This was a train trip with visits to our Canadian family at each end 🙂
The feeling of adventure started before I even set sight on Canada. The flight path was over Greenland and I had a seat on the right side of the plane to get a good view of the ice and icebergs 
. This reinforced my desire to travel to the Arctic again! After passing Greenland the flight was long but because of the light I didn’t really feel tired despite going straight over to Vancouver Island.
On Vancouver Island I visited family 
, Cathedral Grove 
, Little Qualicum Falls, Mount Washington, and went whale watching 
at Telegraph Cove 
.
After this it was back over to Vancouver for visits to Stanley Park 
, Grouse Mountain 
, the harbour lookout tower, and two suspension bridges. Capilano is the bigger touristy one and I went back here because of that 
. Lynn Canyon’s bridge is smaller 
but it’s a much more relaxing place to visit and has a beautiful pool 
.
A ride on the Whistler Mountaineer 
and a wander round Whistler 
was followed by two days on the Rocky Mountaineer 
to Quesnel then Jasper. Jasper has some great road crossings 
.
We continued by bus to Lake Louise via Athabasca Falls 
, Bow Lake, the Icefields Parkway and Columbia Icefield base (we couldn’t go on the ice because there was too much snow!!), and Peyto Glacier. Staying in the Fairmont hotel was probably a one-off experience. After a snowy wander around Lake Louise 
it was time to move on to Banff, We saw a bear in the wild on the way, and stopped at Emerald Lake, Kicking Horse 
, and the Spiral Tunnels.
The Banff Gondola was a much appreciated way to get ‘up’. On the way to Calgary we stopped at the hoodoos 
– impressive bits of rock, Bow Falls 
, and surprise corner 
. A herd of elk was by the side of the road.
In Calgary we did the ‘city stuff’, went to the zoo, and visited that branch of the family 
.