In the Canadian Badlands between Cypress Hills and Etzikom, Alberta

Even though we’re big travelers of Canada, there’s still plenty to see. Canada is so big and the average vacation so short ( 2 weeks) that it’s difficult to cover a lot of ground. One way to do it is a fly-drive.

Hoodoos and beehive hills near Drumheller, Alberta

A 4-hour flight west from Toronto will put you in Calgary. A car rental and an hour later and you’re in southeastern Alberta, a landscape so foreign from central Canada that a travel writer from Toronto described it as reaching out and slapping her. 63 municipalities have coined it the Canadian Badlands and aim to make it Canada’s next iconic travel destination (just like the Canadian Rockies, an hour west of Calgary).  From a road trip perspective, we think it’s already there.

The massive prairie landscape is intersected by river valleys with hills that look like giant beehives. The valleys are part of a prehistoric sea that once occupied a good portion of North America. Wind and water have stripped away the sandstone and they’ve revealed something else. Dinosaur fossils. Millions of them. Two places to learn about the biggest finds are Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, the world’s largest devoted to palaeontology.

If you love driving but hate traffic, this is the place. Armed with an Alberta road map and GPS, we crisscrossed the region by paved and gravel road, sometimes not seeing another car for the better part of two hours.  Gas stations are scarce though. So are corner stores and other things that we take for granted in the city. Topping off the gas tank and having lots of drinking water in the car quickly became necessities.

Streetcar in downtown Toronto, Ontario

On the Trans-Canada Highway west of Brooks, Alberta

If you’ve ever driven any distance through the Canadian bush (as Shania Twain calls it), especially endless miles of tree-lined, two-lane highway, then you will know about the moose. There are foreboding signs along the way featuring outlines of these hulking creatures nonchalantly strolling across your path. The message is not one of protecting the environment, it is one of avoiding mortal danger. An uneasy feeling starts to set in right about dusk, when the light of the sky darkens enough to match the light thrown by your high-beams.

If you know about the threat of the moose you will tend to slow down just a little, and your eyes will skirt furtively for motion and shadows along the treelines. Because you do not want to hit a moose. If you do, it will almost certainly be THE event of your day.

Except for the driest regions of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, and big parts of the far north, moose are EVERYWHERE in Canada. Unconfirmed reports from my travelling buddy Bob Fisher state that there are now more moose in the province of Newfoundland than there are inhabitants of the capital city of St. John’s. And moose are not even indigenous to the island.

My partner Judy recalls the first time she ever saw a moose: “I was barreling down a highway through La Verendrye Provincial Park in my old Vega, on my way back to Montreal from Val d’Or. I had just passed a big lumber truck and when I came over the crest of a hill there he was standing beside the highway. I stopped, afraid he’d cross in front of me and all the while fearful of that lumber truck bearing down behind me. The moose and I eyeballed each other for what seemed like an eternity and then he turned his back on me and clambered down into a mineral pool beside the road.”

Moose-spotting at Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario
Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park is a good place to spy a moose. There are about 3,400 in the park. Moose are elusive creatures but in spring, you can often spot them alongside Highway 60 which runs through the southern portion of Algonquin Park. Beside the highway are small mineral pools  filled with runoff and salt from winter highway maintenance. Moose can be salt-depleted by spring and often feed in these pools which are salt-rich. The month of May is susceptible to “moose jams”, when you can see 30-40 cars of travellers stopped on the side of Highway 60 to watch a moose feed in a roadside pool.

All of the moose photos in this post are courtesy of Ontario Parks. The moose twins pic was snapped last spring by a staffer who works with the provincial parks system in Ontario, Canada’s second largest province.

Photo courtesy of Ontario Parks

Final destination: Sudbury, Ontario and the Big Nickel (the world's largest)

Everyone arrives, unaware of what’s to come as we start loading the bus with everything we need, all the moms asking if we have our toothbrush and hockey equipment. Everyone answers with the same loud sigh and “yes, mum,” answer. Once everything was packed and we all got seated, the doors closed and the coolers opened and we were off.

Loading the bus

At first it felt like the longest bus ride ever, but as the parents got louder and louder, the trip felt shorter and shorter with the movie also helping. With just one stop in Nobel on the way, we were there, at last!

We thought the wait was over, expecting to start our never-finished, N.H.L., 10-video game tournament right away, all forgetting about the dreaded wait that feels longer than the bus ride to get to our rooms. I hop off the bus, heading for my bags before I realize I packed my bag on the bus first, meaning I will get my bag off the bus last, making for even more of a wait.

Into our rooms we all went, excited about the rest of the weekend but all thinking about the low rating of the motel without a pool or anything, but right to ideas, we went outside for a game of tag and football. The team all ate out at Buzzy Brown’s and had a curfew so we were off to bed. The Super 8 motel was quickly growing on us, as we all liked the location, being next to a grocery store, Dollarama, Subway, Timmies and anything else Canadian you can think of…  specifically the arenas, and since we were here for a tournament, those were most important.

The next day was the beginning of the hockey part of the tournament, playing against the home team, the Sudbury Bulldogs. You could tell they were the home team as the refs were clearly biased on their side but we still won 5-1 with an easy win for the gang. With a while before our next game, we hung out around the motel starting our fun off with some lunch and a trip to the field where we played tag for another half hour. The days felt long so it was great. Then, there was the next game, against West Ferris Blades, a team from North Bay. Once again, easy, as we won 5-0 with not much of a challenge.

Time for another dinner. This time, most of the team ate at a sushi restaurant near the motel. The sushi was great with some of the team trying raw seafood for the first time. Everyone enjoyed it and talked about it for the rest of the night. We still had some time so a few of us from the team took a short walk to see what was around. After a few snowball fights and a stop at Tim Horton’s, we had gone in a circle and headed to our rooms to sleep before the morning game.

The next day, we had a game at 8:50 in the morning. We ate breakfast in the motel’s lobby with cereal, muffins, tea, juice and coffee for a quick “to-go” breakfast. Meeting at the bus at 6:45, we were not yet awake and it affected us, as we only won with a 3-2 score. It still put us in an easy win of first place in our division and a bye into the semifinals to play the Humber Valley Sharks. 9:30 that night, we played them and had yet another big win, but this one not quite as easy though still ending with a 5-0 score, and off to the finals. We were set.

The game was the next day so we had some time to hang around at the motel. Most of us ate at Buzzy Brown’s again since we loved it the first time. Others decided to eat at the motel or other places nearby.

Set to play the #1 ranked team in all of Ontario as ranked on myhockeyrankings.com. Despite their great record and #1 ranking, we were not worried and knew we could compete as we had tied them earlier 1-1 in another tournament. The day of the Finals against the Kenata Blazers, we were all pumped up to play the game of our lives with the chance to win it all and go to the international tournaments in Port Huron, Michigan in early January.

We all get checked out of our rooms and met in the lobby at around 12:00 for our 1:30 game. Once everyone was loaded up on the bus, we were all thinking, barely any talking had gone on. When we started heading off the bus at the arena, the parents all started clapping and cheering. We were pumped, ready to go on the ice right away, only to find out our game was two and a half hours behind. We lost our grittiness watching a few of the other finals but after warmup and dressing for 30 minutes, we got the talk. Coach Lewis, talking about his 25 years as head coach, and a great one he is, and yet he only has had the chance to go to the international tournament once, this being his second time in the finals. Talking about how you will throw away most of your trophies when you get older, but this one, we would keep. That was what got us pumped added with sprinting on the ice, we were all screaming, ready to knock the Blazers off their #1 throne. It was a great game played by everyone on the team. We got a 1-0 lead then later in the second period, we scored to make it 2-0. We went into the room between the 2nd and 3rd and once all rested, we ran on the ice to fight to victory to win it all! This one sending us to the international tournament in Port Huron, Michigan, with lots up for grabs.

We celebrated loudly with Kenata packing up and heading home. A feeling that once you get it, you can remember it clearly. Lots of pictures, hugs and high fives later, we were changed and ready for the trip back, knowing it would be great since we had won and not lost. We stopped at the same place in Nobel, the Wendy’s and Tim Horton’s. We were all loud on the ride back and every so often one player, most of the time me, would yell something to do with our big win. We are all ready for the next tournament on January 7th and we can’t wait to get there. See you in Michigan! For an update on the team’s Michigan record, check out the latest comments below.

The Scarborough Young Bruins, Sudbury Regional Silver Stick Champions

Open road near Cypress Hills in the Canadian Badlands

BIG sky dominating the landscape. You can’t help but aim your camera skyward to capture the cloud formations. Land fertile and green from irrigation or rain abruptly changing to desert and sagebush as we descend into one of the river valleys.

Abandoned homestead near Little Bow Provincial Park

Abandoned grey-timbered homesteads dating back to the dirty 30s. Bright yellow canola fields contrasted against stands of dark green spruce. Miles and miles of prairie wheat waving in the constant wind. Mini dry bed river valleys intersecting the prairie – the locals call these coulees. Big river valleys too, dotted with hills that look like giant beehives. Each has distinctive black rings that we’re told are veins of coal and other minerals. Massive mushroom-like rock formations unlike anything we’ve seen before. No traffic. In fact, NONE for hours as we drove along the back gravel roads between Cypress Hills and Foremost.

Mother Mountain Tea House, Delia, Alberta

Lots of tiny towns with false storefronts just like old spaghetti westerns. Places with names like Etzikom, Rowley, Champion and Cereal. A store in some, open, maybe. Few if any people milling about save for the odd old man.

The Halkirk Hotel and Halkirk's last remaining grain elevator

Old hotels run by middle-aged chinese couples with very little english.

Pick up trucks of all types, some old, some new. Weathered churches and grain elevators. Off-the-beaten-track Canada. Amazing road stories.

The Delburne Hotel and Cafe