty well in the brush. We were warned not to approach them, because a mother had attacked a person the day before. We traveled north and east to hike in Maligne Canyon, east of the Athabaska River.

Maligne Canyon is a deep gorge with “potholes” from swirling water. There are numerous hiking trails with varying difficulty. Black swifts have their nests in crevices on the canyon walls.

Continuing on the Maligne Lake Road we came to Medicine Lake, where fairly recent fire damage was evident.

We stopped at the Fairmont Jasper Lodge for coffee, a view of Lac Beauvert and another, smaller wildlife encounter.

After a drive down the Icefields Parkway and then back north on Wabasso Road we arrived at one of the nicest campsites yet at Jasper Park Wabasso Campground.

June 10 and 11, 2022

We arrived in Edmonton in time for a delicious dinner hosted by cousin Marg, her husband Adrian, and their son Andrew.

Andrew and Lucee bonded instantly, and Sylvie found a nice flat area in the lane behind their house. Adrian and Doug studied the maps and all three of them had great travel advice!

We headed west again on Saturday morning, after receiving generous gifts, including delicious rhubarb sauce from Marg’s garden.

We had a beautiful site in the Wapiti Campground in Jasper Park. The resident elk wandered around freely. After dinner at the Athabaska Historic Hotel in Jasper, and ice cream, we visited with an Irish couple in the next campsite and walked to the Athabaska River.

June 9 and 10, 2022

Before leaving Indian Head Doug tried their RV wash and had a great time trying to remove the many gigantic bugs from the bow of Sylvie. We went on to Regina, a beautiful residential town, and visited the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Center, which with its historical exhibits is very worthwhile.

We continued west on to Moose Jaw – with a name like that, there must be good photo opportunities. We were racing against the train going through Pense and Belle Plaine.

It wasn’t so easy to find a good photo in Moose Jaw, but the mural is good, and the moose finally showed up!

We drove north on Route 2 between 3 cells of thunderstorms, then west to Saskatoon, passing 2500 miles on our trip meter. We stayed at the Gordon (Gordy) Howe campground right in Saskatoon where Doug watched some local sports teams play on the Gordon Howe fields.

On Friday we continued west on Canada Highway 16 to Alberta and on to Edmonton.

June 8, 2022

On Wednesday we headed west towards Saskatchewan and another new time zone. The prairies are all about fields, trains, farms, long straight highways, dust, giant farm machinery, cattle, and …..

June 7, 2022

We continued north from Caliper Lake on the TransCanada Highway Route 11 and 71 through Sioux Narrows and by Lake of the Woods. Seaplanes are a regular form of transportation in this part of the world.

We drove through the pretty communities of Kenora and Keewatin on Lake of the Woods, then leaving there we saw a black bear!

Then on to Winnipeg, we would our way through the city to see what it is about. We were fascinated with the big Rig towing both a trailer and a car that we followed.

June 5 & 6, 2022

Thunder Bay is not the rural outpost that we had pictured in our minds. It is a huge port city near the west end of Lake Superior. Surprise! There’s a pretty bridge before you reach town in Nipigon.

We stayed at a campground near Kakabeka Falls, west of Thunder Bay where Lucee started barking like crazy – as she had not done for many months. Ha – there was a rabbit. That explains everything!

Monday morning was rainy, so we went into Thunder Bay for breakfast at Tina’s Breakfast & Lunch. We tried to find a waterfront view, but it was all commercial! So off we went west on Canada highway 11 west, into the Central Time Zone, and saw two more young moose near the highway. Sorry, no photos!

The more interesting sign said that from here all streams run North to the Arctic. Wow, really?

We continued west through Fort Francis, across the border from International Falls in Minnesota. Many homes and buildings were surrounded with sand bags and there were crews stuffing sandbags. The flooding was terrible. We were later told by a fellow camper that the spring rains were very heavy and came before the ground thawed, so much flooding ensued.

For our last night in Ontario we stayed at beautiful Caliper Lake Provincial Park. Beautiful, but buggy – huge, slow mosquitos, millions of them! We tried our netting, but it caught more squites than not.

June 4 and 5, 2022

We have heard a constant refrain, that it takes a long time to drive east to west through Ontario. We agree. We started by leaving Manitoulin Resort and heading to Espanola, Ontario.

We drove north from Sault Ste. Marie to and through Lake Superior Provincial Park, with its spectacular vistas. We spent the night at Rabbit Blanket Lake Campground in the north part of the park.

We headed north to Wawa and west towards Marathon and saw first Canadian moose in Obatanga Provincial Park and the second a little later at Moose Creek. Sorry, no photos! After waiting for a train at a crossing in Marathon we stopped for lunch at Pebble Beach on the north shore of Lake Superior.

Our last stop of the day was at Aquasabon Gorge and Falls, where a tremendous volume of water was falling, apparently a part of a hydro power system.

On to Thunder Bay.

June 2 and 3, 2022

There are many more sightings of these signs than of the beasts!

Southern Ontario is lush farmland.

With a distinctly Scottish influence.

We drove through Ottawa in the rain.

And made a quick pass through Arnprior to say hello to the family cottage road, Marshall’s Bay Lane. Fancy that, a sign!

We continued west on Route 60 through Madawaska (are we back in Maine, we keep saying, when familiar names come up) and on to Algonquin Provincial Park where we stayed at Canisbay Lake Campground.

Friday, June 3 was a long day, from Algonquin Park west on Route 60 along beautiful lakes. There are an amazing number of power lines through Canada, everywhere we have been.

We made a short stop in Parry Sound on the shore of Georgian Bay – who knew there is a Bobby Orr Hall of Fame? Bennett probably knew!

Continuing north to Sudbury, many of the highways across Canada have artwork on the bridges and overpasses. Sudbury is a mining town. We drove on to Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, a beautiful area. The sole road access is by a single lane swing bridge that opens every hour.

We stayed at Manitoulin Resort on Lake Manitou, the largest lake within an island in a lake in the world. A beautiful area with lots more to explore. Manitoulin Island is in Lake Huron, with Georgian Bay on its east side.

Doug, Judy, and Lucee the dog set out for the west from home on June 1, 2022. Ready or not, off we go. Readers and followers, please be patient as I get the blog stream set after a year away! Our plan is to meet our good camping buddies Cheryl and Dee in Alberta, then head to Alaska! We traveled up Route 26 in Maine and just past Grafton Notch in Maine we saw a young moose! A surprise in the middle of the day.

We had no trouble crossing the border from Canaan, Vermont to Hereford, Quebec with the ArriveCAN account showing our vaccination status. The Border Patrol looked at our passports, but didn’t want to see Lucee’s vaccine certificate.

We drove west past Montreal and spent our first night at a Harvest Host location, Ferme Lafleur in Saint-Telesphiore, Quebec, a cattle farm near the Ontario border.

As we left the next morning, Doug and Glen, the owner farmer, agreed on the state of the world. Glen is an experienced RV traveler and asked how much we planned ahead; we said very little. His advice was, “Good things happen when you don’t over plan.”