travel – Two Wild Tides

A Land Before Time: Exploring Drumheller, Alberta

September 21, 2020 | Leave a Comment

It’s the year of the staycation– this is nothing new to us at twowildtides. We love being tourists in our own province, and now that I am living in a new province, I have lots more to explore.

Drumheller is a fascinating place. It’s a town in the Canadian badlands, located in east-central Alberta, only about an hour outside Calgary. As you drive across what seems like neverending prairies along Highway 56 South, the land suddenly gives way and you find yourself with high cliffs on either side of you. The change in terrain happens so quickly, it’s almost disorienting. It’s like you’re on Mars.

We decided to camp out for the weekend and visited two different campsites with our small, 2-person tent. The first night, we stayed at Hoodoos RV Park and Campground. While the grounds were tidy and the stay went smoothly, it offers zero privacy and not much to look at. It’d be a great campsite for many tourists as it is affordable and close to many landmarks, but it just wasn’t our style. On the second night, we stayed at River Grove Campground, right in the middle of town. This site was much nicer, offered more privacy, had excellent washrooms, and had a prime location, but you’ll pay a slightly higher price. I recommend River Grove over Hoodoos.

We arrived late Friday night, so we were up bright and early Saturday morning anticipating a jam-packed day. We started off with coffee and a satisfyingly greasy breakfast at WHIFS Flapjack House. Then we headed to Horseshoe Canyon just outside of town.

Horseshoe Canyon was so fun to hike as there are no barricades and visitors are free to roam off the trails. We were fascinated by the desert landscape and spent almost two hours in the blistering sun climbing over boulders and hills, admiring the wildflowers, and spotting rock stacks created by past hikers.

The coolest part about Horseshoe Canyon? Cacti! It’s a pretty stark difference from the evergreen forests we’re used to in Canada.

After we left Horseshoe Canyon, we stopped by our campsite to rehydrate and eat a packed lunch, then we headed about 15-minutes outside of town to Hoodoos Provincial Park. What’s a hoodoo, you ask? It’s a natural rock formation, but I’ll let the pictures explain the rest.

Saturday night, we strolled from our campground to Valley Brewing and enjoyed some flights of beers then grabbed a pizza at a small joint in Drumheller’s cute downtown area. I definitely suggest you pop in some of the little shops and boutiques downtown, there are lots of sweet finds! It’s also worth your time to do the most mega-touristy experience the town has to offer– climb into the mouth of the World’s Tallest Dinosaur. (You can catch me doing this in our Alberta Video Diary from four years ago! I also visited the Royal Tyrell Museum in this video, an experience we couldn’t enjoy during our recent trip due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

Although these days the main industry is likely tourism, Drumheller was a coal-mining boomtown. So before we hit the highway on Sunday, we visited the Atlas Coal Mine– the last mine of it’s kind in the world.

The coal mine was a fascinating experience especially for a history buff. For true crime/disaster story fanatics (what’s up Murderinos?) there are really interesting story boards to read. In normal times (i.e. pre-Covid) you can even climb the tipple and venture inside the mine.

Have you been to Drumheller? What did you do there? Comment below!

Country Challenge: North Korea

September 17, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Join twowildtides on the country challenge. Each week, we’re going to be heading to a new country (in spirit). Primarily, we’ll be cooking a meal from each country; but we’ll also be watching travel documentaries, reading travel blogs, and listening to music. During the global pandemic, travel is largely inaccessible. We want to reignite our wanderlust, satisfy our travel bug as much as we can, and learn some new things along the way. I have a feeling our bucket list will have a number of items added to it through this experience as well. We created a simple alphabetical spreadsheet with all the countries of the world, and each week we will draw a random number that corresponds with a country on the spreadsheet.

Last week, we took on a Caribbean destination: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This week, our spreadsheet and random number generator offered us an interesting choice. North Korea.

We all have our ideas and opinions about North Korea. And because the country is so often surrounded by a cloud of controversy, uncertainty, and secrecy, we forget that it is a real place with real citizens and a unique culture. We were intrigued to learn more about their cuisine.

North Korea

It was difficult to uncover what the popular dishes in North Korea are. From my understanding, the national dish is Kimchi, which I cannot buy locally and did not have time this week to make from scratch. Through a little research, I learned that the average citizen in North Korea likely cannot afford to dine out and often solely consumes basic staples, such as kimchi and rice. I checked out a few blog posts, and across the lists of popular foods in the country, one dish prevailed: Naengmyeon.

We learned about Naengmyeon from this article by Young Pioneer Tours as well as this Vice.com article and this Taste Atlas article.

Disclaimer: there were a lot of authentic ingredients we could not get in our rural Alberta community, so we made some swaps. This is the recipe we followed:

Because I couldn’t buy pickled radishes locally, I started this recipe by making some the night before. They turned out super yummy and the colour was so pretty! I just thinly sliced fresh radish and added them to a jar with equal parts vinegar and water as well as some sugar and peppercorns.

I prepared the simple broth and placed it in the fridge to chill. I cooked the medium-boiled eggs and beef and set it to one side while we chopped some cucumber and pear.

I bought pre-cooked oat-fibre spaghetti noodles as I could not find anything remotely close to myun, buckwheat, or soba noodles at our local supermarket. Plating (or bowling?) the dish was really fun as we could get creative with our presentation. I think it was a very visually appealing dish.

Honestly, I did not like the broth that much. I think it was the beef broth that threw it off, I might have liked it better if the chicken to beef broth ratio was 2:1. What was surprising, though, was how much I enjoyed a cold noodle/soup dish. It was actually pretty refreshing! Mack ended up throwing his in the microwave though!

While we ate, we watched a few YouTube videos about tourism in North Korea:

While North Korea might not be at the top of our travel bucket list and naengmyeon may not be our meal of a lifetime, this was certainly a really unique learning experience for us. Have you had anything like it before? Stay tuned for next week’s country!

Adventures in the Rocky Mountains: A Weekend in Jasper National Park

September 14, 2020 | Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, my partner and I headed out to Jasper National Park for an impromptu weekend in the mountains. I had been to the Rockies once before (Banff, 4 years ago), but Mack had never been. We stayed at an Airbnb in Hinton, about 45 minutes east of the town of Jasper, because it is much more affordable. Hinton is actually a really nice community, so I would recommend staying there if you’re okay with the drive into Jasper.

We didn’t do much planning for this trip, mostly because we just wanted to soak in the sights at this legendary place, rather than be exhausted from a jam-packed schedule.

In the age of Covid-19, there are restrictions and closures to be aware of. As of July 1st 2020, the Miette hot springs were closed. We wanted to hike the Sulphur Skyline Trail, however, the trailhead is 16 km up the same road as the hot springs and the whole road is closed to prevent tourists from getting near the pools. So, this hike is inaccessible unless you want to walk 16 km for an 8 km hike.

We did some strolling around on easy walking/hiking trails; mainly just staring in awe at the jutting and breathtaking skyline. One underrated area for viewpoints/photo-ops, right off the main highway, is called Jasper House. It’s a short walk from the road to the banks of the Athabasca River. This would make a good picnic spot. Punchbowl Falls, right at the base of the road to the Miette hot springs, is another good picnic/lookout spot that we found.

On Saturday evening, we had a delicious meal and some refreshing beers at the Jasper Brewing Company, right on main street Jasper. I tried elk meatloaf– I’m drooling just thinking about it. We spent the rest of the evening popping in and out of some touristy gift shops and eating ice cream cones.

Sunday morning, we ‘stumbled’ on the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (we knew it existed but had no idea where we were when we first pulled up). The lake at the Lodge is STUNNING. It is one of your classic, electric blue, picture-perfect Rocky Mountain lakes. I was bubbling with excitement from being there. We decided last-minute (as we did with everything that weekend) to pop inside for brunch. I had one of the best caesars of my life and the fish tacos were so tasty. I will be going back there, without a doubt.

Our impromptu weekend in Jasper couldn’t have been better and I can’t wait to explore there some more so I can write about it here on the blog for you folks.

That smile is genuine, believe me.
xoxo, char

Country Challenge: St. Vincent and the Grenadines

September 10, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Last week, for our first country, we travelled (figuratively, of course) to Uzbekistan. For our second week, we’re moving down south to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. To my disappointment, the sweet and tangy liqueur, grenadine, does not come from the Grenadines. So that dream was squashed pretty quickly. What we did make, however, was pretty great.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are an archipelago (we discussed that term in our article about St. Pierre and Miquelon) in the southeast Caribbean, just north of South America. While Saint Vincent is the main island and the largest, the Grenadines are made up of 32 smaller islands. Reading about this place made me crave a Caribbean vacation.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Compared to last week, it was tougher to determine what dish best represented Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The country’s national dish is roasted breadfruit and fried jackfish, but in my small northern Alberta community, fresh breadfruit was near impossible to find. I could have opted for a dried version that could be ordered online, but that didn’t feel nearly as authentic. I found two bloggers that cooked Cod Blaff to represent this country and a few other articles that confirmed that this type of dish would be commonly served in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, so I was satisfied. I followed this recipe:

Luckily, Mack’s mom had just sent us a special delivery from Newfoundland. Among other treats, she had sent us fresh codfish from home. The timing was perfect.

I knew this meal was going to pack a punch when I read that the fish would marinate in fresh lime juice with onion, garlic, and hot peppers. Marination is a basic process, however, I rarely marinate my food. I was so impressed with the flavours in this meal, I’ll certainly be trying to incorporate marination more often.

I let the fish marinate for 24 hours. I wanted to maximize the flavours in this meal because it was so unlike anything I had tried before. Adding the wine, oil, and spices to the stew created such a strong aroma throughout my house. At first, I thought the allspice and cloves would clash with the limes, but it definitely worked out in the end. The taste was so rich.

While I cooked, I listened to a Saint Vincent and the Grenadines playlist on Spotify. It was essentially music you’d expect to hear on a Caribbean resort–no complaints about that here.

This dish was surprisingly easy to prepare for such an incredible flavour payoff. It is unsurprisingly tangy but I was caught off guard by just how refreshing it was. Despite having an unattractive name, Cod Blaff is such an exciting dish. I can just imagine drinking that broth when I have a cold and immediately feeling better. The rice ensured that the meal was filling, however, I definitely could have eaten the cod on its own.

We’ll definitely be making this meal again. Have you had anything like it before? Have you been to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines? Stay tuned for next week’s country!

We Moved Across Canada in the Middle of the Pandemic

September 7, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Shortly after Covid-19 shut down the world, the last thing I expected to happen, happened. I had just finished my degree and moved home to spend time with family while we were on lockdown. I was feeling down because I wasn’t able to celebrate my achievements as I’d expected to and the future was looking grim. But, then I got a job interview. And that interview turned into an offer of full-time employment in my field… on the other side of the country. Mack and I decided pretty quickly that moving was the right choice for us. Although leaving NL and our loved ones was hard, it felt right. At the end of May, we packed both of our cars to the brim and set off for Alberta.

The first leg of our 6-day, 8-province journey was driving across Newfoundland. We drove from our hometown to Corner Brook, where we stopped for lunch and gas. We soaked up some of our last gorgeous Atlantic views. Then we headed down along the Codroy Valley to Port-Aux-Basques where we caught the ferry. This part of the drive was incredibly beautiful.

We took the ferry overnight from Port-Aux-Basques to North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Luckily, it was an incredibly smooth crossing. I was so happy to have one of my best friends with us on this part of the journey as well. We had a fun night and it made saying goodbye to her so much easier. On the ferry, we were required to wear masks in the hallways and were not allowed to leave our cabins until we were escorted out in the morning. They provided a snack bag and we brought on some beer to make the 12-hour ride a little more exciting.

When we drove off the ferry in Nova Scotia, my friend stuck with us until Truro, where we went our separate ways. She headed down to Halifax and Mack and I made our way up to the New Brunswick border. The drive through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped by Magnetic Hill in Moncton, NB, which was super fun. We made sure to really soak up all of our final moments in Atlantic Canada by spending time driving near the water. We ended that second day in Edmunston, NB, which is a small town on the border of Quebec, and stayed at Days Inn where we enjoyed a bottle of wine and Boston Pizza we had delivered to our room.

On the third day, we drove long-haul through Quebec and into Ontario. We stopped for gas in Ottawa where we picked up supper and drove to the small town where Linds was riding out the pandemic. We had a much needed (socially-distanced) visit. I was so grateful to be able to see her on our way across Canada. It was too short of a visit, but worth it nonetheless. We had so much fun catching up that we even forgot to take a picture. After our visit, Mack and I got back on the road for another two hours where we finally made it to North Bay, Ontario.

We rested up in the Super 8 in North Bay and our room had an East Coast vibe that seemed like it was just trying to make us homesick. We had to get a good night’s sleep because we had to make the most monotonous part of the drive the next day.

The drive through Ontario is infamous for being incredibly long. I truly never realized how big the province of Ontario is! In normal times, we could have cut this part of the trip short by driving through Toronto and Sarnia into the US, but of course, during Covid-19 the border is closed. So, we had two options to get to Thunder Bay: drive through Northern Ontario, or keep south along the Great Lakes and through Sault-Ste-Marie. We chose the southern route as the drive along the lakes sounded more appealing. I think we made the right choice.

The folks we chatted with about the drive were right: driving through Ontario feels like it takes forever. But, it wasn’t as monotonous as we’d expected. The town of Bruce Mines, pictured above, was so cute and quaint– as were many of the small towns. We saw a lot of Amish families in their horse-drawn buggies, which is something we don’t see in NL. It was so interesting to observe another way of life in our own country that is so different than our own lifestyle. After we turned north in Sault-Ste-Marie, the highway starts to climb and drop and twist and turn. I did not expect the coast of the Great Lakes to be so striking. There were steep cliffs and sea stacks, just like home. The only difference was the lack of salt in the water.

We finally made it to Thunder Bay after 13 long hours of driving. We crashed in the Econolodge where we ordered in Montana’s and slept like rocks. The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast and coffee with a view. I had such a negative preconception of Thunder Bay. I don’t know why, but I expected it to be run down and dirty. I was proven entirely wrong. Thunder Bay is absolutely beautiful! Aside from the pleasant view, we had the humbling realization that we had driven as far as Terry Fox ran during his Marathon of Hope. Right away, we checked our attitude and stopped complaining about how long the trip was taking. We had our health and our cars and each other. We had nothing to complain about.

On our way out of Thunder Bay, we stopped at Kakabeka Falls. It was so beautiful and really inspired us to have a great day of driving. Little did we know, this would also be our last exciting landscape feature for quite some time as we were headed straight for the prairies.

That day, our fifth day of driving, we drove through the remainder of Ontario and into Manitoba. We made it to Brandon, MB, where we had sushi delivered to our Comfort Inn hotel room.

On our sixth and final day, we drove straight straight straight. And it was flat flat flat. The prairies are relentless and plain. It was interesting for about five minutes. Sorry to our friends and readers who grew up in and love the prairies, I’m sure there is lots to love, and I’m open to being convinced.

After 11 hours of prairie driving, we finally made it to our new home in Athabasca, about an hour and a half north of Edmonton. We were able to stay with my grandparents who live nearby, and it was such a pleasure to get to spend time with them. Athabasca had our hearts right away. It’s so quaint and pretty. It has a small town feel but with more than enough amenities. It has charm. We’re so excited to see what Alberta has to offer.

In normal times, we would have loved to have taken more time to see what each province had to offer. We would have stopped to take more pictures and try new things. But, because of the covid-19 pandemic, this was not a safe option. We didn’t want to risk infecting ourselves or others, or risk getting stuck in a random province if the situation worsened. Hopefully we’ll be lucky enough to make the cross-country trek again during a time when we can make the most out of it.

Here is a little more information about the precautions we had to take:

I had prepared a huge stack of documentation for each provincial border-crossing to prove that we were travelling for an essential purpose. It included my offer of employment letter, photocopies of our IDs, a certified letter proving we had an address to stay at in Alberta, a certified letter proving Mack and I are common-law partners, and our last two lease agreements to prove we live together, since we were travelling in two separate vehicles. Although I was glad to be well-prepared, we actually only ended up needing to show documentation when entering New Brunswick.

We protected ourselves and others by avoiding public areas as much as possible on our trip. We paid at the pump when we gassed up, brought lots of snacks and meals to eat on the side of the road, and peed in the woods as much as we could! When we had to enter public spaces, such as hotels, we always wore our masks.

That said, I am so proud of us for doing it. We got to see so much of our incredible country. Canada is a really phenomenal place and we should not forget that. We have salty coastal communities, safe highways, mountainous regions, prairie regions, many languages, many cultures, and many kind people.

Have you driven across Canada before? What was it like? What was your favourite part of the drive? Preparing for the drive yourself and have questions? I’m happy to help. Leave us a comment, send an email, or reach out on social media. We’d love to hear from you.

xoxo,
char