Musing's of a Gardener: Canadian Rockies and Alaska

We had been told by many that a trip to Canada & Alaska was worthwhile, considering it takes more than 14 hours flying time (about 24 hours in total) to get there (it took five flights to get home), and they were right. It was wonderful, my wife and I highly recommend the trip.

Trip and highlights

In summary we travelled to Victoria on Vancouver Island, with breakfast at the Butchart Gardens (it was absolutely wonderful in early spring with the bulbs all in flower), then on to Vancouver, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise (which was white being iced over), Jasper, then the Rocky Mountaineer back to Vancouver via Kamloops. After a few days in Vancouver we took the inside passage – our first cruise – stopping at Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Glacier National Park, College Fjord disembarking in Whittier. We then headed north – partly by coach, and partly by train to Fairbanks via Denali National Park – which was wonderful. We managed to see the top of Denali – a highlight even for our coach driver, although mostly it was under cloud. The wild life was extraordinary – we managed to see black bears with cubs in the wild, and recently woken grizzly bears on Grouse Mountain (where it snowed), bighorn sheep, elk and mountain goats, whales and orcas, along with a myriad of birds including eagles. The forests were wonderful as were the glaciers – even from afar (College Glaciers). The cruise was as we expected; the boat was not an amusement park, had few children and was generally quiet (too quiet for some), but the purpose was to allow passengers to see and experience the Inside Passage – and we certainly did!

Ski resorts look the same the world over – but the environment that surrounded places like Whistler and Banff was impressive. So was the tundra of Alaska – quite wilderness-like in one sense, but full of wildlife.

It rained in Vancouver (when does it not) only on our final day – we walked the city like Vancouverites and got wet! The gardens are beautiful including the Dr Sun Yat-Sen classical Chinese garden (well worth the walk and rain) as was Queen Elizabeth Park and Stanley Park.

We only had one moment of terrifying panic when I misplaced my passport – but the hotel manager & concierge, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and our tour operator were impressively professional, with the hotel manager going far beyond her duty, as did the tour guide. Many thanks to the honest pub (British) waiter who found and safely stored the passport – which was returned to me the next morning (after no sleep!).

Low Lights

Flights

We commenced our trip in Adelaide, with Air New Zealand totally failing us - they could not provide a plane for the scheduled flight to Auckland (advising us literally as we pulled up at the airport). Flying on a week-day was very helpful allowing our travel agent to negotiate flights with Air New Zealand and eventually we were booked onto two Qantas flights. The international flight was so full I had to sit 10 seats behind my wife, who unfortunately was allocated the most disgusting seat on the plane (44C) – the toilet (lavatory) door swung open to level with her seat – the stench was awful and the location made more so by the all-night pounding of people’s hands on the top of her seat as they negotiated the toilet door. It allows Qantas to fit an extra row of seats and thus more bonuses for the chief executive! Qantas, as the Media in Australia has pointed out for some time now, does not care one iota for its passengers. We also lost money on the premium economy seats we paid for the outbound trip – we could only get economy seats on Qantas sold at a premium price. (See Qantas sold seats that did not exist: https://www.inqld.com.au/business/2023/08/31/into-thin-air-qantas-hit-with-legal-case-after-selling-seats-on-ghost-flights).

Trains

The comparison between the Rocky Mountaineer train experience (2 day train trip) and the USA (Alaskan) McKinley Explorer train was like chalk and cheese. The Canadian staff all help each other, nothing was too much, and if one did not know or was busy, found someone else to help. The Americans worked in total isolation from each other – the drinks person could not clear food trays away, and the food server could not get water for someone. It was as if they were at war with each other – Democrat vs Republican!

Our learnings

Journey and Friends

We used the Journi app to allow our children and friends to keep up with us – it was useful and easy to use. We posted some photographs each day and a short synopsis of the day. It does require downloading the app & installing, then logging in, which an elderly friend had difficulty doing. She was helped out by another friend and managed to catchup. The down-side, one cannot download everything we wrote without paying for a ‘book’ of the material. (We also kept a paper diary – no cost involved in downloading!).

Alaska

Alaska is not all mountains covered in snow – there are vast rivers, flat-lands and huge forests. Having the sun set after midnight was an interesting experience. It is well worth the travel to visit (also the only place we all had to remove our shoes to pass through airport security!)

Tour guide

Having an excellent communicator, organizer, and wonderful person as your guide makes the tour much enjoyable. We had certainly one of the best we have ever had – knowledgeable, likeable, fun to be with, but serious when required – she knew the tour inside and out providing excellent guidance including historical and local information. Having excellent people skills is a must for a tour guide: our guide was able to manage the 39-40 Australians including 2 from NZ with panache, even when we got a bit raucous. (We actually all got along, although from very different walks of life).

Scheduling

Fly out during a week-day, else plan to arrive a day early to allow for delays. It was so helpful having the travel agent deal with Air New Zealand’s incapability of getting us to Canada as contracted; we were able to contact her because it was within work hours on a Wednesday.

Shoulder period travel

It was cheaper!

Travelling early in the season had some pros and cons. The season was fresh, the flowers absolutely wonderful, and the weather warmer than we thought (we took too many ‘warm’ clothes) – we had snow once. However, in some cases the hotels and eateries were chaotic – in one the staff were untrained and unmanaged (the so called managed was simply out of his depth) and had only be one site for a week. In the mountains, the staff are itinerant (often Australian, British or European) – with various levels of skill.

Money and e-business

We used far less cash than expected – but it was interesting to see that in some areas the northern Americas are not as tech savvy as one would think. The Canadians could not contemplate an electronic driver’s licence as ID. Tap-and-go with a device was hit and miss, however, travel (debit) cards worked in most places. Some of Alaska preferred cash.