The alarm went off this morning at 6:30 am, but we were both already awake, still not quite there in our sleep patterns. Vancouver was already bright and blue and warm as we ate our final breakfast at The Sylvia Hotel, before checking out and catching a taxi with a friendly and chatty driver back to the airport.
There the check-in process was quickly over, and we were through into the domestic departures lounge, waiting for our flight to Whitehorse. Nerves started to kick in. Not just my normal, pre-flight nerves (I must stop watching programmes like Air Crash Investigation), but apprehension about travelling to a place of which we know relatively little, and so far from what most would call civilisation. I don't know what I'm getting us into.
We boarded an aeroplane that seemed to be full of Canadians who knew each other, and boy do Canadians like to talk. It was just non-stop yapping as we took off and flew north over the Coast Mountains, heading into the unknown. A snack was served; sandwiches, ham and cheese or turkey and bacon, which put me in mind of Bruce's dire creations on the train from Prince Rupert to Jasper in 2010. These, though, were so much better. After two hours of flying, and a very bumpy descent (through which the Canucks babbled incessantly, even though the flight attendants themselves looked a little nervous), we touched down at the Erik Neilsen Whitehorse airport. The captain told us the temperature outside was 21°C, with clear skies.
We entered the arrivals area and waited for our suitcases by a luggage carousel in the centre of which two stuffed caribou locked horns. Suitcases retrieved, we left the airport and were picked up and taken to our next hotel, the High Country Inn, by the complimentary shuttle service. Having been booked in, we got to our room where we finally unpacked our suitcases, three days into the holiday.
Whitehorse is the capital city of the Yukon, and the largest town in northern Canada. The town seemed to come into existence simply because it was the bottleneck for all the traffic - rail, foot, and river - pouring into the region for the Gold Rush. Prior to this it was an area where the territories of various First Nations tribes overlapped. As with many places in north-west Canada, the Second World War had a big impact on the fledgling Whitehorse (then White Horse) when the US military decided they needed a road to transport troops and provisions between Alaska and the rest of the USA, and so built the Alaska Highway through it. The town gets its name from the White Horse Rapids on the Yukon River, said rapids no longer in existence thanks to hydro-electric dam works.
After we'd unpacked it was out into the town to explore (for "explore" read "find a liquor store"). It was about 3 pm by now, and blazing hot. You have to realise that at a latitude of 60° north, the southernmost point of the Yukon is further north than any part of the British Isles except for the Shetland Islands, and Whitehorse is even further north than those. Yet today the temperature reached 24°C. The first thing we spotted was the S.S. Klondike (actually the first thing we spotted was one of the very few roundabouts we've ever seen in Canada, which is already causing me palpitations for when we pick up a vehicle in a few days). We took a few pictures of the ship (and one of the roundabout) just because the weather was good, but we'll be returning to it more fully later in the week.
It seemed quite quiet as we walked along Second Avenue, one of three or four really major roads through the town, but then it is Sunday, and most places are closed (we did find an open liquor store though). We found the station where we will pick up the train to Skagway on Wednesday, then looped back through the town spotting different eating places and useful landmarks. At the hotel we'd asked if there were any plans for Canada Day tomorrow, and had been told of a parade that would march through the town, so we found the route that was going to take so we could plan somewhere to stand.
Then we came back to the hotel and had a couple of beers on its famous deck (called The Deck), apparently the most popular meeting place in Whitehorse. It was weird sitting in the blazing sunshine and realising that not only are we almost eight hundred miles further north than we were this morning, and over three hundred miles further north than we were when visiting Peace River in 2008, but that this is the furthest point north either of us has ever stood (or, at the time, sat) on this planet. It made me feel giddy and slightly disorientated. And we have much further north to go yet.
For our main meal tonight we'd decided to visit Antionette's. This is a restaurant we saw only a week or so ago on the Food Network's You Gotta Eat Here, a show presented by John Catucci who looks at restaurants all over Canada. It was one of those instances where, knowing so little about Whitehorse, we saw a TV programme about something happening there and latched onto it. Antionette's serves - wait for it - Caribbean food. In northern Canada. And it's fantastic. We even spotted the lady herself, talking to locals just outside the kitchen. You really do have to eat there.
Tomorrow, Canada Day. Not really sure what to expect in terms of celebrations apart from the parade I mentioned earlier, but as we were getting ready to go out tonight I heard a sound I never imagined I would hear in this part of the world.
Someone was practising bagpipes.
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Day 2 - Stanley Park
After a fitfull night's sleep for both of us (our bodies are trying to sleep when really they think it's Saturday afternoon and we should be up and about), we decided to get up early and put in a full day, with the prospect of a more complete night's sleep tonight as we force ourselves into the rhythm of this part of the world.
With no direct flights from Manchester to Whitehorse, I'd planned to stop off in Vancouver for a day and look at a part of the city we hadn't seen last time we were here, before catching a flight further up north. Stanley Park was just a little out of reach on our last visit, so I thought it would be good this time to dedicate a day to it.
Stanley Park is an urban park jutting out between English Bay and the Burrard Inlet. It was opened in 1888 by Lord Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby and Governer General of Canada at the time (he's the same man responsible for naming the Stanley Cup). There is a 9 km (5.6 mile) seawall walk around the park, and many interesting and diverse features within. The park is a fascinating place to visit, especially on so beautiful a day as the one we were given.
Breakfast over (disappointingly small only in that it was a normal sized portion, and not one of the gargantuan breakfasts we've had in Canada in the past), we stepped out onto the path that circles the park. I deliberately chose this hotel so that we could do this. It was about 9:30 am and quite quiet apart from the joggers and roller bladers who shared the path with us. After walking for a while the path split into designated lanes for walkers/joggers, and cyclists/roller bladers/skateboarders. It's a system that works well.
The sun was out and it was warm, as gorgeous a day as I could have hoped for, and the air was salty with the tang of the sea. We walked slowly. I'd read that the 9 km walk can be done in 2 hours, but I reckoned we'd take nearer to 3 hours, with pauses for photo ops and to take in the scenery. And what beautiful scenery. To our left was the beach area and then the sea, on our right the trees of the park (an estimated half million of them). As we walked round in a clockwise direction, more of the north shore of Vancouver came into view, along with a steady stream of huge tankers taking Canadian timber products, grain, and minerals all over the world.
At one point our attention was captivated by swirls in the water, which quickly resolved themselves into four sea otters swimming along the edge of the bay. A Vancouver resident who also spotted the otters was astonished, and told me he'd never seen anything like it before. He said that such otters help control the sea urchin population, in a similar way to foxes controlling a rabbit population: more sea urchins, more sea otters.
It was only after he'd gone that Sandra confided she'd thought the otters were sea lions.
On we walked, the sun getting higher in the sky, the north shore of Vancouver now fully exposed and glimpses of the south shore, most notably Canada Place, coming into view. It was great to see it again (I saw it from the aeroplane as we came in to land, but Sandra missed it).
Finally, after nearly three hours of walking, footsore and blood sugar running low, we cut across the narrowest part of the park and made our way back to a concession stand we'd passed earlier that morning. Rested, and fuelled with a burger and water/coke, we decided to try and make our way up to Beaver Lake in the middle of the park. It was not to be. A lack of a map and an error in path choice by yours truly led us instead around Lost Lagoon (named for a poem by Pauline Johnson). Our feet were really hurting now, and we decided we'd give Beaver Lake a miss and instead head back to the hotel, pick up something to read, and go and sit on one of the many seats we'd seen by the beach. Prior to leaving the lagoon we stopped at the Nature House, where a friendly assistant asked us what sort of day we were having. I assured her we were having a grand time, and pointed to a stuffed beaver in the Nature House.
"Do you have beavers?" I asked, somewhat ungallantly.
"We have four," she replied, "On Beaver Lake".
"Of course, how obvious!" I laughed.
"We saw some earlier," said my darling wife.
There was a pause, then... "They were otters, Sandra."
The friendly assistant gave us a map and directions to Beaver Lake, but it was never going to happen. We made it as far as the Rose Garden, then headed back to the hotel, having walked an estimated eight or nine miles on feet that were increasingly unwilling to see the funny side. There Sandra fell asleep, and I wrestled again with the new format Flickr site to bring my eager fans photos of today's activities.
Our main meal tonight was once more at kadoya, because we liked it last night and because it's so close to our hotel. Looking out over the busy and cosmopolitan crowds thronging the streets and beach, we remarked upon how different this area of Vancouver is compared to the area we stayed in last time.
Before we came back out to Canada this year I tried to remember what I could about Vancouver. I remember it rained a lot for our first two days, and I remember the mad dash back from Kamloops so that we could go up the Tower and also photograph Canada Place in the sunshine. It seemed there wasn't that much special to remember this city by. And yet, as the taxi drove us to our hotel yesterday, and I caught sight of, on the other side of False Creek, the silver squiggle of a statue that represents the liquid state, I felt a lump in my throat, and a feeling like a man gets slipping on a favourite coat or pair of worn but comfortable shoes.
It felt like coming home.
Tomorrow, up with the dawn to catch our flight to Whitehorse, and the real start of this particular Canadian adventure.
With no direct flights from Manchester to Whitehorse, I'd planned to stop off in Vancouver for a day and look at a part of the city we hadn't seen last time we were here, before catching a flight further up north. Stanley Park was just a little out of reach on our last visit, so I thought it would be good this time to dedicate a day to it.
Stanley Park is an urban park jutting out between English Bay and the Burrard Inlet. It was opened in 1888 by Lord Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby and Governer General of Canada at the time (he's the same man responsible for naming the Stanley Cup). There is a 9 km (5.6 mile) seawall walk around the park, and many interesting and diverse features within. The park is a fascinating place to visit, especially on so beautiful a day as the one we were given.
Breakfast over (disappointingly small only in that it was a normal sized portion, and not one of the gargantuan breakfasts we've had in Canada in the past), we stepped out onto the path that circles the park. I deliberately chose this hotel so that we could do this. It was about 9:30 am and quite quiet apart from the joggers and roller bladers who shared the path with us. After walking for a while the path split into designated lanes for walkers/joggers, and cyclists/roller bladers/skateboarders. It's a system that works well.
The sun was out and it was warm, as gorgeous a day as I could have hoped for, and the air was salty with the tang of the sea. We walked slowly. I'd read that the 9 km walk can be done in 2 hours, but I reckoned we'd take nearer to 3 hours, with pauses for photo ops and to take in the scenery. And what beautiful scenery. To our left was the beach area and then the sea, on our right the trees of the park (an estimated half million of them). As we walked round in a clockwise direction, more of the north shore of Vancouver came into view, along with a steady stream of huge tankers taking Canadian timber products, grain, and minerals all over the world.
At one point our attention was captivated by swirls in the water, which quickly resolved themselves into four sea otters swimming along the edge of the bay. A Vancouver resident who also spotted the otters was astonished, and told me he'd never seen anything like it before. He said that such otters help control the sea urchin population, in a similar way to foxes controlling a rabbit population: more sea urchins, more sea otters.
It was only after he'd gone that Sandra confided she'd thought the otters were sea lions.
On we walked, the sun getting higher in the sky, the north shore of Vancouver now fully exposed and glimpses of the south shore, most notably Canada Place, coming into view. It was great to see it again (I saw it from the aeroplane as we came in to land, but Sandra missed it).
Finally, after nearly three hours of walking, footsore and blood sugar running low, we cut across the narrowest part of the park and made our way back to a concession stand we'd passed earlier that morning. Rested, and fuelled with a burger and water/coke, we decided to try and make our way up to Beaver Lake in the middle of the park. It was not to be. A lack of a map and an error in path choice by yours truly led us instead around Lost Lagoon (named for a poem by Pauline Johnson). Our feet were really hurting now, and we decided we'd give Beaver Lake a miss and instead head back to the hotel, pick up something to read, and go and sit on one of the many seats we'd seen by the beach. Prior to leaving the lagoon we stopped at the Nature House, where a friendly assistant asked us what sort of day we were having. I assured her we were having a grand time, and pointed to a stuffed beaver in the Nature House.
"Do you have beavers?" I asked, somewhat ungallantly.
"We have four," she replied, "On Beaver Lake".
"Of course, how obvious!" I laughed.
"We saw some earlier," said my darling wife.
There was a pause, then... "They were otters, Sandra."
The friendly assistant gave us a map and directions to Beaver Lake, but it was never going to happen. We made it as far as the Rose Garden, then headed back to the hotel, having walked an estimated eight or nine miles on feet that were increasingly unwilling to see the funny side. There Sandra fell asleep, and I wrestled again with the new format Flickr site to bring my eager fans photos of today's activities.
Our main meal tonight was once more at kadoya, because we liked it last night and because it's so close to our hotel. Looking out over the busy and cosmopolitan crowds thronging the streets and beach, we remarked upon how different this area of Vancouver is compared to the area we stayed in last time.
Before we came back out to Canada this year I tried to remember what I could about Vancouver. I remember it rained a lot for our first two days, and I remember the mad dash back from Kamloops so that we could go up the Tower and also photograph Canada Place in the sunshine. It seemed there wasn't that much special to remember this city by. And yet, as the taxi drove us to our hotel yesterday, and I caught sight of, on the other side of False Creek, the silver squiggle of a statue that represents the liquid state, I felt a lump in my throat, and a feeling like a man gets slipping on a favourite coat or pair of worn but comfortable shoes.
It felt like coming home.
Tomorrow, up with the dawn to catch our flight to Whitehorse, and the real start of this particular Canadian adventure.
Friday, 28 June 2013
Day 1 - Again Vancouver
So here we are in Vancouver once again. Though the sky is overcast, it's warm and shaping up to be a decent weekend. The smell of the sea is in the air, never a bad thing.
I'm finding that this first entry is usually the hardest to write, because I'm so tired when I sit down to write it. My body thinks it's nearly 5 am, but locally it's just coming up to 9 pm. It's Friday night, the start of a long Canada Day Bank Holiday weekend, and there's a party kicking off on the beach front outside our hotel. Right now I hate all Canadians.
But you can't hate em for long.
We drove ourselves to the airport this morning, and parked up using the incredibly efficient and reasonably priced Meet and Greet facility (I perhaps shouldn't say that until I've faultlessly picked up my car again in three weeks [Update: the car was indeed faultlessly picked up]). The only two niggles at the airport were me losing my phone (I didn't lose it, I'd just put it in a pocket I never usually put it in), and an over-enthusiastic person at the check-in desk who objected to us being just 1.5 kg over the baggage limit, and insisted we transfer that amount to our hand luggage.
But that was it, and three hours later we were on the aeroplane and heading to 40,000 feet, where we stayed for the next 9 hours. We flew north over the UK and then across Iceland, Greenland ("How do you know it's Greenland?" "Because I know the islands, eh?"), Baffin Island, and finally, after five and a half hours, over mainland Canada. I will never tire of looking out of the aeroplane window at the harsh but beautiful landscapes we fly over on these trips. I'll try and take some pictures on the way back.
We landed on time (our body clocks thinking it was just after 10pm, when over here it was barely mid-afternoon), waded through a turgid passport control that is surely over the top for such an affable nation as Canada, then caught a taxi to our first hotel of this holiday, the ivy-covered Sylvia Hotel overlooking English Bay.
Dropping off our cases, and wanting nothing more than sleep, we dragged ourselves out to have a quick look around and buy some booze and water. We didn't get quite this far west when we last came to Vancouver, and it turns out that there is an astonishingly large choice of places to eat, with a very eclectic mix of cuisines. In just one street we saw sushi bars (lots of these), burger joints, pizza houses, and places selling Greek food, Vietnamese food, Chinese, Persian, and even Irish and English foods. Having picked up a bottle of wine and some water, we came back to the hotel, dropped them off, then headed over to a Japanese restaurant called kadoya. There we sat on a balcony eating the most ridiculous amount of sushi and sashimi (we just have no frame of reference when ordering), and watching the chaos of the Friday evening rush hour outside. Our taxi driver had told us it was busy because this year Canada Day (July 1st) falls on a Monday, so it's like a long Bank Holiday weekend and everyone wants to go away somewhere. Sandra pointed out that most of the chaos on the four way intersection below us could be sorted out if the Canadians would invest in a few roundabouts, and she was right.
Then back to the hotel feeling bloated and tired, where Sandra read for a bit before turning in, and I wrestled with the new-look Flickr site trying to get photos loaded in an order that makes some sense. Have a look here.
Tomorrow is jet lag day, so we'll be taking it slow, and strolling around the apparently magnificent Stanley Park, which we missed out on last time.
I'm finding that this first entry is usually the hardest to write, because I'm so tired when I sit down to write it. My body thinks it's nearly 5 am, but locally it's just coming up to 9 pm. It's Friday night, the start of a long Canada Day Bank Holiday weekend, and there's a party kicking off on the beach front outside our hotel. Right now I hate all Canadians.
But you can't hate em for long.
We drove ourselves to the airport this morning, and parked up using the incredibly efficient and reasonably priced Meet and Greet facility (I perhaps shouldn't say that until I've faultlessly picked up my car again in three weeks [Update: the car was indeed faultlessly picked up]). The only two niggles at the airport were me losing my phone (I didn't lose it, I'd just put it in a pocket I never usually put it in), and an over-enthusiastic person at the check-in desk who objected to us being just 1.5 kg over the baggage limit, and insisted we transfer that amount to our hand luggage.
But that was it, and three hours later we were on the aeroplane and heading to 40,000 feet, where we stayed for the next 9 hours. We flew north over the UK and then across Iceland, Greenland ("How do you know it's Greenland?" "Because I know the islands, eh?"), Baffin Island, and finally, after five and a half hours, over mainland Canada. I will never tire of looking out of the aeroplane window at the harsh but beautiful landscapes we fly over on these trips. I'll try and take some pictures on the way back.
We landed on time (our body clocks thinking it was just after 10pm, when over here it was barely mid-afternoon), waded through a turgid passport control that is surely over the top for such an affable nation as Canada, then caught a taxi to our first hotel of this holiday, the ivy-covered Sylvia Hotel overlooking English Bay.
Dropping off our cases, and wanting nothing more than sleep, we dragged ourselves out to have a quick look around and buy some booze and water. We didn't get quite this far west when we last came to Vancouver, and it turns out that there is an astonishingly large choice of places to eat, with a very eclectic mix of cuisines. In just one street we saw sushi bars (lots of these), burger joints, pizza houses, and places selling Greek food, Vietnamese food, Chinese, Persian, and even Irish and English foods. Having picked up a bottle of wine and some water, we came back to the hotel, dropped them off, then headed over to a Japanese restaurant called kadoya. There we sat on a balcony eating the most ridiculous amount of sushi and sashimi (we just have no frame of reference when ordering), and watching the chaos of the Friday evening rush hour outside. Our taxi driver had told us it was busy because this year Canada Day (July 1st) falls on a Monday, so it's like a long Bank Holiday weekend and everyone wants to go away somewhere. Sandra pointed out that most of the chaos on the four way intersection below us could be sorted out if the Canadians would invest in a few roundabouts, and she was right.
Then back to the hotel feeling bloated and tired, where Sandra read for a bit before turning in, and I wrestled with the new-look Flickr site trying to get photos loaded in an order that makes some sense. Have a look here.
Tomorrow is jet lag day, so we'll be taking it slow, and strolling around the apparently magnificent Stanley Park, which we missed out on last time.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Again Ready... Kinda
We fly out tomorrow, and I find myself more nervous about this holiday than our previous two ventures into the Great White North. I was nervous about the Peace River section of our Alberta holiday, because I couldn't find out much about the town from teh_internets or books, but this time the whole holiday is like that. There is no detailed Moon travel guide for the Yukon, so instead I'm relying on this travel guide by Polly Evans. The single review of the book on Amazon is rather terse; the book itself is helpful but maybe a little out of date.
I've checked the itinerary over and over: all the flights (six of them), the car booking (just the one), the hotels/motels (only 8 this time), all of the extraneous trips, and everything looks okay. The dates all match, the confirmations are all printed off, we've got the holiday money and traveller's cheques, passports, driving licence, the old sat nav is loaded with the Canadian road maps (there seem to be only three roads in the Yukon, not sure if we need a sat nav, or indeed if this sentence will come back to bite me on the bum)... everything is sorted on paper.
When I've booked hotels in Canada in the past, I've used on-line booking systems: simple, accurate and effective. A number of the places I've booked in the Yukon haven't had such systems, and I've reverted to using email. My last hotel confirmation was a delightfully quaint but not very confidence-boosting "yes you are in".
But still I feel nervous. Is this what adventure tastes like?
For the first time since I've known her, which is over twenty years, Sandra's suitcase weighed in at (just) under the baggage limit during our test weigh-in on the bathroom scales. A good omen? Neither of us know what clothes to take. Shorts? Jumpers? Posh clothes? Walking gear? We've gone for a mixture of them all, plus I've even bought a mini First Aid kit and a decent compass, not that I'm intending us to go on walks that last more than a few hours at most. It's this whole "not knowing" thing that's making me feel apprehensive.
It's not like we're going to the Congo or anything, no canoes up an alligator-infested river, no jeeps bouncing over dirt roads, but we're still venturing out into the relative unknown. Billy Connolly went to some of the places we're going to on his Journey to the Edge of the World tour, and he got out okay. We'll be fine, I'm sure.
It's got all the hallmarks of an adventure. Part of me is as nervous as hell about it and wants to stay at home, but most of me knows I would kick myself if I never did this. We're going to see parts of the world that most people never will, that most people don't even know exist. We're going to do things and go to places that most people never will.
I like that. I want that. I'm ready for that.
And so, for the third time, let's play.
I've checked the itinerary over and over: all the flights (six of them), the car booking (just the one), the hotels/motels (only 8 this time), all of the extraneous trips, and everything looks okay. The dates all match, the confirmations are all printed off, we've got the holiday money and traveller's cheques, passports, driving licence, the old sat nav is loaded with the Canadian road maps (there seem to be only three roads in the Yukon, not sure if we need a sat nav, or indeed if this sentence will come back to bite me on the bum)... everything is sorted on paper.
When I've booked hotels in Canada in the past, I've used on-line booking systems: simple, accurate and effective. A number of the places I've booked in the Yukon haven't had such systems, and I've reverted to using email. My last hotel confirmation was a delightfully quaint but not very confidence-boosting "yes you are in".
But still I feel nervous. Is this what adventure tastes like?
For the first time since I've known her, which is over twenty years, Sandra's suitcase weighed in at (just) under the baggage limit during our test weigh-in on the bathroom scales. A good omen? Neither of us know what clothes to take. Shorts? Jumpers? Posh clothes? Walking gear? We've gone for a mixture of them all, plus I've even bought a mini First Aid kit and a decent compass, not that I'm intending us to go on walks that last more than a few hours at most. It's this whole "not knowing" thing that's making me feel apprehensive.
It's not like we're going to the Congo or anything, no canoes up an alligator-infested river, no jeeps bouncing over dirt roads, but we're still venturing out into the relative unknown. Billy Connolly went to some of the places we're going to on his Journey to the Edge of the World tour, and he got out okay. We'll be fine, I'm sure.
It's got all the hallmarks of an adventure. Part of me is as nervous as hell about it and wants to stay at home, but most of me knows I would kick myself if I never did this. We're going to see parts of the world that most people never will, that most people don't even know exist. We're going to do things and go to places that most people never will.
I like that. I want that. I'm ready for that.
And so, for the third time, let's play.
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