From Lake Louise, we followed the Moraine Lake Road to reach the Valley of the Ten Peaks. As you can tell from its name, it is a valley crowned by ten mountains. It also contains Moraine Lake, another glacially-fed lake that has a surface are of 50 hectares. Once upon a time, this valley was secluded and was known only to the Stoney First Nations people who consider this a part of their original homeland. An early explorer of the region, Samuel Allen, chanced upon them (becau

Leaving Calgary behind, we resumed our reconnaissance of Mother Nature by driving back to the Banff National Park. Our destination was Lake Louise. No visit to the Rockies would be complete without a stopover at Lake Louise. It is the crown jewel of the Rockies and in more ways than one, its poster child. In fact, every single calendar featuring the Canadian Rockies is top-billed by Lake Louise, and I am going to bet my bottom dollar that this is the most popular postcard sen

As we were driving away from downtown Calgary, my friend suggested we stop by the Calgary Olympic Park, which was only a 20-minute ride from downtown. None of us is an athlete or an avid sports fan, and on this trip, sports activities were not really part of the plan, but we decided to check it out since it was on our way. The WinSports Calgary Olympic Park was formerly known as Paskapoo Ski Hill, but has changed its name since it became the premiere site of the Winter Olympi

I did not expect to find myself in Calgary. Nevertheless, there I was, with a couple of co-workers, walking around the downtown area on a very early Sunday morning, with no real purpose. The previous day, we were on the road for ten hours from Vancouver to Banff, then a few more from Banff to Calgary. We were dead tired and simply collapsed into our beds the moment we arrived at the hotel after midnight. But after a sound sleep, all three of us were out of bed by six in the m

We arrived in Banff in the mid-afternoon. Banff is the resort town located within the Banff National Park. Normally, when people talk about Banff, they are referring to this municipality, which was the first to incorporate within a Canadian national park, and has since evolved into a major tourist destination. The place was first settled in the 1880s, after the transcontinental railway was built. After the discovery of a series of natural hot springs on the side of a mountain