Visiting Jasper and the Icefields Parkway | Ep. 46

Hello everyone! We’re BACK for Season 3 with even more goodies from our cross-Canada tour in 2021. Today we talk about Jasper, Alberta. More specifically:

• The places you need to pay to play (or drive)
• Length restrictions in Campgrounds
• The town of Jasper
• Things to do
• How to add another province to your list in less than an hour
• Where to shower;
• …and much more!

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Transcript

1 (5s): Hello everyone. And welcome back to the RV Canucks podcast. It’s been a long time, but we’re so excited to be back with episode 46 and the official start of season three. We’re so thrilled. You’re joining us and it’s your support and engaged listenership. That’s gotten us this far, so we certainly appreciate it if you’re new here and we hope some of you are welcome as always I’m Melina. And that over there is Dan. Hello, and we are the RV connects a roving band of Canadian part-time RV owners who travel far on our vacations from work and show you how easy it can be. So before we dive into today’s episode, do we owe the people a bit of an explanation on our four month hiatus? 2 (48s): I think we do because they’ve been incredibly patient and in very supportive, it’s been a long four months. We’ve had some illnesses in the family. There’s been some career transitions. We’re in the midst of career transitions. We’ve been busy with hockey and school and lockdowns. And quite frankly, I think we just, for our own sanity, something had to give a little bit and we needed to push this off, but we’ve been talking about it for weeks now that we really need to get back at this. And it is good to be back behind the microphone. We even had a few giggles and smiles as we got set up here, here, it was, we tried to remember how all this stuff works. 1 (1m 22s): Yeah. It kind of feels like the first episode. So if things are a little rusty, we asked for some patients, I would say the Coles notes version of that story as we were kind of burned out and we’re the good news is we’re back at it. Everybody is in great health in the family now, and we are ready to get Roran on season three. So today we actually have a really great episode if you’re all caught up on our episodes to date, we last left off at Banff and lake Louise, which was part of our RV connects epic road trip of 2021. So today we’re continuing north and we’re going to be talking about the ice fields Parkway and Jasper Alberta. Okay. So after we had completed our magical trip to Banff and lake Louise, we took the Icefields Parkway 288 kilometers over to Jasper that drive took what three and a half, four hours probably. 2 (2m 12s): Yeah. And we weren’t pushing it. Like we had a good, it was a nice relaxing drive. 1 (2m 15s): Yeah. It was a nice relaxing drive. We did want to check in the kids were exhausted. Cause I think we were all still in a post recovery phase from doing the tea house challenge. So everyone was tired. So I would say, I probably would have liked to maybe stop a little more and do some of the scenic lookouts. But at that point we’re also catering to teenage sensibilities and trying very hard to make them not hate camping and road trips. So, you know, when they really wanted to get there, it was like, you know what, we’re fine driving and looking at the sites, but there are an absolute ton of lookouts on the Icefields Parkway where you can stop and pull off and have a picnic and take photos. So I would just recommend for anybody doing that trip. I mean, Hey, if you want it to take six hours, no problem. 1 (2m 58s): Just definitely take your time. There’s a lot of great, beautiful, stunning scenery. That’s unlike anything even up to be like from Calgary to Banff, you know, it’s just, it just, the scenery changes so much. Yeah. 2 (3m 9s): I think anybody can do the drive with a basic skill level. There is a few tight turns and stuff, but nothing that you need to be afraid of. But with all that being said, I mentioned it because I just found it to be one of the more relaxing drives. Honestly. I just, I really enjoyed that part of the road trip. 1 (3m 24s): Yeah. I think one caveat to that is the shoulder season, right? Like you’re still going to have, you know, avalanche issues and, and road closures in those shoulder seasons. So, so to travel the ice fields Parkway, you have to have either a valid parks Canada pass, or you need to pay the toll at the toll booth. We did have the parks Canada pass from our time in Banff national park. And if you need a refresh on that process and purchasing that park pass, I suggest you go listen to the episode on BAMF where we detail that. So fuel. 2 (3m 54s): Yeah. So if you’re going to drive from Banff to Jasper, make sure you fuel up in bam before you hit the road because there’s only one place to fuel up. And that’s at the Saskatchewan river crossing during peak months, there might be delays at the pump. The prices might be higher. And of course now it’s 2022 and goodness knows what the price of gas is going to be. If you get to make that trip down, it’s roughly halfway between Banff and Jasper. But if you want to make your trip easier, just fuel up in Banff and then make the drive to Jasper. And obviously if you’re coming from Jack Jasper to Banff fuel up in Jasper first, because you can make the entire run likely on one tank of gas. 1 (4m 27s): That being said, we still did stop at the Saskatchewan river crossing resort because it also has, you know, a gift shop, a motel, a diner. So we did stop for some food and snacks, I believe on the way there, but I don’t think we fueled up at that time. So one note I want to make is on connectivity. So there’s actually no cell towers in Banff and Jasper national park wilderness areas. So there’s virtually no cell signal plan accordingly, bring paper maps, pre download your maps. You can download a trip planner from Icefields parkway.com. That’s got great information, but it’s actually just a really great time to just like, shut your phone off and, you know, drink in the scenery and play word games with the kids and just look out the window and just kind of, you know, drink it all in. 1 (5m 12s): And one thing I will say about that is there’s, there’s a great website called get your guide.com and they have a fantastic ice fields, Parkway, smartphone driving tour. So it’s $8 and 49 cents Canadian. You download it onto your phone so you can listen to it without cell coverage. And you basically just play it over your car. And it’s like a narrated drive that takes you all the way from Banff to Jasper or, you know, the other way around there’s, there’s an alternate version as well. That just points out all of the, all of the history, all of the points, everything about, you know, the railway and the settlers and, and all of the history of the area. So it’s a fantastic listen to just kind of like while away the hours and just really pay attention to the landmarks that are around you. 1 (5m 56s): So one of the most spectacular lookouts is the goats and glaciers look out. And I actually made a point of writing this down on my phone as we were driving by or putting it in my notes. It’s a great spot overlooking the Athabaska river and the fry mountain rage to the west. It’s just north of SunWater to falls Rocky mountain lodge. So there’s marked signs and a parking lot where you can park. Apparently sunrise is the best time to visit this lookout because the light first hits those mountain ranges. So it’s absolutely just stunning, but it’s a great place to catch the Milky way in April and may if you’re there in the evening. But I would say that’s probably a must see lookout on the drive between Banff and Jasper. 2 (6m 36s): Yeah. So where to stay. So there’s the campgrounds within Jasper national park or, well, Baso WAPA T and Whistler, and those are all the closest to Jasper the town, proper town town proper. So we stayed at well Basile, which I really enjoyed that park. Did you want to talk about your first impressions of it? 1 (6m 55s): Yeah, I think, you know, we’ve also, and whistlers campground, first of all, can accommodate longer trailers, but the vast majority of the parks, both like these three close to Jasper and the rest of the parks in the national park along the Icefields Parkway can only accommodate up to 24 feet. So really do your research before you get there, because certainly in high seasons, you know, even the sites that can accommodate larger trailers, there’s not a ton of them. Whistlers is the new one. And it’s very open. There’s not a lot of, there’s not a lot of trees. It’s just kind of like park your big rig and it’s a good home base to, to see Jasper, but I would recommend well Baso because there is a little more tree cover. It’s a little more kind of wilderness, if you will. 1 (7m 35s): However, it was very clear when we got there that there had been a recent fire or a series of fires that have just kind of ripped through the campground. So it took a lot of the tree cover away. 2 (7m 46s): Yeah. There’s not a ton of privacy there, but it’s not because they designed the park to have the camp sites right on top of each other. It’s because of that fire. But I don’t think we ever really felt like somebody was spying on us at the same time, but I really enjoyed that park. It’s got a real wilderness feel. There’s great trails in the area. There’s a river not far. Well, it really borders the edge of the campground. And it’s really easy to walk to nice morning stroll. I went on that several times. You can see people getting ready to go whitewater rafting. So that’s really nice. Bathrooms are clean. It’s what, 15, 20 minutes from the town of Jasper. So if you’ve got a scoot into town and get something it’s not too far away and for a cheapskate like me, it’s got free firewood. You just kind of back up to the pile and take it away. 2 (8m 28s): So just by way of observation, we were there the middle of the second half of August. And just looking around at the campgrounds around Jasper, there was certainly lots of availability to get a site. 1 (8m 39s): Yeah. One thing I definitely liked about, well Baso is it reminded me of like camping when I was a kid in British Columbia. And that was probably the first campsite we’ve certainly been to in all of our travels that just gave me that kind of like proper wilderness. Like I use air quotes because we are still, you know, car camping and glamping, but just gave you that true, like parks, Canada, you know, very natural environment, you know, in terms of amenities, it’s very stripped down. It’s very bare. The high focus is on, you know, trail walking and relaxing. And there’s not a lot of, you know, amphitheaters, like you see in Ontario parks where they have a ton of park Rangers doing programs for kids. 1 (9m 20s): Like it’s just, I’m sure they do that. And I’m sure they do that more in non COVID times, but it’s just, it’s a different vibe altogether. And one that I really appreciate for, it’s just kind of naturally 2 (9m 29s): You get people that are camping. You get people that are driving across the country like us, you get people that are doing it by motorcycle. Really. It’s a completely different flavor than going camping at an Ontario provincial part from Friday to Sunday. 1 (9m 44s): Totally. And on that note, let, maybe let’s talk about amenities a little bit because there are no showers at Willow Baso campground. So you can use Whistler’s campground, which is just maybe five minutes up the road. So well, Basa was on 93, a, so 93 kind of splits off. And that’s where we’ll Bosco. Campground is just off the main highway, but then just shortly north on the road, it meets 93 again. And that’s where whistlers and what PD campground is. So you can use the showers at Whistler’s campground, or if you drive the 15 minutes into Jasper, there is a place called the Snowdome coffee shop in Jasper, which is a coffee shop slash laundromat slash shower house. So they actually have personal shower rooms that you can rent. 2 (10m 25s): Yep. So when we did our laundry, we did our laundry actually in a basement laundry mat office supply store combo that I took one of the girls in there and we kind of stumbled across it by accident, trying to find a public washroom for them. And so we ended up going back there to do the laundry. 1 (10m 42s): Yeah, it’s called three sheets. And it’s this, it’s a great way to, to, I guess, boost your passion project, which was office supplies, which was neat and having a laundromat in the office supply store. But the reason we went there is because no dome was actually closed. 2 (10m 55s): And when I say office supplies, I’m not talking staples, I’m talking 1 (10m 59s): Like fancy calligraphy sets and all that. 2 (11m 1s): Maybe almost office supplies and art stuff. But anyways, it was really cool and really neat and really, really friendly. So I’d recommend going there. 1 (11m 9s): So the dump station also at Labasa is really tight. It takes two way traffic, cause you can enter from both sides of the loop. They have fresh water and the dumping stations kind of at the same location. And they’re not very well laid out. Obviously they have to work with the natural terrain, but I did find that it was a really tight fit, especially with the length of our trailer at 29 feet to get around it after was a little bit tight. So there is another option. You there’s an alternate dump station on 93, a north, just south of highway 16. So you can try there if that’s busy, because I imagine long weekends, you know, busy parts of the, the summer, it’ll probably there’ll be quite the lineup for the dump station. 2 (11m 49s): Yep, absolutely. So let’s talk about the town a little bit. The town of Jasper is really laid back in it’s unpretentious. And I dare say, you know, when you talked about the fact that you can get a shower and do your laundry at the same place, I suspect it’s a bit of a jumping off point to the wilderness to a degree. Like you’re kind of, you’re not at the edge of civilization, but there’s definitely a long stretch to the next city, especially if you’re going west. And I really liked that feel. 1 (12m 16s): I would say that’s a fair assessment. Like if I were, if I were to put it into words, I would say like BAMF is like Instagram central. And I mean, that’s ironic because we have an Instagram account, but we’re not like Instagrammers. I think we all know what I mean. When I say like it’s an Instagram who’s paradise in Banff and Jasper is like plaid shirts, great coffee and a warm hug. Like it’s just, it’s a totally different vibe. It’s really, it’s like the difference between somewhere like Pismo beach in California as a surf town versus somewhere like Venice or Santa Monica where it’s all showy, you know what I mean? Like it’s 2 (12m 48s): Like a truly 1 (12m 49s): Laid back town. Yeah. 2 (12m 51s): And they’re both really great. I love both of them and I’d, I’d really struggle if I only had a week, which one to go to, but I really love Jasper. Yeah. For that, like, it is a really diverse mix of things to see things, to do diversity of shops, all of that kind of stuff. 1 (13m 8s): And with all of that being said, there is that caveat because it is kind of in the middle of nowhere that things are very expensive, gas, food, et cetera. So for example, a 36 flat of bottles of water was $20 in the store. And like a bag of just lays potato chips was five bucks. So, you know, not that those are staples, but those are kind of staples across. 2 (13m 32s): That’s not lie to the people. We have a bag of chips in there every day of the week. 1 (13m 35s): Yeah. Pretty much so. Yeah. So, so things are relatively more expensive in a town like Jasper, but you know, as long as you come prepared and kind of plan around it. 2 (13m 43s): Yeah. Very walkable town. I would note that all the shops are pretty unique. There’s something different in most of the shops, a lot of private proprietors. And so when you walk into one shop, you see something different in the next shop and so on and so forth. And that maybe wasn’t quite the case in bam. 1 (14m 1s): Yeah. It was less like touristy type shops. 2 (14m 4s): Yeah. And outdoor supplies, like, you know, tents and water filtration. And I think I picked up bear spray while we were there. So there’s something for everybody. I will note, there’s a great hardware store there. I can’t remember what I had to go in there and buy, but it was at the end of the day, I remember it was really small because the lady didn’t even want to charge me for it, but it was one of those things that we were just glad to have. So Hey, there’s a great hardware store. The town is really kind of centered in its layout around the train station, in the railway. Right. Because let’s be honest as places founded as much on resources as it is tourism. And that’s really cool. Did you want to talk about the train station? 1 (14m 40s): Yeah. I just thought the train station was another, just a really good example of kind of like the, the heyday of rail travel. There’s some great exhibits in there. There’s a little cafe, a cafe and coffee shop in there. A lot of history, a lot of plaques that you can learn from and just a gorgeous building itself. And then kitty corner into that right across the street is the tourism information center, which is also fantastic. I’m also attached to the train station or some great public washrooms. And we had a fantastic conversation with one of the parks, Canada employees who was, who was waiting outside for her colleague to finish cleaning the bathroom when we were waiting to use it and just had a great conversation about their college program and, and having people employed for the summer. So they have a lot of, a lot of staff around to ask great questions to the tourism center is just stunning. 1 (15m 24s): It’s it looks to me like it would have been like an old stone cottage for some very rich person back in the day, but it’s a stunning building, very accessible. Like Dan said, very walkable. The downtown core itself, you know, takes no more than kind of a loop, the two main streets. And it would take you no more than 10 minutes to walk up. 2 (15m 38s): And I don’t recall that it was hard finding parking. Like I don’t think we had the same challenges there that we didn’t ban. 1 (15m 44s): No goodness, no, not at all. Yeah. We parked right around the corner from the tourist information center, like within spitting distance and we stayed there all day. 2 (15m 52s): Yep. So that was cool. Elk. 1 (15m 54s): First we have to talk. Aila will kill us if we don’t talk about Casio. 2 (15m 57s): Oh yes. Cascio’s that was just a really good dinner. It wasn’t, 1 (16m 1s): It was, it was still probably one of my favorite Italian meals we’ve ever had. 2 (16m 5s): And I don’t know if that was because it was COVID times and we were allowed to sit down in a restaurant and like eat like restaurant people, but the food was great. It was, it wasn’t a chain restaurant. It was an authentic run by a family type restaurant. Like you’re not going to find that restaurant anywhere else. Except in Jasper, the prices were reasonable. Everybody had a great meal was probably the highlight of the day. And I picked it out. She just decided we were having Italian that night. 1 (16m 31s): Yeah. She wanted pasta. So we went into this, you know, darkly lit. There’s a lot of, <inaudible> like a lot of fake Ivy hanging everywhere and you know, murals on the wall and you know, just fantastic wine and clearly handmade or a handmade pasta. And it was fantastic. So if you’re in Jasper big shout out to Cascio’s Italian restaurant, it was awesome. Yeah. So now let’s talk about L 2 (16m 54s): Elk. We saw a lot of elk thinks probably, and maybe that’s because of the time of the day, but we saw most of them out in the evening at the side of the road. Yeah. Lots of. And that was probably, we saw a lot more wildlife there than we did in Banff or anywhere else on the trip, quite honestly, even, even in Northern Ontario. So yeah, there’s lots of elk, but listen, let’s keep your distance from the elk. Don’t be a dummy and try and ride the elk. Like they’re big animals and you’re not gonna win. 1 (17m 19s): Yeah. And they will get very aggressive and they are very fast. So, you know, certainly pull over, roll down your window. You know, I got some fantastic shots of the ALC just with the zoom on my iPhone. Like you don’t need to get particularly close to get a great shot if you’re looking for a photo and then just kind of, you know, slowly pull back over and be on your way. Like, I think there’s a lot of gawkers when it comes to the elk, which one is the traffic hazard, but to just let them do their thing, like don’t try to pet them and all will be well. 2 (17m 46s): Exactly. 1 (17m 46s): So things to do in Jasper obviously, you know, similar to BAMF, it’s kind of an, an out door person’s paradise, right. You know, you’re going to have hiking, biking, water, sports, fishing, all of the typical winter sports. If you’re there in the winter, I would say, you know, a list of top things to do. If you only have a few days in the area, obviously go check out the Jasper park lodge, which is the CP rail hotel in Jasper, just an iconic building, right? Like, I mean, right near the Jasper park lodge is the Jasper planetarium and they do dark sky telescope tours. And then again with the, just the amazing scenery and mountain ranges that surround Jasper you’re, if you’re into a good hike, I would suggest Maligne canyon. 1 (18m 32s): It’s a spectacular Gorge. There’s some great waterfalls. Maligne lake and spirit island. There are boat cruises to the island. And I didn’t realize this at the time, but spirit island is actually quite famous. There’s has been an image of it hung in grand central terminal in New York city, apple used it on their 2014 iPad to showcase the camera capabilities of their new iPad. Obviously it’s a very important spiritual place for the Stoney Nakota first nation. And they believe that the mountains that surround the island are the physical representations of their ancestors. It’s actually located in a box canyon. The fact that spirit island is surrounded on three sides by the same mountain range is actually apparently quite rare. 1 (19m 15s): And it makes it particularly significant obviously to the Stony Dakota. It’s actually only accessible by boat and it’s 14 kilometers from the access point. So even if you’re paddling, that’s going to be a couple of hour paddle one way. So most people take the limited boat tours that they do offer one quote. I came across when I was, I was making my notes for this episode was from a European Explorer artist, Mary Schaefer. And she was actually the first European to see malign like in 1908. And he never mentioned the island, but she called the box canyon where it sits the hall of gods. And I found this quote to be particularly apt in where she said, if lake Louise is a Pearl, mullein is the entire Pearl necklace. 1 (19m 58s): So, you know, if you’ve seen all of those pictures of lake Louise being the most photographed lake in the world, you know, just picture malign, like, because it’s, it’s, it’s that times 10 other mountains around there Mount Edith Cavill, you could hike the summit. There’s actually a really great Alpine meadow at the base. If you’re not into going up the summit or you don’t have the stamina, or you just want to look around, there’s a great meadow at the bottom that you can kind of wander through the Jasper tramway, which is basically like the little gondola that goes up Jasper or that overlooks Jasper, I should say the tramway will take you up, but you are still, you know, fairly far from the summit. I would say, if you’re going up there, you probably want to allow at least two hours Polis to reach the summit. 1 (20m 43s): If you want to go up that far, it’s very, <inaudible> like, there’s not a lot of, there’s no trees up there. It’s it’s, 2 (20m 49s): It’s not that there’s no trees up there cause somebody cut them down. It’s cause there’s no trees up there and that’s the natural landscape and that’s what makes it really cool. You think glacial? I thought kind of the moon, but, but, but not in a bad way. Like it’s, it’s, it’s like really big pieces of gravel. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s it was cool. And I’m glad we did it, but absolutely what you said. You know, if you want to keep walking up further, don’t save it till like three o’clock in the afternoon, 1 (21m 17s): Which is what we did. We got up there and I think there was an hour before the tramway closed and like, literally you’re out of luck. Eight will stop running and you’re walking down. So we actually did not make the summit. I would say we got like halfway between the tramway and the summit, but we were just absolutely done. Like you, if you, if you had waved a million dollars in front of my nose, I probably couldn’t have done it just because I was still beat from the TSS. 2 (21m 40s): And I’m okay with that. Like I did the T house challenge people. I went to both teahouses and I’m not going to take guff from anybody out there about it. So I’m glad we went up there. Give yourself lots of time. If you want to go all the way to the end, you definitely don’t want to miss the tram to the bottom. Cause I don’t know how you’re going to get to the bottom. If they’ve shut down for the day, they were shooting a music video up there, which was kind of cool. And it didn’t kind of infringe on the enjoyment and it’s a great spot to take pictures from. If you wanted to take pictures in basically a 360 degree direction and look right down on the town, you can do it. Yeah. 1 (22m 16s): Yeah. It was, it was fantastic. It was nice to see, or it was a great vantage point to see the kind of the layout of the town and how it’s all oriented around the train station. Like Dan mentioned earlier, and we were actually on our ride down on the tramway. I remember us looking down and trying to figure out like, okay, if you were actually stuck here, then how would you get down? Like you, would you just follow the tramway? Like there’s no, there’s no easy way to get down. 2 (22m 38s): No, you’re good. You’re going to be euchred and I kind of just had this thought now while recording this. So I don’t want to get in trouble with Molina for going off script here, but it might actually be cool to do that at the beginning of your trip to Jasper, because then you have that bird’s eye view of the whole place and then go down and see everything when you’re down there. 1 (22m 55s): Yeah, no, I think that’s a great idea. One word to the wise, if, if Heights bother you or, you know, you feel unsafe on a cable car, like that’s one of those cable cars where like halfway through you get a big dip, like a kind of a swing in the middle halfway up. So just be aware if that’s something that makes you anxious, you might be better knowing that before you get on 2 (23m 14s): Listen, Eila and I are not fans of Heights and we’d made out just fine. So suck it up. That’s 1 (23m 21s): Because you knew you were getting Italian food, 2 (23m 23s): I suppose that’s true too, but, but it was fine. 1 (23m 26s): So overall opinion, how long do you think, or how short a time can you do Jasper when we were there for two days and I feel that was kind of short, 2 (23m 34s): Can we back up to the gondola for a second? So this was really cool. All of the people that worked on going up and down the God were from Australia. And so the side conversations when we were going up and down was they were going to finish working at the Godell in the summer and then flip over to the ski resort in the winter. And so that was really cool. Really global. Well maybe, maybe I’m overstating it just cool to see people from other places and hear their stories and what they were doing and coming to Canada. So that was awesome. 1 (24m 0s): Yeah. So in terms of how long you need or how short a time you can see Jasper in? I would say we were there like two, three nights, which is like the bare minimum. I would say, like, I think, you know, do you need to be there for seven days? Probably not. You can get a good idea of what the area is about and do some great attractions, you know, in that three to five day mark, but certainly I think, you know, no less than, than two to three days at minimum. 2 (24m 25s): Yeah. I feel like for me, I’d be happy to go there, spend a couple of days, see some sites, just hang out in the campsite, read a book and have a drink and chill. And then maybe go back out a little bit more for a couple more days. 1 (24m 37s): Yeah, for sure. 2 (24m 38s): Mt. Robson. 1 (24m 40s): Oh gosh. Okay. So another thing I will mention, because it really was a great add on, I think to our trip, just to say that we also hit BC opted for, we packed a great picnic lunch. We drove the 30 minutes around Mount Robson, provincial park border, and we had a great picnic at a place called the portal lake rest area. So that’s a great rest area. There are outhouses there. There’s a couple of picnic tables, a lovely lake called portal lake, obviously. And there’s a loop hike rate at the rest area, which was really great. A nice way to stretch our legs. 2 (25m 13s): Yeah, I think there was a little pond there, there was a loop height. What took us what maybe 20, 30 minutes. So it’s really clean. It’s just like an old style rest stop for young people like me that grew up in the eighties before they had like Tim Horton’s on every corner and, you know, drive through McDonald’s and everything. This is where you went because you couldn’t just buy really cheap takeout food and your mom would make a really good picnic. And that’s what we did. We literally drove there just for the two purposes, one to have a really good picnic because Molina made this really good homemade bean salad with whatever was kicking around in the trailer. And I think you’ve tried to recreate it a couple of times at home and it’s been really good. And we checked the box off to say, we went to BC. 1 (25m 52s): Yeah, yeah, no fantastic place to stay. That’s also the location of the yellow head past national historic site. And there’s a big plaque there that just kind of explains the historical significance of the past in the railway and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a great, it’s a great place to visit for a few hours 2 (26m 7s): And it’s a natural transition of geography. So if you can picture yourself standing in Jasper and you go to the top of the gondola, you’re at the top of a mountain and it’s glacial, or it’s a top of the moon, but you know, whatever it is, that’s one type of geography. If you had towards Edmonton, it’s not long before. You’re kind of back into the start of the prairies. And if you’d literally just go another 15 minutes down to this rest, stop in BC, you’re kind of into the mountains and trees on the forest. Like it’s a, a juncture of like three different types of geography. 1 (26m 38s): So speaking of Prairie’s from Jasper, we went kind of Northeast again, past Edmonton area out towards Lloydminster. We spent the night in Lloydminster and then we continued on through Saskatchewan. Again, I did have to stop for work again in Saskatoon. So we actually stayed at pike lake provincial park in Saskatchewan, which actually ended up being a really great provincial park. So we’ll talk about that on a future episode. 2 (27m 4s): Yeah, the girls and I had a blast. I mean, sorry you were at work, but we had a really good time. I’ll have to tell you about the lake three or $4 breakfast. We got it. The concession stand and run bikes around. It was really good time there. Yeah. 1 (27m 17s): And on that cliffhanger, we will end it there. Thank you so much for joining us again, everybody. And we will see you next time. 2 (27m 23s): Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.