Tag Archives: Canada

Easy going day as we head back towards Canada down the Alaskan coast

Today there was really not much to do, which I find odd since there were so many activities all the other other days. We crossed back into Canada at 2 and stopped into Prince Rupert around 6pm. The itinerary says we visited the “Worlds Largest Cold Storage Plant” but I really really don’t remember that (and I’ve got no note of it in my journal). I see from my journal we did go down and visit the engine room and wheel house of the ship.

Okay, so I’ve checked my journal and the photos and I appear to have zero photos from today, which is weird. I’m wondering if something happened to a roll and I have no pictures until the day after tomorrow (or if I’ve mixed something up in the order of photos?). Regardless, as I said yesterday, I have things that did not get posted so I’ll share some of those today.

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A few more shots of the Glacier Bay area for you.

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One of the ranger’s that came on board to talk to us about Glacier Bay.

I forgot to mention the size of the glacier’s yesterday. The Margaree Glacier is a mile wide, 200 feet tall and thirty-five miles long! That’s huge.

Me all dressed up for the Captains Dinner
Me all dressed up for the Captain’s Dinner

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A view off the back of the ship as we pull away from Glacier Bay.

The Man of Steel
Dressed up as Superman for the costume contest. I made this costume!!!

I did win a T-Shirt for this costume, it said “First Mate”! So yesterday was a super busy day: we had Glacier Bay, the Captain’s dinner and a costume party. Why some of these weren’t saved for the next few days, I’m not really sure.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

All around and about the Princess Patricia

So we left Vancouver yesterday evening and we’re on our way to Alaska aboard the Princess Patricia. From the itinerary we’re in the Seymour Narrows and Johnstone Strait and then through Queen Charlotte Sound and the Grenville Channel. I probably wouldn’t have gotten any of those correct on a quiz (or a map!). We’re still in British Columbia for the whole day since I know from our itinerary that the first stop tomorrow morning is one of the first towns on the coast of Alaska so we must cross over in the middle of the night.

Princess Patricia Info
Princess Patricia Information

I must have been up late last night since after breakfast I went back to bed until noon. I’m liking the food! For breakfast I had pancakes, sausage and corn flakes; for lunch pork (chops?), french fries and apple cheesecake. Today we have to fill out our “name bingo” cards while collecting the names of other passengers.

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Menus I saved and the passenger list. The passenger list also had the ship info (above) and the ship’s officers and how to understand the insignia’s on the uniforms.

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A breakfast menu (with a little breakfast on the menu!).

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You can see the lunch menu is labeled “Day 4 L” in the lower right corner, so that must be the standard fare for the fourth day.

I appear to have not taken any photos this day. That seems weird. I’ve still never found the photos from the 110 camera that was mentioned in my journal earlier (in Calgary or Edmunton). I do have a few photos of black and white (the rest of the trip was color slides), but they’re of Alaska so that’s not it. But it’s a half a roll, it’s like I shot half and took it out of the camera to put color in (which I’ve done before).

From my journal:

5:35 PM – In the solarium right now, the view is great, it’s on the top floor of the ship and you can see all around. The view is great, the clouds above the trees on the mountains can’t be more then 400 or 500 feet above water levels. It’s real neat. [How did I not take any photos?!?]

7 PM – Just finished going to the captain’s cocktail hour. Drank a couple of ginger ale’s. A few of the guys got a little drunk for the champagne. [Not sure if they snuck it or it was offered since we were at sea?]

The movie for the night was “The Champ” which I said was just as good as the first time I saw it.

Room key
The coolest key of the whole trip!

We must have been a little loud because at midnight I wrote that Mr. Kuhn kept coming in the room (“a million times”) to tell us to go to sleep so we could get up in the morning.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

Vancouver and on to Alaska

So we ran around the Vancouver area today. I can’t remember what all the photos were but I’ll try to piece it all together. We did get a tour of the University of British Columbia campus (I really don’t remember this part). I did go over to the registrar’s office and get a college guide and a course book. I also found another arcade(!) which is really funny that I’ve mentioned this a few times in my journal, I really don’t recall playing any arcade games the whole time.

Totem Pole Vancouver Canada

So I have no recollection of the guy below playing the accordion, but it’s in my journal with his name and the notation that he was supposed to be playing the bagpipes (and he told some jokes).

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Sandy Stewart playing the acordian.

Vancouver

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This might be Stanley Park.

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The above are just some assorted shots of Vancouver. Not even sure where I took most.

From my journal:

“5PM – Just saw the Cleveland Dam, it’s pretty neat. Earlier we saw the Capilano Suspension Bridge and went across it.”

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I’m going to guess this is the Caplilan Suspension bridge!

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Some of our group posing for me.

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That’s me!

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Here’s the Cleveland Dam.

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Looking down from the top of the dam.

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This was in the middle of the dam photos, I’m guessing it’s looking down the river(?)

From my journal (with no photos, sorry):

“Stopped in Chinatown for about fifteen minutes and drove through Gas Town with is all gas lamps.”

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Leaving Vancouver behind.

Speaking of the ship:

“9:15 PM – The ship sure is dinky. The rooms are pretty small too. The food ain’t bad on the boat.”

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Sunset on the ship.

We boarded the ship at 7 PM and at 8:30 PM it set said through the Inside passage on it’s way to Alaska.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

To the University of British Columbia

Today we left Kamloops and headed over to Vancouver. It was a pretty normal day and I talked to my mom on the phone; multiple other days I’d made notes that I couldn’t reach her (where were you mom?!?) I probably wrote it down so I didn’t get in trouble for not calling, answering machines were still pretty new sparse back then. Plus, I helped some of the seniors with their luggage; while that was something listed as something we would do, it wasn’t an everyday thing (I even mentioned whose luggage it was).

On the way to Vancouver

Taking a break on the way to Vancouver
Taking a break on the way to Vancouver

From the trip itinerary it says we’d see Fraser Canyon, Hell’s Gate and the Alexandra Suspension bridge on the ride (but honestly I really don’t remember any of that, I’ll have to see what I have photos of).

To protect from Avalanches?
You’ve got window glare (sorry!) but I wanted to show those structures to prevent the road (or rails) from avalanches (I guess?)

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Train

We stayed at the University of British Columbia (the rent the empty dorm rooms out like a hotel) and it really made an impact on me. I liked the campus and I really liked the way that the dorms were set up. I even went over and got a course description guide while I was there.

The dorms are rented out in the summer and the rooms are really tiny ($9 adults and $7 for kids). The bonus of this was that for the first time all trip I’ve had room of my own, so this was extra enjoyable to me! I’m an only kid so sharing a room, let alone with strangers wasn’t really something I was used to.

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Walter Gage Residence at U of BC

So the way our dorm, the Walter Gage Residence, was set up was that each floor had four “wings” and each wing had eight rooms: a bathroom, a living room/kitchenette, and six small (private) bedrooms. It seemed to me the building was kind of new at the time. I even sketched up a diagram, I’ll take a photo and add it.

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The layout was great (this is one of the four wings), you had “roommates” but you had your own room and a common area. You can see the building is kind of square so the drawing isn’t to any kind of scale.

Room layout
This the single room layout and that’s the door at the top. You can tell that I really liked the room setup here, I even added the shelves and lamp.

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This is from Roger’s Pass which we would have passed through today (I think). It came in a nice sealed case.

I mentioned in my journal that I’d gotten a lot of those commemorative coins, which is what I was thinking the other day, but I think I only have three of them. I’ll have to look in other places but all of this Alaska trip stuff has been in the same box for years.

Here’s the important part: We board the ship headed to Alaska tomorrow!!!

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

From Chateau Lake Louise to Kamloops!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough time at Chateau Lake Louise we were up at 7 am and out of there by 10 am. I did get a chance to take a few more pictures before we had to take off. It really was a beautiful area!

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There is no question that he was posing for me!

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I do have a copy of the final group photo somewhere, I believe he gave it to us as an 8″ x 10″ in black and white. I’ll have to find it, I’m hoping it’s with a few other items I can’t find that I think I know where they all are. But I’ll probably have to scan it to do it justice.

Group Picture
This is a group picture we were trying to take before leaving. Obviously we aren’t ready, I’m not it it yet!

I’m not sure which portion of the background is the glacier? But I know a portion of it is. Maybe most of the middle “mountain”? I didn’t actually take a photo of the hotel, but you can see part of it at wikipedia (From the description, it looks like they added onto it)

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I liked the room key here, it kind of folds up to be less bulky!

Here’s a few more photos of the area(?) and on the way to Kamloops. Even with these photos in chronological order, it’s still hard to tell when events change sometimes. With my digital camera I quite often take photos of signs so that I know what something is. But what I really want is GPS built into all my cameras so I really know exactly where I took my pictures. That also makes for some fun options to have software automatically place them on a map. WIth that said, these photos are from between Chateau Lake Louise and Kamloops (and maybe Vancouver, but hopefully not).

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A train bridge in the distance.

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A little glare on the window for this one, but I liked the view!

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Kamloops was pretty small but I really remember it being a tough town (I know I mentioned something about Calgary, but I didn’t remember that and it was before I was here!). It was a regular town (not a tourist town and not a big city at all), but I remember making fun of it in a variety of ways: “Kamloops, the only place the 24 hour A&P closes at 11pm”, we thought that was hysterical. We also thought Kuhnloops would be a good nickname for Mr. Kuhn, I guess Fruit Loops mushed with Kuhn and the town Kamloops made it all funny. We were kids, okay?!?

It was really hot, I wrote that “it hit 96 degrees here today” and while that was Canada, I’ll assume that was in Fahrenheit. This was our least fancy (not at all fancy) hotel all trip. I don’t need “fancy” but this one stood out as “not like the others”…

One very “not vacation” thing we did was to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark which I’d said in my journal that “Raiders was just and good and the first time!”.

It wasn’t very much of an Independence Day but we were able to cope :)

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

Chateau Lake Louise

Today we left Calgary on the bus to head to Chateau Lake Louise. The itinerary says “After leaving Calgary, gradually, the foothills gain height as you rider and almost before you know it, you are in the mountains”. He wasn’t kidding. I took a lot of photos on the ride over

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The above are mostly pictures from the ride and I’m sure in a few you can see the reflection from the window. But it pretty much matches the description that Mr. Kuhn mentioned in the itinerary!

10am
Got to Banff National Park.
Went to visit the “bee-u-tiful” Banff Springs Hotel and took pictures.

12:30pm
Lunch after riding on the bus some more at A&W.

2pm
Arrived at the Chateau Lake Louise.

I’m pretty sure that I wrote “bee-u-tiful” because that’s how Mr. Kuhn said it. Mr. Kuhn was a great guy that ran the trip and a bit eccentric at times but he put on a great trip.

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The above pictures are from the area around the hotel. The latter ones (certainly from the vertical ones on) are from the hike up Mt. Victoria. That last one would be where we stopped to get tea (probably Coke for us!) at some point on the hike.

3:15pm
Hiked up to the tea house and waterfall four-and-a-half miles up Mount Victoria.

8PM
Had a great dinner in the Victoria Dining Room. Wore my jacket and borrowed a tie from Jeff.

I don’t know what was a great dinner to me back then? Hamburgers and ice cream? Also, I can’t remember why I borrowed a tie from Jeff, maybe I liked it better? Did I not take one? I’ve actually found a few pictures of Jeff and friended him (I think it’s his Facebook that I found) so that I could send him some of the photos (but he hasn’t responded!).

The Chateau Lake Louise was a beautiful location to stay at, it seems to me the rooms were pretty tiny (as many old hotels are) but it was great location and I do remember climbing way way up while were were there. It was beautiful and great to be in the forest climbing around and taking pictures.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

Visiting Calgary, Canada

So we left Edmonton by bus and pretty much “goofed around all day” after we got to Calgary.

Waiting for the bus to Calgary
Our group waiting for the bus to Calgary

Calgary Canada

Calgary bus ride
These are on the ride from Edmunton to Calgary.

The last two photos seems a little high for a bus but downtown seems a little empty if they are from the hotel window…

In Calfary, we stayed at another Sheraton.

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If my memory serves me right, my room was number 308…

We got to Calgary in time for lunch and had lots of time for goofing around (as stated above) but I’m not sure what we did. I know I really liked the big cities and I’d never been let loose in downtown Detroit so I probably wandered around everywhere and anywhere I could.

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Before this trip all I knew about Calgary and the Calgary Stampede (which I think we missed by less than a week) could have been summed up in this story in the Uncanny X-men.

If you read X-men you are surely nodding your head in agreement. If you didn’t read X-men you scratching your head in confusion. I was HUGE into X-men at the time and I’ll always connect Calgary with this X-men/Alpha Flight crossover (Alpha Flight was the Canadian super-hero team that Wolverine was from).

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Calgary Tower

From my journal:

8:00 pm – Went to dinner at the four seasons and then went up the Calgary Tower. Great view, took lots of pictures. Rough town, almost saw a fight a couple of times.

And here is a few of the photos from up high a little reflection from the windows but it’s bearable.

View from Calgary Tower

View from Calgary Tower

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Views from the Calgary Tower.

The Calgary Stampede
I believe this is where they held the Calgary Stampede.

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$1 commemorative coin for the Calgary Stampede.

While I was on this trip Canada was issuing a variety of $1 coins for certain events and locations. This one has Guy Weadick on it, not sure if they had multiple different ones for the Stampede for that year or just one person a year. For some reason these coinds felt more like collectables than our current 50 state quarters currently do. I though I’d gotten quite few on the trip but I can only find two…

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

A day in Edmunton, Alberta – Canada Day

After another night on the train we eventually arrived in Edmunton, Alberta.

VIew from the Train

VIew from the Train

VIew from the Train

FYI, the slide scanning was done at CostCo and I’m not really impressed but the quality. Yes, the slides are old but they were stored in plastic bags that were tied shut and stored in a box. But it’s CostCo, I probably could (and should) have gotten a refund and tried them somewhere else.

In Edmunton we stayed at the Sheraton Caravan. Most of the hotels we stayed at on this trip were pretty nice, if I recall correctly.

It was Canada Day so I mentioned that “most stores were closed”. But I did buy a poster at a mall, but I have no idea what kind. Was it of Edmonton or nothing to do with the trip at all?

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I have an assortment of key souvenirs from this trip.

From my “journal” which is really just some pages of loose-leaf paper –

Noon: Explored the city when we were supposed to go on tour because others were late. Turns out everyone eryone else didn’t go on tour either. Found LOTS of arcades. (If I recall correctly, I think some of the kids took off since we were tired of waiting, but since the tour fell through, I don’t think we got in much trouble).

Later on that day we went up to the observation floor of the of Telus Plaza which was called Vista 33 and it also happened to be a telephone museum. I really don’t remember much from the telephone museum, but I obviously thought it was cool enough to purchase two of the souvenir coins they had. I was into tech then, so I’d have thought it would have made more of an impression. Speaking of tech, I’d had my first computer job all lined up for my return. As soon as I got back I was to start work at the Family Computer Center selling computers and teaching classes (which was owned by the same folks who owned The Doll Hospital and Toy Soldier Shop).

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I specially mentioned that it was a “great view but I only had my 110 pocket camera” so this means there are more photos than just the slides that I have. I know where there are a few B & W prints from the 33MM camera, but I wonder where those shots from the pocket camera are?

We did a “tour” of town via subway which I thought was “stupid” and since I generally (at least now) like trains and subways I’m assuming it was stupid in that it was something put together quickly to make up for the earlier screwed up tour and it wasn’t much of a tour.

The other thing that I remember is there seemed to be huge amounts of construction of tall buildings downtown here and in Calgary (we go there tomorrow). This made a huge impression on me, Detroit had a lot of tall buildings by where I lived (Berkley and the surrounding area) most building were only one to three floors, tall buildings were the exception, there were lots in these cities. Even now in Detroit if you go up in a tall building there are so few tall buildings in the distance you can generally figure out where the are located.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.