Alberta Bound

September 9, 2007
Sunday
On the road at 0840 headed north through the Blackfoot Nation. We saw a bear just outside Babb loping along a hillside toward a herd of cattle.
We crossed the Canadian border at Piegan and continued north to Calgary through beautiful rolling farm land.
After checking in at the Comfort Inn, we walked a few blocks looking for an ATM. We did not find any banking institutions but we did find Bongs and Such and the Erotic XX Boutique and, across the street from our motel, Hooters, "Hiring All Positions."
We ordered in pizza for supper and it came in what must be Canadian style, with a tub of melted garlic butter.
Monday
Next morning we drove to Fort Calgary. Dal, a retired Mountie docent, met us inside the door and treated us to an overview of the history of the Mounted Police and the western provinces.
After America’s Civil War, whiskey traders operated from Montana into southern Alberta dealing adulterated liquor to the First Natives and devastating Indian society. A climax came when a group of American traders massacred a village at Cypress Hills. The Canadian government reacted by creating a national police force, the Northwest Mounted Police, and sent a party of 300 men to Alberta under the command of Colonel James McLeod to establish order. They were deliberately dressed in red uniform coats to distinguish them from the United States cavalry which was widely mistrusted and despised by the indigenous population.
The Mounted Police established Fort Calgary in 1875 at the conjunction of the Bow and the Elbow rivers and named it after the ancestral home of Colonel McLeod, Calgary Bay on the western shore of the Isle of Mull in Scotland.
In 1904 King Edward VII granted the NWMP the privilege of calling themselves Royal and in 1920 they were appointed national police for all of Canada, changing their name to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
We walked through exhibits inside the visitor center that depicted life in Calgary between 1910 and 1930.
At 12:00 we drove downtown and found a parking place next to the Calgary Tower and took the elevator upstairs for lunch. The tower is 626 feet tall and was poured in one continuous cast over a period of 24 days. The highest total poured during a 24-hour period was 39 feet.
We had a nice lunch while the platform rotated and gave us views of the entire city and the Rocky Mountains to the west.
Calgary is bursting with construction activity, cranes working all over the city below us. Our waitress told us that Alberta is undergoing its third oil boom and buildings are going up everywhere to provide housing and services for an exploding population.
At 2:30 we drove to the Olympic Center, home of the 1988 Winter Olympics, and took a self-guided audio tour of the Hall of Fame/Museum, the luge training center, the bobsled start and the top of the 90 meter ski jump tower where Eddie the Eagle leaped to fame. To top it off, we rode the chair lift to the top of the ski slope and back down. Mountain bikers were also riding the lift and special chairs were fitted to take their bikes to the top for a ride down on a variety of challenging trails.
We drove to Costco after that and discovered new things. Prilosec over-the-counter requires a prescription in Canada. The coupons I received in the mail before we left home are not valid in Canada. Costco does not sell liquor or wine in Canada.
We found liquor across the street in a Co-op, behind a double set of barricaded doors in a seedy-looking building with few markings and frosted windows. It seems easier to buy dope.
Tuesday
We drove north to Edmonton and arrived at Fort Edmonton Park at 1:30 and signed up for the 2:00 guided wagon tour. Our wagon was pulled by Katie and Darden and we clop-clopped down three streets built to emulate three periods of Edmonton’s life–1885 when the population was 385; 1905 when the population had rocketed from 4,000 to 72,000 within a four-year period; and 1920.
We stopped at a fourth location, the Hudson Bay Fort and Native Encampment built to reflect its condition in 1846. Naomi told us about the fort and the Hudson Bay Company.
Beaver pelts were the currency in the Northwest, measured in "made" pelts, defined as a beaver fur captured in winter, no bullet holes, a rich brown color and at least 5 hands across, the trader’s hands.
HBC, incorporated in 1690, operated with the Cree and Ojibway natives in an arms-length businesslike way and never had to worry about hostile relations, to the point that natives could buy muskets if they produced the correct number of made pelts. The main trading commodity, however, was Hudson Bay point blankets, embroidered with lines that represented the price in made pelts.
After 1821, when HBC merged with rival French-owned North West Company, the combined conglomerate ruled 12% of the earth’s surface. Laborers signed five-year contracts to work for the company. Pelts were pressed into 90-pound bales and each employee was expected to transport two bales down river and across portages to company headquarters. By the time they retired, most workers were physically broken.
During their working lives, many took "country wives" and left a legacy of generations of "métis’" mixed-blood offspring, whom they generally abandoned when they returned to England, Scotland or France at the end of their contract periods.
For decades the beaver trade depended upon European fashion. Gentlemen wore hats made of beaver felt. Then, one evening, a British Royal wore a silk hat to dinner and the fur trade collapsed.
After Canada gained Dominion status in 1867, HBC was the largest private landowner but shortly gave up most of its holdings, 1.5 million square miles, to the new nation in exchange for 300,000 pounds sterling.
The area given up was known as Rupert’s Land, named after the first chairman of the HBC. It was defined in the company’s charter as all the land and streams that drained into Hudson’s Bay and comprised one-third of the area of Canada today.
On 1920 Street we passed Blatchford Field Hangar, the first aerodrome licensed in Canada and called "Gateway to the North." Wiley Post landed here during both of his circumnavigations.
Wednesday
Wednesday was Mall Day. Temperature at 10:00 was 45 degrees and the world’s largest mall was less than two miles away so we drove there.
It was fabulous. We started at Cinnzeo for coffee, a cinnamon roll and a free mini-twist. Their motto is "Drink coffee. Do stupid things faster with more energy."
As we sat and sipped, we read in the Edmonton Times that 250 Canadian soldiers tested positive last year for marijuana use and were not allowed to deploy to Afghanistan. Teach them a lesson.
We saw sea lions swimming in the Pirates of the Mall exhibition next to the NHL-sized ice skating rink next to Waterworld, an arena-sized swimming pool with breaking waves, a beach, a beach bar and three-story water slides.
At 2:00 we watched the sea lion show as they performed tricks just like Shamu, only smaller.
Afterward we went to Sherlock Holmes Pub on Bourbon Street for Stella Artois and Newcastle Brown, an Alberta-beef hamburger with Canadian back bacon and a shepherd pie, loaded with peas, just the way Mrs Davis likes it.
Our waitress told us that a movie just completed filming in the mall, Christmas in Wonderland, starring Patrick Swayze and Carmen Elektra. It is due to be released in November.
We went to the third level after lunch and watched 3:10 to Yuma, the third remake of Elmore Leonard’s 1953 short story.
The temperature in the parking lot at 6 pm was 47 degrees. It was a good decision to stay indoors all day.