At the end of our drive (a little wetter than the first one) down the Icefield Parkway we travelled West and crossed over into Yoho National Park (which also marks the border between the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia) at lunchtime. We had the next 2 days to cross BC on our way to Vancouver Island.
One of Yoho’s main visitor attractions is actually a man-made one. In Canada Pacific Railway’s venture to link the two coasts of Canadia together by rail, they hit a major stumbling block in Yoho, where the dramatic Rockies begin to fall away steeply and you can drive for about 20 minutes without hitting the accelerator! Initially the trains were directed straight down the hill at a grade of 4.5% (one of the steepest sections of railway in the world to rely purely on friction between wheels and track). Despite three safety runaways and a speed limit of 8mph, accidents involving runaway trains occurred with “alarming frequency”. They eventually solved this problem with two loop the loop sections of track where long trains travel over the top of themselves through tunnels in the cliff faces. Sadly, no trains were present during our visit and the tunnels were hard to pick out through the cloud.
Our other (and final) stop in Yoho was to Takakkaw Falls, the second highest Waterfall in Canada. With a main falls drop of 254m it’s pretty impressive even on a rainy day! The rest of the afternoon was spent driving through Glacier and Revelstoke National Parks. We had been looking forward to the promise of a drive through hundreds of glaciers but sadly the low lying cloud meant we didn’t see a single one!
One benefit of travelling across to BC was that it meant we had gained another hour, so with walking in the rain less than appealing Claire took this as an opportunity to add another stop into the itinerary – to the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre near Golden. It is very rare to see a wolf in the wild in Canada, where cash rewards for hunting and killing wolves are still in place. This sanctuary offers a home to wolves born in captivity (i.e. Zoos), and raises money to try to protect the now endangered wild wolves of Canada. Unfortunately, on arriving at the centre we found out that BC ‘mountain time’ (the Alberta time zone extends beyond the border so that all of the Rockies are in the same time) extended into Golden, despite being out side the National Parks. In essence, our 90 minute visit had just been reduced to 30! 😦 On the plus side we got to witness an awesome wolf chorus / howling competition just as we were leaving.
The other plus side, it transpired, was that our journey to the Wolf Sanctuary had led us off the main highways, down some single track country lanes. As Gareth patiently continued to try to teach Claire the difference between left and right, we suddenly came across a black bear sitting just in a field at the side of the road. After staring at each other in a ‘did we just see what we think we just saw’ kinda way, we span the car round and did two very slow drive passes with the bear kindly sticking put for the photoshoot!
The rest of the journey to our overnight stop in Revelstoke was very rainy with such poor visibility that to be honest, we were just glad to arrive and have a roof over our heads for the night. The next morning, a run around the riverside gave Claire a chance to look back out across the National Park, before we set off southwest into the Okanagan region of British Columbia.
Claire and Gareth go travelling! 