Sunday, July 18, 2004
Bragg Creek road trip
P here - its been a while since I've written, but even though I'm not working, I seem to be able to fill my days up with no bother at all. If you asked me what I did, it would sound extremely boring, but I have to say I'm sort of enjoying the mundane things in life, such as washing, ironing, cleaning, cutting the grass, deciding what to have for dinner etc. My mum reckons I'm only enjoying it because I know I'm getting back out to work again within the next couple of weeks, and she's probably right. Speaking of which, I finally have my work permit... but not without a little anxiety and worry that it wouldn't happen. I had had a little bit of trouble communicating with the Canadian High Commission in London, as they will only accept communications by letter or fax, and they will not communicate by email or phone. I wrote to them in early May to ask whether I should apply for a work permit before travelling to Canada as Mr White's 'accompanying dependent', or whether I should wait and apply from within the country. I heard nothing until the Saturday we were due to fly out, when I received a note saying that I MUST apply before I left the UK. This caused all sorts of panic, not least because they wanted CAD$150 to process the application, and they would only accept a bank draft - not the easiest thing to source on a Saturday morning!! The application form was duly completed (including my CV, two photographs of me and him, a letter outlining the job I had been offered, a copy of my passport identification page, but no bank draft). The draft was ordered by telephone banking with the Halifax, and it was due to arrive on Tuesday of the following week. Denise was (yet again) asked to come to the rescue, and was to post the application form and draft as soon as possible. Needless to say, this threw me into a complete panic as the application would not be received by the High Commission before I left the country...
Anyway, as you know, they let me into Canada as Mr White's cling-on, and we heard nothing more from the Commission until some time around the 4th July, when they EMAILED to say that they had received my application but they needed me to confirm BY FAX (not email) that I wasn't going to work in childcare or education. A couple of days later, we received half a fax that implied that my work permit had been approved, but no letter...so we faxed to say that it hadn't arrived...they faxed another page, but still not the all important letter,,,we faxed to say that it hadn't arrived, and then we got my fax back with a scribbled note to say that the letter was in the mail. The mail between UK and here is not the fastest (understatement of the year!), so we had to wait another 7-8 days for the letter to finally arrive. When it did come, there was another scribbled note with it that said "You must leave Canada via the nearest Port of Entry; present your work permit to a customs or immigration official, and re-enter Canada with your change of status, as a worker".......
With regard to officialdom like this, I tend to be a little bit of a sheep and think that I must do exactly as I am told. So, I dutifully hoked round the net to see where our nearest Port of Entry was (5 hours drive south to Montana, or a CAD$600 return flight to Seattle). Thankfully though, Mr White is somewhat less in awe of authority than I am, and he managed to phone Canadian Immigration at the airport and got to speak to an actual person (rather than a series of automated messages), who said that she would look into the circumstances surrounding the application for the work permit. She then phoned me, asked a few questions, and then (wonder of wonders) said that if I came to the airport the next day, she would be able to issue the work permit there and then and that I wouldn't have to leave the country after all! So after all the worry, I now have a work permit that allows me to work in any occupation (except for childcare, education or the medical profession) for any employer, right up until 30th June 2006 - thank you to Canadian Immigration. So, it looks like I'll be starting work at the Cancer Board on 3rd August....
Anyway, back to P and J's adventures on the roads of southern Alberta... we set off yesterday with the intention of going to Bragg Creek and (breaking one of our recently formulated rules of travel), deciding where we would go next when we got there. On the way (breaking yet another rule of travel), we stopped into Rona to buy a fan for the bedroom. Most unusually for Calgary, the weather is really hot and even slightly humid, which makes sleep a little difficult. The previous night, the temperature didn't drop below 20 degrees C, and even with all of the windows in the house left open, there wasn't a breath of air to be felt. (By the way, we can keep all of the windows open without any fear of insect attack because all of the windows are fitted with flyscreens.) I think that Rona did a great trade in floor fans yesterday, as even in the short time that we were there, I counted 4 other people buying them!! We then headed up highway 1A towards a small town called Cochrane, which used to be the cattle ranching centre of southern Alberta. The guidebooks are a bit insulting about the town now, and most of them tell you that it is nothing more than a dormitory town for Calgary. Given the amount of new houses being built on the outskirts, this may well have some truth to it, but we thought that the centre of the town was worth a visit. I don't know how authentic the buildings on the main street are, but they're done up to look old, and we thought it was pretty effective. They also have some lovely shops - antique shops, a great kitchen shop (where we had to buy a new garlic press - I broke my 'Good Grips' one on Friday), loads of small restaurants, craft shops, etc etc.
Here are a few pictures of the main street:
We bought several bottles of water, and Mr White's latest road atlas (all of Canada - which joins our atlases of Calgary, Calgary and surrounding areas, Southern Alberta and All of Alberta) and then headed further down the road towards Bragg Creek. When we got there, we weren't terribly impressed. Everyone told us that Bragg Creek was lovely, but we both thought that it was a little 'touristy', with most of the action seeming to be centred on a couple of shopping centres. In fact, in contrast to Cochrane, there didn't seem to be a lot of structure to the place, and it looked like it only existed to sell things to tourists, rather than being a town in its own right. Anyway, we got something to eat (one sandwich and one piece of cherry pie - which we shared - two sandwiches being enough to feed a family of four!!), and started to head out the road towards Kananaskis Country. At this stage, we had about a quarter tank of petrol, and remembering that Canada is a very big country(!), we decided that we should get some more before heading too much further. Needless to say, we had already passed all the normal gas stations and thought that we'd have to go back into Bragg Creek. However, we came around a corner and found a small shop with a very old 'gas pump' standing outside. We thought maybe that it was for decoration only, but rather than turning around, we stopped and asked whether it actually dispensed petrol. Strangely enough it did, and we were able to get about 5 or 6 gallons....
Its not a great picture, but I think you get the gist. Basically, the lady came out and hand pumped 5 or 6 gallons of petrol up from a storage tank in the ground, into a glass reservoir at the top. The glass reservoir was marked off in gallon gradations. Then, when the desired amount of petrol was pumped up, it was fed by gravity into the car's tank...
Having refuelled, we then felt confident enough to head off into the wilds of Kananaskis. Kananaskis is where Calgarians go at the weekends. I had never heard of it before we got here, and had assumed that Calgary headed to places like Banff and Lake Louise at the weekends. But no, they head to Kananaskis. The first place we stopped was Bragg Creek Provincial Park - forest, walking trails, picnic tables, and most importantly, the river. When you haven't got a seaside to go to, the rivers take on an important role... I think that a big proportion of Calgary was in that park - it looked like people had packed up their families, their picnics, their swimming costumes etc and had staked out a picnic table for the day. People were paddling in the river:
While others were jumping in to deep pools, others were floating in tractor inner tubes... (no, not us this time!!)
The weather being so hot, our feet dried off pretty quickly and we then headed on up to the end of the road. Well - I say the road ended.... but it didn't really....we just didn't feel that the poor old Civic would like us to go any further...
so we turned round, and came back the way we had come, this time stopping off at various viewpoints along the way:
and finally, by special request, a lovely view of the whole car (rather than the back half and the front half that appeared on earlier pages)
So...that's about it for the Saturday road trip. Its now Sunday, and Mr White is doing his first ever 24 hour stint on call at the hospital...we'll let you know how that goes...
On a completely different matter, I thought I'd update you on a few other differences between here and home:
We came across a sign yesterday that said 'Texas Gate':
I thought it was a place, until we rattled rather hard over a cattle grid in the middle of the road - so for future reference, a Texas Gate is a cattle grid...
You know how we think Americans like to do everything bigger than we do.... Canadians have a tendency towards the same sort of thing.
Here's a picture of some of the shopping (note the Denby coffee cup in the front of the picture to give you an idea of scale)
Finally, Kananaskis country isn't total wilderness - there are public toilets dotted about all over the place. Mr White wonders why I rarely use public toilets...
So - on that lovely note, I'll go...
More later...
Anyway, as you know, they let me into Canada as Mr White's cling-on, and we heard nothing more from the Commission until some time around the 4th July, when they EMAILED to say that they had received my application but they needed me to confirm BY FAX (not email) that I wasn't going to work in childcare or education. A couple of days later, we received half a fax that implied that my work permit had been approved, but no letter...so we faxed to say that it hadn't arrived...they faxed another page, but still not the all important letter,,,we faxed to say that it hadn't arrived, and then we got my fax back with a scribbled note to say that the letter was in the mail. The mail between UK and here is not the fastest (understatement of the year!), so we had to wait another 7-8 days for the letter to finally arrive. When it did come, there was another scribbled note with it that said "You must leave Canada via the nearest Port of Entry; present your work permit to a customs or immigration official, and re-enter Canada with your change of status, as a worker".......
With regard to officialdom like this, I tend to be a little bit of a sheep and think that I must do exactly as I am told. So, I dutifully hoked round the net to see where our nearest Port of Entry was (5 hours drive south to Montana, or a CAD$600 return flight to Seattle). Thankfully though, Mr White is somewhat less in awe of authority than I am, and he managed to phone Canadian Immigration at the airport and got to speak to an actual person (rather than a series of automated messages), who said that she would look into the circumstances surrounding the application for the work permit. She then phoned me, asked a few questions, and then (wonder of wonders) said that if I came to the airport the next day, she would be able to issue the work permit there and then and that I wouldn't have to leave the country after all! So after all the worry, I now have a work permit that allows me to work in any occupation (except for childcare, education or the medical profession) for any employer, right up until 30th June 2006 - thank you to Canadian Immigration. So, it looks like I'll be starting work at the Cancer Board on 3rd August....
Anyway, back to P and J's adventures on the roads of southern Alberta... we set off yesterday with the intention of going to Bragg Creek and (breaking one of our recently formulated rules of travel), deciding where we would go next when we got there. On the way (breaking yet another rule of travel), we stopped into Rona to buy a fan for the bedroom. Most unusually for Calgary, the weather is really hot and even slightly humid, which makes sleep a little difficult. The previous night, the temperature didn't drop below 20 degrees C, and even with all of the windows in the house left open, there wasn't a breath of air to be felt. (By the way, we can keep all of the windows open without any fear of insect attack because all of the windows are fitted with flyscreens.) I think that Rona did a great trade in floor fans yesterday, as even in the short time that we were there, I counted 4 other people buying them!! We then headed up highway 1A towards a small town called Cochrane, which used to be the cattle ranching centre of southern Alberta. The guidebooks are a bit insulting about the town now, and most of them tell you that it is nothing more than a dormitory town for Calgary. Given the amount of new houses being built on the outskirts, this may well have some truth to it, but we thought that the centre of the town was worth a visit. I don't know how authentic the buildings on the main street are, but they're done up to look old, and we thought it was pretty effective. They also have some lovely shops - antique shops, a great kitchen shop (where we had to buy a new garlic press - I broke my 'Good Grips' one on Friday), loads of small restaurants, craft shops, etc etc.
Here are a few pictures of the main street:
We bought several bottles of water, and Mr White's latest road atlas (all of Canada - which joins our atlases of Calgary, Calgary and surrounding areas, Southern Alberta and All of Alberta) and then headed further down the road towards Bragg Creek. When we got there, we weren't terribly impressed. Everyone told us that Bragg Creek was lovely, but we both thought that it was a little 'touristy', with most of the action seeming to be centred on a couple of shopping centres. In fact, in contrast to Cochrane, there didn't seem to be a lot of structure to the place, and it looked like it only existed to sell things to tourists, rather than being a town in its own right. Anyway, we got something to eat (one sandwich and one piece of cherry pie - which we shared - two sandwiches being enough to feed a family of four!!), and started to head out the road towards Kananaskis Country. At this stage, we had about a quarter tank of petrol, and remembering that Canada is a very big country(!), we decided that we should get some more before heading too much further. Needless to say, we had already passed all the normal gas stations and thought that we'd have to go back into Bragg Creek. However, we came around a corner and found a small shop with a very old 'gas pump' standing outside. We thought maybe that it was for decoration only, but rather than turning around, we stopped and asked whether it actually dispensed petrol. Strangely enough it did, and we were able to get about 5 or 6 gallons....
Its not a great picture, but I think you get the gist. Basically, the lady came out and hand pumped 5 or 6 gallons of petrol up from a storage tank in the ground, into a glass reservoir at the top. The glass reservoir was marked off in gallon gradations. Then, when the desired amount of petrol was pumped up, it was fed by gravity into the car's tank...
Having refuelled, we then felt confident enough to head off into the wilds of Kananaskis. Kananaskis is where Calgarians go at the weekends. I had never heard of it before we got here, and had assumed that Calgary headed to places like Banff and Lake Louise at the weekends. But no, they head to Kananaskis. The first place we stopped was Bragg Creek Provincial Park - forest, walking trails, picnic tables, and most importantly, the river. When you haven't got a seaside to go to, the rivers take on an important role... I think that a big proportion of Calgary was in that park - it looked like people had packed up their families, their picnics, their swimming costumes etc and had staked out a picnic table for the day. People were paddling in the river:
While others were jumping in to deep pools, others were floating in tractor inner tubes... (no, not us this time!!)
The weather being so hot, our feet dried off pretty quickly and we then headed on up to the end of the road. Well - I say the road ended.... but it didn't really....we just didn't feel that the poor old Civic would like us to go any further...
so we turned round, and came back the way we had come, this time stopping off at various viewpoints along the way:
and finally, by special request, a lovely view of the whole car (rather than the back half and the front half that appeared on earlier pages)
So...that's about it for the Saturday road trip. Its now Sunday, and Mr White is doing his first ever 24 hour stint on call at the hospital...we'll let you know how that goes...
On a completely different matter, I thought I'd update you on a few other differences between here and home:
We came across a sign yesterday that said 'Texas Gate':
I thought it was a place, until we rattled rather hard over a cattle grid in the middle of the road - so for future reference, a Texas Gate is a cattle grid...
You know how we think Americans like to do everything bigger than we do.... Canadians have a tendency towards the same sort of thing.
Here's a picture of some of the shopping (note the Denby coffee cup in the front of the picture to give you an idea of scale)
Finally, Kananaskis country isn't total wilderness - there are public toilets dotted about all over the place. Mr White wonders why I rarely use public toilets...
So - on that lovely note, I'll go...
More later...
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