Tour Managers Tales

Jasper, Alberta For most visitors, a trip to Jasper is about seeing wildlife. Jasper National Park protects a vestige of the wildlife that once blanketed the west. While the last 200 years have seen a dramatic decline in wildlife in most parts of North America, healthy populations of plants and animals have persisted inside the park. The Canadian Rockies are known to support 1300 species of plants, 20,000 types of insects and spiders, 40 types of fish, 16 species of amphibians and reptiles, 277 species of birds and 69 different species of mammals including: humans; elk; deer; moose; caribou; sheep; goats; bears; coyotes; wolves; beavers; pine martens; lynx; porcupines; cougars; snowshoe hares and wolverines. Jasper's elevation range, geology, geography and climate create diverse habitats for a surprising variety of species. Ecosystems Climate, geology, soil, plants, animals – and humans all interact in one large complex web of life. In Jasper this web is especially fra...

Jasper, Alberta Jasper was born in 1911 as a rough and tumble railway construction camp called Fitzhugh. Two years later a real town began to emerge from the jumble of tents and shacks, and the name was changed to Jasper. That same year, the new park superintendent Lieut. Col. S. Maynard Rogers, built an impressive stone and log administration office and residence near the railway station, and the town was on its way. The first facilities designed for park visitors were established in 1915 in the form of a tent camp on the shore of nearby Lac Beauvert; the Canadian National Railway acquired the site and built the Jasper Park Lodge there in the early 1920s. In those early years, outfitters led horse trips to remote beauty spots as Maligne Lake, the Tonquin Valley and the Columbia Icefield, where tourist were first housed in tent camps and, later, in log cabins and lodges. Today, the population of Jasper is around 5,500, and it operates as the headquarters and main service centre...

Some scenery from the train journey -  Rocky Mountaineer Loco  The Orange Bridge Hells Gate

Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver is a coastal city located in the  Lower Mainland  of British Columbia ,  Canada . It is named for  British  Captain  George Vancouver , who explored the area in the 1790s. The largest metropolitan area in  Western Canada , Vancouver ranks  third largest  in the country and the city proper ranks eighth. Vancouver has a population of 578,041 and its Metropolitan Area  exceeds 2.1 million people. Its residents are  ethnically  and linguistically diverse; 52% do not speak  English  as their fir st language. Logging   sawmills  established in 1867 in the area known as  Gastown  became the nucleus around which the  town-site  grew, and Vancouver was incorporated as a city in 1886. By 1887, the  transcontinental railway  was extended to the city to take advantage of its large natural seaport, which soon became a vital link in a trade rou...

Hello, just getting myself organised for my next adventure, The Rocky Mountain Rail Tour, starting on Tuesday, flying to Vancouver, Canada for 3 nights, more updates once I get under way, as they say, watch this space.

Sunset in Balestrand  We have now come to end of the tour, arrived in Bergen this afternoon, for once the weather is good, no rain forecast, but that  means nothing here .... here are some photographs from the tour ...  Geiranger Fjord Scandinavian Discovery July 12th -26th 2010  The Headless Moose Fredensborg Palace, Denmark  Singing in the rain !! Trollstig Waterfall  Boyabreen Glacier Kronborg Castle (Elsinore) Denmark Stockholm City Hall 

Sunday 25 th July Bergen, Norway About Bergen Bergen is an international town with small-town charm and atmosphere. The inhabitants love to show off their beautiful and many-sided city. They are proud of Bergen’s shipping, trading and cultural traditions. The city with its 250,000 inhabitants is like a spectacular amphitheatre clambering up the mountainsides, overlooking the sea, embracing you. You can roam through living history in this modern city, the gateway to the wildest and loveliest fjords of Norway. Tradition, initiative and drive have made Bergen one of Norway’s most vigorous cultural cities. It is not merely by chance that Norway’s biggest cultural event, the Bergen International Festival, is held here each year, or that the town was chosen to be one of the European Cities of Culture in the year 2000. The old parts of town are living history, and the museums and galleries keep both art and the ancestral heritage alive. The Hanseatic wharf Bryggen, the Fish Market, t...