OldPlaidCamper

Canada Day (soon!)

It’s Canada Day next week (Wednesday) and, as always, I’m so happy this is my home. I’ve said it before, and that won’t stop me from saying it again: Canada is not perfect, but my sense is, as a nation, we are mostly trying to paddle in the right direction (it would need a large canoe, but that’s ok and all are welcome to climb in)…

The photos chosen this week are one for each month of 2026 so far, in an attempt to share something of the flavour of western Canada. (If you add maple syrup from the eastern side, the flavour improves even more! Maybe throw in a TimBit or two…)

So, if you’re Canadian and choose to celebrate, have visited Canada, maybe would like to visit one day, or simply like maple syrup and the big outdoors, Happy Canada Day!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Sneak preview for July – Stampede starts next Friday!

Mountain spring!

We mostly had a spring in our step, enjoying the fresh greens as we hiked in the foothills through stands of aspen and spruce.

Most days started sunny and finished cloudy, with temperatures below seasonal. Cooler conditions, fewer bugs! The big show was on our last night, featuring several thunderstorms with heavy rain and some hail, rolling through one after the other. We don’t mind that weather, but Scout isn’t a fan, trembling more than those aspens.

One morning, at second coffee o’ clock, a bear wandered by, just a few metres from where we were sitting. Scout, who always lets the deer and squirrels know who’s boss (don’t tell her, but they are) didn’t even look up. All that time she spends playing at being a wolf, and she couldn’t be bothered with as little as a token growl.

The bear wasn’t bothered, not by Scout, nor by us, and off it went in search of more wildflowers, perhaps hoping to be a step ahead of the many deer in the area. We finished our coffee and enjoyed a short loop hike above the Sheep River, close to our campsite, where we saw the clouds building up over the mountains nearby. We just made it back before getting a soaking. Phew!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Contrasts

As I wrote previously, we were fortunate to enjoy mostly blue skies on our trip to the western edge of Vancouver Island. But, it being largely a temperate rainforest location in the PNW, it wasn’t always wall to wall sunshine. There were a couple of almost foggy/definitely misty mornings, times that contrasted pleasantly with the overall brightness.

I’ve included a few photographs this week highlighting those coastal contrasts. What a wonderful spring delight it was to be in the greens and blues of western BC.

We’re back in landlocked AB now, where spring is in the ascendant at last, a time of rising (to near normal) seasonal temperatures, with more than a few rain showers to encourage the emerging plant life to get with being green – or what passes for luxuriant greenery in the space between the mountains and the prairies!

We’re hoping to spend a few days out in the foothills next week, see for ourselves the long awaited switch from chilly late winter (friends in Canmore have – they hope – finally put away snow shovels) to proper mountain spring. It’s a fifteen minute season before full summer…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Safe harbour

Wandering around the boat basin on a sunny morning seemed a pleasant way to spend an hour. It helped that the bright blue skies and warm sunshine made the scenes even more colourful. Very cheerful!

The previous day had been very blustery, and the clanging and clanking of masts, as well as the singing lines as the wind blew through the rigging made for a haunting song of sorts.

The eagles appeared to love the weather, sun or rain, blustery or not, and their piercing cries and shrill calls could be heard each day, even over the constant wind.

One morning, just before sun up, several eagles flew up into the trees to the left and right of our campsite. There they perched, offering an occasional cry, for a few minutes, almost if as if they were waiting with me for the sun to appear over nearby Mt. Ozzard.

Fanciful, I know, but they flew off mere moments after the sun’s first rays started to warm the harbour. I raised my coffee cup in acknowledgment, but they were gone, no doubt looking for something more interesting than the robust dark roast.

Rain or shine, wind or calm, Ucluelet Harbour is rarely a dull place!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Head west

Leaving the mountains behind us, our task was to find spring, or at least a place with no recent snow on the ground.

So we headed west across mountains, and more mountains, emerging onto the flatland delta, continuing until the road stopped. There, we got on a ferry to cross the Salish Sea to Vancouver Island, disembarked, and headed west once again until the road stopped again.

The end of the road (the end of a rutted and muddy track)

We have found spring (almost summer by west coast standards) in one of our happy places, and, even better, have been catching up with old friends. Hard to imagine we were cooling beer in the snow a week ago.

It feels as if winter has finally let go for real, spring has arrived for sure, and summer isn’t too far around the corner. Camping days ahead!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Alberta cooler

We’re back on the road for the next little while, in fact we have been the past week. We trundled through the prairies for a few days, before heading into Kananaskis at the end of the long weekend. As we ventured in, we saw quite a number of campers leaving early. We wondered why?

It grew distinctly cool as the weekend progressed – more snow anyone? Yup, that happened. Thank goodness we didn’t have to worry about keeping our evening beer chilled. Who needs ice or a cooler?!

By the time this is posted we should be somewhere in BC, searching for some warmth and a little less snow…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Hoodoo?

We do! If you ever have the opportunity, traveling the Hoodoo Trail in the Drumheller, AB region is an interesting way to discover some amazing geological formations in an arid location.

I imagine it gets pretty busy – and very hot – in the summer months, but we were lucky enough to stop at the formations shared here on a relatively quiet and pleasantly warm midweek spring day. Early in the season as it was, it felt hot after the long slow start to spring – no complaints!

It always amuses me that the area is known as the badlands, and I understand why, but they are some of my favourite lands to visit, with such a different geography and geology. Dinosaur territory if that kind of thing interests you…

We ended our morning with a fine lunch and cold pint at the Last Chance Saloon in nearby Wayne. As with the rock formations, if you ever have a chance to visit, it is great place to stop and cool off.

One of my finest photographs ever, taken through a dusty windshield

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Prairie time, and about time

At last! We’re camping, and it’s spring! No, not the spring found on the calendar but it’s still snowing outside – instead, it’s the real and actual spring where the sun shines and snow is a distant memory (just over a week ago, but it’s gone now…)

We’re out in the prairie badlands (bad? good!) a couple of hours northeast of Calgary. Spotty wifi but lots of wildlife, so more to share at a later date.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Red Deer River far below Dry Island Buffalo Jump

Taking a break

It’s mud season when it isn’t ongoing snow showers season, and, in April, I just can’t get excited by that…

So let’s skip the remainder of April – blogging-wise – and then, when mud season is over (by the end of the month, he says, hopefully) we will be out and about because the last of the snow will (surely?) have melted and most of the mud will have dried up! Goodbye brown grass and hello greenery? Maybe. Camping here we come.

The last of the last of the last of the snow? Maybe…

Tomorrow is forecast to be the first double digit sunny day of the month, so I’ll say we’re heading in the right direction! Enjoy the rest of April, and let’s catch up sometime in May!

Beer and chocolate…

…and spring? Hoping for three out of three…

Apparently, this is the good stuff? (*Yes it is!* Mrs. PC)

I’ll keep it brief this week, and confess we’ll be having two out of three of the above this coming long weekend!

Apparently, this is the good stuff? (*Yes it is!* Mr. PC) A wee heavy (a Scottish beer style) and what I’ll be after too much beer and chocolate.

If you choose to celebrate Easter this weekend, enjoy, and even if you don’t, perhaps you’ll have a beer, some chocolate, or maybe even enjoy some spring sunshine where you are?

It is sunny, and it is calendar spring! Taken earlier this week – technically, three for three?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

“Yes, I know dogs can’t have chocolate. No, I’m not sulking…)

PS:

	Jane's Heartsong on Canada Day (soon!)
	plaidcamper on Canada Day (soon!)
	Maria on Canada Day (soon!)
	plaidcamper on Mountain spring!
	Jet Eliot on Mountain spring!