Our 1994 Canadian Prairie Vacation Begins

    With the Forest Service vacation ban lifted we renewed our vacation trip to the parks in Canada’s prairies.  After arranging some friends to take care of the goats, and look after our garden and greenhouse, we were off.  We drove east past Mount Robson, and into Jasper National Park, where we drove down the Icefield Parkway to Banff, then to Canmore where we turned south down a dusty gravel road to go to Peter Lougheed Provincial Park which had been established in 1978. 

    We had seen it on a map, but it sure didn’t seem like much development work had been done on it.  We couldn’t find any of the several campgrounds that were marked on the map.  Eventually, down another dusty road, we did finally come upon a campground.  We were surprised that it cost us $11 to tent for the night, a far cry from the $3 camping fees we were generally charged when we tented.

    We got our tent up, and my wife unpacked John Bird’s Coleman stove which we had borrowed.  Unfortunately, it was not working in prime conditions, but luckily, she managed to coax enough heat out of it to warm up some instant chicken noodle soup.  There wasn’t much to do around the campsite, so we just hung around until it was time to go to bed.

    The next morning we left Kananaskis country, and headed out into the horizontal landscape of the Canadian prairies taking secondary roads.  We drove through an Indian Reserve and saw where Crowfoot was buried; high, overlooking a Blackfoot winter camping area.  We stopped at an Indian craft shop and was tempted by a really inexpensive 4 x 6 foot woven Indian blanket, but didn’t by it.  (I already had about six old Navaho rugs at home that I didn’t know what to do with.)

    We drove on to Brooks, Alberta where we stopped to eat at a McDonalds and then went shopping in a general store where we bought a new Coleman Camp stove.  The store owner gave us $10 off because it didn’t have a box (that must have been an expensive cardboard box.)  The camp stove we had borrowed from John, hardly worked. 

    We stopped at an archeological dig of a four thousand year old Indian campsite.  The workers let us join in, and while we were screening dirt, we discovered part of an old bone in the screen, which was a thrill.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca