Waterton Wildflower Festival 2017
- Details
- Category: Alberta
- Published: Saturday, 24 June 2017 19:10
- by Frank Weinschenk
- Hits: 3125
Again, the Waterton Wildflower Festival was a huge success with hundreds of participants who not only learned a lot about the abundance of wildflowers in Waterton but also enjoyed the festival atmosphere.
See the complete photo gallery here.
If you want to take part next year, visit www.watertonwildflowers.com and sign up for the newsletter.
The dates for next year are: June 14 to June 19.
See you in Waterton.
A few days ago it started to snow at night. It was beautiful; looking out the window of our warm motorhome and watching the snowflakes fall through the glow of the street light of the campground. The next morning we woke up by the scraping sound of snow shovels around us. I jumped out of bed and I could borrow one of the two shovels of our neighbor. We dug out 20 centimeters of wet, heavy snow and created a large open empty space around the motorhome because it was predicted to snow more. At this point little did we know what would still lie ahead.
Our first trip to the U.S.A. took us from Aldergrove, BC, across the border to Lynden and we continued on to Bellingham, located in the Pacific North West, towards Chuckanut Drive. We were curious whether the U.S. would be any different from Canada. But at first glance nothing changed at all; the environment from Bellingham to Lynden was just as rural as on the Canadian side. The 2386 meter high volcano Mount Baker is the highest and most prominent mountain in the area. It looks down from the southeast on the flat land on both sides of the border. The border connects British Columbia with the U.S. state of Washington.
Canadian and German traffic rules are quite similar. Nevertheless, there are some peculiarities to be explained here. At first it may seem confusing that the traffic lights are hanging on the other side of the intersection. When you turn right on a green light, you have suddenly a red traffic light in front of you which does not apply for you. What is really confusing however, are four way intersections with stop signs on every street. What to do here?
It’s the end of November; I was on a plane from Abbotsford (near Vancouver) to Calgary, Alberta, for an interview. The flight takes about 1 hour. From there, I had to drive 300 km on Highway 2 heading south. Many public roads are called a ‘highway’. There are also freeways with a maximum speed limit of 80-120 km/h.
Canada is a popular destination, not the least because of its wildlife. Especially in the Rocky Mountains wildlife is abundant. Typically found are the black and brown bear (also known as grizzly bear), moose and Canada’s national pride: the beaver. There is also some deer (mule deer and white tailed deer) and the pronghorn. The cougar (also mountain lion or puma) is a widespread but rarely seen carnivore. Nearly invisible to human beings are wolverines and bobcats. In the southern prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba you might see snakes (rattlesnake and bull snake).