Our memorable bucket-list tour – our fifth from Grand Circle Travel, took four years due to Covid that closed the borders. It began in Calgary, Alberta, and ended in Vancouver, British Columbia, including stops in Banff, Kamloops and Kelowna. Our 36-member tour group came from 13 states and Australia.
Our tour guide, Eric Hall, has been with Grand Circle over 20 years. He lives in Kelowna and was extremely knowledgeable about every aspect of our tour stops and the entire itinerary. Our driver, Martin Dennis, from Montreal, also has been with Grand Circle but this was his first time on this route.
The trip included many beautiful sights – stunning scenery of lakes, mountains and glaciers that are melting more rapidly due to climate change. Among the daily highlights: we had a brief visit to the Calgary Zoo and a longer one to the majestic Central Library. We then met informally with our tour guide & group, sharing backgrounds. A brief walking tour of downtown included views of the ‘tunnels’ connecting buildings several floors high for all during bad or hot weather.
Our tour of Calgary included a lunch stop on the revolving restaurant on the 626-ft-tall Tower – tallest building in the city with great panoramic views. We also visited the 1988 Winter Olympics headquarters with a photo stop. En route to Banff, we stopped at the Boundary Ranch, a dude ranch also the site of many TV shows & movies.
We had a morning visit to the Buffalo Nations Museum with a wonderful, guided tour of every indigenous Plains Indians’ life-size Rockies’ mammal – from the very small ferret to the large grizzly and black bears. Our afternoon trip to Banff Gardens on Bow River included a 7,614-ft-high Gondola ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain with panoramic views of the entire area.
After a stop at stunning turquoise Lake Louise, one of the most photographed in the Rockies, we had a morning sail on Lake Maligny with a brief stop on Spirit Island, sacred to many of the local indigenous bands. Our long drive to Jasper included an unforgettable walk on the Athabasca Glacier on the Columbian Ice Fieldthat may be gone in 15 years due to climate change.
A memorable talk by indigenous speaker Joe Larie, who used local pelts, skulls & antlers to frame the history of many local bands who had lived in the area. Our trip to Kamloops included views of both the Canadian Pacific Railroad, completed in 1886 and the Canadian National Railroad, opened in1912, making the city an important transportation hub. Along the way we saw an overpass model for local wildlife to go safely over the highway.
Our trip to Kelowna included a stop at one of the oldest Residential Indian Schools in the Rockies. Like the U.S., indigenous children were taken from their homes and schooled in church-run schools – forbidden to use their language or styles of life. In Kelowna, we had a morning visit to the Hillcrest Farms Market & ChelTY Orchard with owner-operators Chanchal & daughters Dilray & Davida Bal. At home, our cherries at the local supermarket were from Kelowna! That afternoon, we were at the Gray Monk Winery, one of more than 100 using Lake Okonagon as their main water source for their vineyards.
We had morning visits to Penticton and then Peachland for a nice lunch after visits to an old 1898
Schoolhouse and new Art Gallery, with informative talks. That evening we had a nice dinner cruise on Lake Okonagon. As we went from Alberta to British Columbia, the high-peake Rockies became the low-humped Casdade Mountains! Our tour of Vancouver included a stop at the Sun Yat Sen Oriental Garden with house, rocks and greenery transported from China and re-created here. That afternoon in lovely Stanley Park Garden, we had our walking tour with a stop at the Totem Poles representing indigenous bands, for a group photo. That evening we had our farewell dinner and said goodbye to our new friends.
This was one of our more unforgettable trips – with many photo memories – We have much in common with our Canadian neighbors!
(Steve Traiman is president of Creative Copy by Steve Traiman and can be reached by phone at (727-798-4746 or via email at traimancreativecopy@gmail.com.)