Canada & Alaska
Travelling Through Canada & Alaska May 2009 - my excited group of 23 awesome Australians, many from rural parts of Queensland, departed Sydney on Air Canada bound for Calgary, Canada to begin our 26 day custom built tour. We began the adventure taking a day to look at the rural areas north of Calgary toward Red Deer, including a cattle sale, feedlot and ranches. Heading for the snow capped beauty of the Rockie Mountains, we stayed in beautiful Banff for 2 nights before moving onto divine emerald Lake Louise and on along the Ice fields Parkway to Jasper. Here we joined the Skeena Train on route to Prince George, a timber harvesting and woodchip production town, and onto Prince Rupert on the West Coast of Canada. From here we took a day tour out to the Khutzeymateen Inlet, something not to be missed. Here, we viewed grizzly bears in the wild from the safety of our motor launch. After a short flight to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island, we toured down the island, through the mural town of Chemainus and onto stately Victoria. More time here would be recommended.
Don’t miss the magnificent 55 acres of the Butchart Gardens and arrive early before the bus crowds. The huge BC Ferries took us across to Vancouver where we explored this fabulous cosmopolitan city with its alluring Granville Island, a living, breathing oasis filled with fine waterfront restaurants, theatres, galleries, unique shops, cafes, spectacular markets including the most amazing fresh seafood market; Stanley Park, an evergreen oasis of 400 hectares (1,000 acres) close to the downtown core. Busy sea planes continuously taking off and landing on the harbour are another spectacle.
Off we set for Anchorage, Alaska to begin our trip into the wondrous Denali National Park where one is very fortunate to view Mount McKinley, better known as Denali and the highest peak in North America, as the clouds regularly like to hide it from view.
Next, we made our way to Seward where we joined the Carnival Spirit to cruise south viewing spectacular Fjords, Sitka, Juneau, Skagway & Ketchikan before the spectacular Inside Passage into Vancouver. As we disembarked early in the day and flights not until late pm, we took a privately arranged scenic bus tour to Whistler for the day, delivering us at the airport late evening. The cruise was a fabulous relaxing climax to an eventful journey and prepared the group for their return flight to Australia with so many stories to tell.