Banff and Vicinity #2 – Alberta Canada

As I mentioned in a previous blog, we like to explore the areas around where we're staying…and any road that doesn’t require a 4-wheel drive is fair game!  This blog is primarily focused on the scenery in and around Banff…less commentary than usual!  Some of you might have noticed that my blogs sometimes tend to be a bit verbose…

 



This is another view from our hotel room in Banff… The clouds came and went on an hourly basis and we did have a few showers too. 



Do you or another family member like to shop?  Banff has a plethora of retailers to choose from…ranging from cheap souvenirs to high end art, clothing, jewelry, as well as minerals, rocks and fossils costing thousands of dollars.

There is even a store in Banff that sells products that are made from muskoxen!  Qiviut is combed from the musk oxen’s naturally shedding undercoats each spring, "Qiviut" yarn is highly prized for its luxurious feel that will last for years because of its amazing features: it gets even softer when washed, doesn't shed, will not shrink no matter what the water temperature, and retains warmth even when wet yet provides cool, breathable comfort in warmer weather.  Oh…and did I mention that it’s just a little pricy?  How about $955.00 for a nice woman’s sweater, or if that’s a little too much, a nice shawl can be had for only $835.00! 

To visit a Qiviuk retail website to pick up a little something for a loved one for Christmas, just go to www.qiviuk.com.  ‘Unfortunately’, Laurie is allergic to wool and though Qiviut is not wool per se, it didn't agree with her skin, so we had to pass on a Qiviut 'souvenir'!  

Now the sun is out… That’s when the scenery is spectacular!  Note the traffic and crowds.  Banff is not a place to get away from people…

 



This is the railroad depot in Banff… Trackside, it has that classic railroad look but it’s been modified in the front and thusly I feel that it was robbed of part of its charm.   This depot is used by the Rocky Mountaineer and the Royal Canadian Pacific train service.  The station was originally built for the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

For information regarding train travel on the two tourist rail lines mentioned above, you can go ‘tourist class’ via the Rocky Mountaineer at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountaineer and/or luxury class aboard the Royal Canadian Pacific at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Pacific.

This is a view of Banff from along the Mount Norquay Road, which leads up to the Mount Norquay Ski area. 

This misty photo shows some of the ski runs up on Mount Norquay… To learn more about skiing at Mount Norquay, just go to http://banffnorquay.com/.  They’ve been in operation since 1926…

There are limited options for a drive in the mountains around any of these towns in the Canadian Rockies.  One short drive takes you east from Banff across the Trans Canadian Highway and up the Minnewanka Loop to Lake Minnewanka.   The lake, (called "Water of the Spirits" in Nakoda), is a glacial lake located in Banff National Park, about 3 miles northeast of the town of Banff.  The lake is 17 miles long and 466 feet deep.  

A hydroelectric dam built in 1941 raised the lake 98 feet.  As a result, the resort village of Minnewanka Landing that had been there since 1888 was submerged. Boat tours are available and a hiking and mountain biking trail runs along the northern shore of the lake with six backcountry campsites.  Mount Aylmer, (10,374 feet), which is only a couple of miles north of the lake, is the highest mountain in this area of the park. 

We came across our first notable wildlife, these Rocky Mountain Sheep beside the road...as we drove along the Minnewanka Loop. 

As you can see, these sheep weren’t afraid or even nervous around cars or RV’s.  To learn more about these Rocky Mountain Sheep, just click on the following:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bighorn_sheep.

This one just strolled down the road ahead of us for a bit, holding up traffic and dropping little ‘presents’ in front of the car for us to run over…

So…like I said, the Minnewanka Loop wasn’t a long drive.  What to do next?  Well, I decided to head north on the Trans Canadian Highway for a bit.

I’m sure that you noted the police car sitting by the overpass… However, did you really note that the overpass is a wildlife overpass?  The busy Trans Canadian Highway through the park features several of these overpasses as well as many large wildlife underpasses.  For more information and a video on these safe wildlife crossings, you can go to http://digitalnomad.nationalgeographic.com/2013/08/23/the-alberta-story-wildlife-crossing-in-banff/. 

We followed the Trans Canadian Highway north to where Highway 93 cuts across the mountains toward the town of Golden British Columbia…and we headed west.

We crossed into British Columbia and we passed a lot of spectacular scenery.  However, the traffic was horrendous with people headed home after the long August weekend…and the weather turned windy and rainy as well.

So, we turned around on Route 93 and headed back into Alberta.  The wild rose is the Provincial flower, the lodgepole pine is the Provincial tree and Provincial bird is the Great Horned Owl.  Alberta has a population of close to 3,700,000 and it covers 247,137 square miles.  The province has a population about equal to that of Oklahoma in an area equivalent to Montana and Oregon combined.  To learn more about Alberta, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta.

As we returned to the Alberta side of the mountains, the weather again began to improve and the scenery was spectacular…

As the sun came out, everything became much more photogenic! 

Given the improvement in the weather, we took another side road, this time north off of Highway 93 and up to Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park.

To learn more about Yoho National Park, you can go to http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/bc/yoho/index.aspx. 

Then it was back to Banff in time for dinner… Per our Aussie bartender, it had been Chinese cuisine the previous night and tonight we’d decided we were going to check out his recommendation for Greek food! 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for joining us for our afternoon drive in the Canadian Rockies!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Lunch in Historic Loudon Tennessee

In the local newspaper, we’d read that the Riverwalk Grille at the Carmichael Inn in Loudon Tennessee was once again open and operating on a limited schedule.  As the current operators of the restaurant were also running the restaurant the last time we had eaten there…and we’d really enjoyed that meal, we decided to stop by for lunch…

The brick portion of this structure near the Loudon County Courthouse was build ca. 1900…but the two-story log cabin was built around 1810 by John Hudson Carmichael. (1780-1840). The building served as a stagecoach inn for travelers’ en route from Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. His sons operated the Inn, the ferry, and the stagecoach.  Two of his sons, James and Dan, fell in love with and married two sisters who were traveling on the stagecoach from Georgia to the Tate Springs Resort.

The Carmichael Inn is now called The Carmichael Event Center and it’s operated by the folks that operate the Click Funeral Homes here in East Tennessee.  As an event center, this facility is now the site for weddings, reunions, parties, corporate functions and ‘celebration of life’ memorials.  The Inn has adequate space to accommodate large and small events within the building and/or on our outdoor patio area.

The Riverwalk Grille, located inside the Event Center, offers special events catering and it’s also open for lunch Monday through Friday from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm as well as for Sunday Brunch from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm.   

We were seated in the ‘new’ section of the Inn…there is an occupied upstairs apartment… In this photo you can see a corner of the original Carmichael Inn, now partially enclosed within the newer structure.

 The Carmichael Inn can be described as an "I-house" as it is two stories tall, one room deep and two or more rooms long. It has a central chimney which opens into fireplaces in the two downstairs rooms. The structure has a gable roof and two front and two rear doors. A two-story porch runs the length of the house.

We’ve lived in this area of East Tennessee for over 4 years…and this is the 3rd or 4^th restaurant operation that we’ve seen operating at the Carmichael Inn.  We hope that this one succeeds! 

Laurie ordered the Melt In Your Mouth Patty Melt. ($8.75) It is described as “Our grilled burger served on hearty marbled rye bread topped with Swiss cheese, caramelized onions and mushrooms, deliciously grilled together”.  Laurie opted for Riverwalk Grille’s ‘Golden Chips’ versus the steak fries that normally come with her sandwich. 

Laurie really enjoyed her patty melt…and she is a patty melt connoisseur!  Even better were the homemade potato chips…just excellent!  There are 6 different burgers on the menu as well as soup and salad combos, dinner salads, starters plus items for kids to order…

I ordered the Tempting Turkey BLT. ($7.50) It is described as “tender smoked turkey, smoky bacon and Havarti cheese perfectly grilled on rustic Panini bread with fresh tomatoes and lettuce”.  The house made potato chips came with my sandwich…and I was grateful for that fact!  I could eat a big bag of these potato chips…perhaps the best I’ve ever eaten.

As for the sandwich, it was OK…but not particularly distinctive.  I really didn’t taste the bacon, a fact which, considering that it was allegedly ‘smoked’ was surprising. 

Other ‘non-burger’ sandwiches on the menu ranged from a Grilled Peanut Butter and Cheese, ($4.99), and a Smoky Pimento Cheese, ($6.75), to the Plentiful Pot Roast Sandwich, ($8.75), and the Fabulous Philly. ($9.75)

Our next visit to the Riverwalk Grille will be for brunch!  With our senior discount, the cost per person should be around $12.70.  When you consider the expansive menu offered this seems like a pretty good deal.   Better yet, we’ve seen quite a bit of positive feedback about the Sunday brunch…. The only problem is that we’ll need to diet for a day before and a day after this meal!

Carmichael Inn and Riverwalk Grille are located right next to US Highway 11 at 600 Hackberry Street in Loudon Tennessee.  It’s right at the foot of the bridge over the Tennessee River in downtown Loudon.  Phone: 865-458-0007.  For more information about the Event Center and to view the full menu for the Riverwalk Grille, go to http://clickeventcenters.com/about-carmichael.html.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Banff and Vicinity #1 – Alberta Canada

Our trip to Alberta was planned as a driving loop…Calgary to Banff, then to Lake Louise, Jasper, Edmonton and back to Calgary.  As is my nature, I’m always driving around whatever area we’re in and exploring.  The terrain of the Canadian Rockies limited the number of routes I could explore but we still managed to check out just about every available road in Banff and our other destinations…

This is the view from our hotel room.  We stayed at the Banff High Country Inn. (http://www.banffhighcountryinn.com/) The accommodations were just fine and, by Banff standards, the price was reasonable.  An Aussie was manning the desk when we checked in… The town was loaded with Australians working in various service jobs! 

 

This is a typical street scene in downtown Banff…although when this photo was taken, foot traffic was minimal.  At other times there were so many people on the street that it was like being downtown in a big city!  As you can see, whatever direction you look, you can see the mountains…

As you can see by the number of photographers taking pictures…Laurie included…this clever bit of mobile advertising parked on one of Banff’s downtown side streets got a lot of attention.

This is the AAA 4-diamond Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.  It was a bit out of our price range but we had to check it out.  Besides, it was on one of the few roads in the area that we could explore!

The Banff Springs Hotel is a luxury hotel that was built during the 19th century as one of Canada's grand railway hotels.  It was constructed in the Scottish Baronial style and it’s actually located in Banff National Park.  The initial wooden structure was opened to the public on June 1, 1888.  In 1911, that building was replaced with this concrete structure that is faced with stone.

Here is the website for the hotel: http://www.fairmont.com/banff-springs/.  The rates are a bit lower during this ‘shoulder season’.  During the first week in November…Monday thru Thursday…you can book a room for only $270.00 a night. 

Trying to capture a photo that does justice to the beauty of the hotel and its setting was challenging and it was complicated by cloudy and rainy weather.  So…I copied a postcard that captured the scene!

The town of Banff is located within Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.  It’s in Alberta's Rockies along the Trans-Canada Highway, roughly 78 miles west of Calgary.  At an elevation of 4,600 ft. to 5,350 ft., Banff’s elevation is the second highest for any town in Alberta.

Banff is a destination for outdoor sports and features extensive hiking, biking, scrambling and skiing in the area.  Sunshine Village, Ski Norquay and Lake Louise Mountain Resort are the three nearby ski resorts located within the national park.

The setting for the Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course is spectacular!  We drove along the gravel road that parallels a portion of the course.  Stanley Thompson, who was Canada's master golf course architect, used his extensive talents when he designed the original 18 holes in 1928.  The course winds along the Bow River under the snow-capped peaks of Sulphur Mountain and Mount Rundle.  In 1989, the course was further improved and expanded with the construction of an adjoining 9 holes course. 

This is Bow Falls on the Bow River.  Banff is located just above Bow Falls near the confluence of the Bow and Spray Rivers.  In June 2013, southern Alberta experienced heavy rainfall that triggered terrible flooding throughout much of the southern half of the province along the Bow, Elbow, Highwood and Oldman rivers and their tributaries.  Calgary and Canmore were among the many towns and cities that suffered heavy damage.  The waters of the Bow merge with other rivers and eventually they flow northeast into Hudson Bay.

This is the bridge across the Bow River that leads into Banff from the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel… Mountain scenery is everywhere!!

Banff was first settled in the 1880s, after the transcontinental railway was built through the Bow Valley.  In 1883, 3 Canadian Pacific Railway workers stumbled upon a series of natural hot springs on the side of Sulphur Mountain.  In 1885, Canada established a federal reserve of about 10 sq. miles around the Cave and Basin hot springs.  As a means to support the railway, the area was promoted as an international resort and spa.  In 1887, the reserve area was increased to 260 sq. miles and it was named "Rocky Mountain Park." This was the beginning of Canada's National Park system.

The area was named Banff in 1884 by George Stephen, then the president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  It was named after his birthplace in Banffshire, Scotland, now simply Banff.   The Canadian Pacific built a series of grand hotels along the rail line and advertised the Banff Springs Hotel as an international tourist resort.

This is one of the Vermillion Lakes along the Bow River just east of Banff and along the Trans Canadian Highway.  One of these lakes has a hot spring.  Activities on and around the lakes include canoeing, wildlife watching, hiking. Note: Another activity…at least during our visit…was running from the voracious mosquitos that apparently breed in these still waters!  This was about the only time we had a ‘bug problem’ during our trip… Beautiful views though…

Just one more view of the Vermillion Lakes and the surrounding mountains…

Evening…and back in Banff…and the traffic from the long August Canadian holiday weekend.  The road is wet and the skies are clearing.  One of our waitresses described the weather in the Canadian Rockies as being “Bi-Polar”…you never know what to expect and the forecasters just don’t have a clue!  “Changeable” would be the best and most accurate forecast!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by to catch up on our summer trip to Canada!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

The Silver Dragon Restaurant – Banff Alberta

Our first evening in Banff…and we walked up and down Banff Avenue plus a couple of the side streets checking out the town’s varied and many, many shops.  After a bit, we needed a break so we looked around for a place to rest our feet and order a drink.  Fortunately, we settled on a below street level place right in the middle of downtown named Tommy’s Neighborhood Pub. 

Tommy’s provided us with a couple of drinks…and more importantly…the Aussie Bar Tender gave us his recommendations for a couple of places to eat dinner.  He was spot on!  We enjoyed our meals in both of the restaurants he recommended.  Tommy’s earned some recognition for the bartender’s efforts… This Pub’s website can be found at http://tommysneighbourhoodpub.com/Home.aspx.   

The first place our Aussie recommended was the Silver Dragon Restaurant.  As you can see, like many of the restaurants on Banff Avenue, this restaurant is on the third level of one of the street’s plentiful mini-malls.

The inside of the Silver Dragon Restaurant is spacious and as you can see, the restaurant is long and relatively narrow.  This photo was taken from our table looking toward the rear of the dining area.  We noted that although it was early, several of the tables were occupied by Asian diners…always a good sign in an Asian restaurant!

Given the long, narrow and deep configuration of this restaurant, we certainly lucked out when we were seated.  This was our view…looking over Banff Avenue with the mountains as a backdrop!  

If you enlarge this photo, it is a bit blurry… Laurie gave two thumbs up for her small bowl of spicy Hot and Sour Soup! ($3.25) There were a total of 14 different soups listed on the menu…some of them with enough ingredients and size to qualify as a meal.  One example is the Wor Won Ton Soup, with 6 wontons, assorted seafood, meat and vegetables. ($16.00)

For a starter, I perused the Appetizer Menu and its 18 offerings!  I didn’t want to fill up so I went with a half order of the Grilled Pork and Vegetable Dumplings. ($7.00) A full order with 8 pieces was $12.00.  The Fritter Tiger Prawns looked interesting to me as well…

For some reason…perhaps because it’s a special dish that is meant to be shared…a full order of Peking Duck with 16 pancakes is listed as an appetizer. ($46.00) Although we were already getting used to Canadian prices, I did note that a single egg roll cost $3.50.

For her entrée, Laurie ordered the Ginger Deep Fried Beef. ($16.00) She also ordered a small bowl of steamed rice. ($2.85) She asked for it to be extra spicy and, unlike many Chinese restaurants, they actually believed that she wanted it hot! It was indeed spicy…but it was just right!  The beef was tender and the ginger really made her dinner pop!  Laurie gave her meal 5 stars!

I decided to order the Fried Chicken in Chili Soya Sauce with a small bowl of steamed white rice. ($17.00 plus $2.85) I ordered my chicken one step hotter than Laurie’s entree…and the chef definitely got it right!  The chicken was excellent and that chili sauce was terrific with the rice…

FYI…As with many Chinese Restaurants, the menu at Silver Dragon is huge!  There is a wide selection of chicken, duck, beef, pork, sparerib, vegetable, tofu, Egg Foo Yung, seafood, (including 6 lobster entrees), rice and noodle dishes.  There is also a menu for group dinners for up to 10 diners.  My only menu disappointment was that they didn’t offer brown rice…which I prefer.

The Silver Dragon Restaurant is located at 211 Banff Avenue, 3^rd Floor, in Banff Alberta Canada.  Phone: 403-762-3939.  If you’d like to look at the extensive menu, just click on http://www.banffdiningguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Silver-Dragon-Dinner-Menu.pdf. Laurie and I went back into Tommy’s Neighborhood Pub to thank our Australian Bar Tender for the restaurant tips…but he was off duty.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for dinner with us!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Railroad History – Heritage Park/Calgary Alberta

Well, I’ve extensively reviewed Calgary’s Heritage Park…in 4 different segments…and I published 3 blogs about Gasoline Alley at Heritage Park.  And yet, there is one more important chapter to offer that ties the entire park together… A railroad serves all parts of the park, both as a key attraction and as transportation for the park’s many visitors. 

This Canadian Pacific Railway Station at the entrance to the park houses the Park’s Railway Café and the Park’s Information Center.  The building is a re-creation of the station that Canadian Pacific built in downtown Calgary in 1893.  The original station complex consisted of a train station and a restaurant connected by a breezeway.

Constructed of local sandstone in the then popular railway style, each of the two buildings was protected by a massive hip roof with large dormer windows.  By 1911, Calgary had outgrown the old depot and the railroad began construction of a larger building.  The original sandstone structures were dismantled and shipped to the towns of High River and Claresholm…where they were rebuilt into ‘new’ Canadian Pacific Railroad stations.

In addition to the railroad at Heritage Park, guests also have the opportunity to ride on an electric streetcar system that operates between the parking lots and the entrance to the park. 

In the decade between 1901 and 1911, Calgary's population increased from 4,400 to 44,000!  A mass transit system was needed to move these people from their homes in the suburbs to the city center.  Attempts at using chain-driven buses had failed. The city eventually chose electric streetcars because they required minimal maintenance, were inexpensive to operate and were reasonably safe.

An electric streetcar system operated in Calgary between 1909 and 1950.  In its heyday, the system had nearly 80 cars running between downtown and various suburbs!  Car 14, the last streetcar to operate in Calgary, was recreated by Heritage Park in 1973.  In 1991, Heritage Park built another car out of new and salvaged parts.  While I couldn’t locate any information regarding the builder of these streetcars, I did find a site on YouTube where you can watch the streetcars in operation.  Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIF0QlU99uU.   

This simple structure is Bowell Station.  On the Prairies, the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway proceeded so quickly that the station builders were frequently unable to keep up.  Consequently, they used portable structures, such as this one, as temporary stations for the hamlets, villages and towns on the line.

In 1883, when the Canadian Pacific Railroad arrived in the growing town of Calgary, the city’s original train station was much like this one.  In 1909, the CPR unloaded this specific pre-fabricated station from a flatcar and placed it next to the tracks near the hamlet of Bowell, just northwest of Medicine Hat.  Like many small settlements, Bowell never grew large enough to justify the construction of a bigger station, and eventually the CPR closed it.  In 1964, the CPR gave the station to Heritage Park, where it has been ‘repurposed’ and converted into a washroom.

Narrow gauge railways replaced horses, mules and oxen teams as the primary method of transportation in and around Alberta's numerous coal mines.  This eight-ton, compressed air locomotive, nicknamed ‘Jumbo’, was used for 40 years at the Crowsnest Pass Coal and Coke Company at Michel, British Columbia, before being presented to Heritage Park as a gift in 1965.  It was built in 1902 by the Vulcan Iron Works in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. 

There are 2 locomotives on display at the entrance to Heritage Park.  We didn’t get any pictures as there wasn’t a safe place to park while taking photos.  I ‘borrowed’ this photo from a site that contains many excellent photos from Heritage Park.  I would recommend visiting this web site, which belongs to Brian McMorrow at: http://www.pbase.com/bmcmorrow/calgaryheritagevillage&page=all.  

Selkirk Class Locomotive #5391, located at the front of Heritage Park, is one of two remaining T1c Canadian Pacific Railway steam engines. Nicknamed “King of the Rockies”, the Selkirk class engines were the largest, heaviest and one of the most powerful steam locomotives in Canada.  At the height of their service, these 2-10-4 giants regularly traversed their namesake, the Selkirk Range in the Rocky Mountains. Thirty-six Selkirks were built for the CPR by the Montreal Locomotive Works between 1929 and 1949.  They were retired by the late 1950s when they were phased out and replaced by new diesel powered engines.  To learn more about the ‘Selkirks’, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkirk_locomotive.

The Canadian Pacific Railroad was the only North American railroad to use the 2-10-4s for passenger service. The Class T-1b "Selkirks", built as semi-streamlined locomotives, displayed a colorful passenger livery and they hauled passenger trains over the Rockies.

This is the Laggan Station on the Heritage Park rail line.  The spectacular wilderness of the Canadian Rockies attracted many tourists, and the Canadian Pacific Railway built this station ca. 1890 on its main line at Laggan…now Lake Louise.  This station, which was built to accommodate the tourist trade, was designed to project an air of warmth as well as a proximity to nature, thereby complementing its mountain setting.

The general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railroad decided that this expensive stretch of track should pay for itself, and he created a number of restaurants along the line.  The mountain scenery near the restaurants made the tourists wish to stay longer, so the CPR converted the restaurants to small inns, and eventually into the magnificent hotels for which the Canadian Pacific RR is known. The railroad donated this station to Heritage Park in 1976.

This is one of the locomotives in operation at Heritage Park.  It’s Pacific Coast Terminals Co. Ltd. #4076 (CP #2024).  This 0-6-0 locomotive was one of 8,410 of this model built by the Lima Locomotive Works.  It was built in 1944 as a switcher for the US Army.  The other locomotive in use at the Park, (#2023), is the same model but it was built by ALCO. 

As mentioned above, this locomotive started out as a switcher for the United States Army.  In 1946, it was sold to Pacific Coast Terminals in New Westminster, British Columbia.  In 1964 it was sold to private owner P.E. d'estrube and was relocated to Nanaimo Camp on Vancouver Island for storage  In 1967, it was donated to the Heritage Park in Calgary and renumbered to #2024.  During the 1970s, the locomotive was rebuilt at Canadian Pacific Railroad’s Drake Street Roundhouse in Vancouver before being relocated to Calgary.  

For more on the history of the Lima Locomotive Works you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_Locomotive_Works.

Here comes Locomotive #2024 with another load of park guests!  The railroad at Calgary’s Heritage Park is a Standard Gauge Railway.  The Park opened its railway in 1964 in order to provide a working example of the means of transportation that had the greatest impact on the growth and history of Western Canada.

Heritage Park's nearly 30 piece collection of rolling stock includes locomotives, tenders, coaches, flatcars, boxcars, cattle cars and other items from the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian National Railway, Morrissey, Fernie and Michel, Pacific Coast Terminals and Northern Alberta Railway.  All of the equipment was built between 1882 and 1949.  Heritage Park’s railway has a main rail loop that is 4,300 feet long.

This is a photo of the train stopped for passengers to disembark and board at the Shepard Station near ‘downtown’ in the 1910 Village.  To view video of the trains in operation, you can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBi4hKyzhQI.

 

This is another photo of Shepard Station… Shepard, now a suburb of Calgary, was a full day's journey east of the burgeoning town back in the 1880s.  It would become the place where the Canadian Pacific Railway line split to go northeast to Strathmore, and southeast to Medicine Hat.  This station was built in 1910. 

Between 1901 and 1911, nearly a million immigrants arrived at Western Canadian train stations like this one.  The train station represented the end of a long, grueling journey and the start of a new life.  However, these stations would remain a prominent fixture in their lives because it was at the train station that they would receive mail-order shipments as well as relatives joining them in the West.

This is Canadian Pacific Locomotive #2018.  This 0-6-0 class U3c switch engine was built in 1905 at CPR’s “Angus Shops” in Montreal.  She spent most of her career in the rail yards at Fort William Ontario.  In 1943, Canadian Pacific sold her to Canmore Mines Unlimited.  As Canmore Mines #4, this locomotive was used to haul coal from the mines to the mainline in Canmore.  It served for many years and the engine became known affectionately as “Old Goat”.  It was converted from coal to oil in 1964 and it now serves as the switching and standby engine for the Park.   

This is the Midnapore Station.  It’s positioned at the beginning of the living exhibits in the park and it’s the first place that park guests can board the train.  Between 1900 and 1940, the Canadian Pacific Railway used eight designs for most of its stations built in the Prairie Provinces.  The station which was built in 1910 at Midnapore, Alberta, just south of Calgary, is an example of a "combination" station.  It housed a freight storage room, a waiting area and an office under the same roof. 

Midnapore was originally called Fish Creek, but the village postmaster changed the name when he found a letter mixed in with Fish Creek’s mail that was addressed to the postmaster in Midnapore, India.  In 1912, passenger service was introduced between Calgary and Fort MacLeod, stopping at Midnapore, but due to a wartime lack of manpower and decreased business, this station closed in 1918. Canadian Pacific Railroad sold the station to Heritage Park in 1964 for one dollar.

Well…that’s all from us regarding Calgary’s Heritage Park.  This is a Class “A” Attraction, (5-stars!), and we highly recommend it to anyone interested in living history, antiques, collectables, railroads and life as it used to be.  This park has something for everyone!  To learn more, just go to http://www.heritagepark.ca/. 

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for continuing to follow us on our Alberta “Travel Blog”!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave