What more could you want besides Rocky Mountain landscapes, crystalline lakes, endless forests, and some of the most inspiring, photogenic valleys on earth? How about climbing glaciers, meeting polar bears, rafting down Bow River, winding through spiral railroad tunnels at Kicking Horse Pass, walking through the treetop canopy above the Capilano River... epicurean adventures in Vancouver, tea in the garden city of Victoria, and stories of the National Parks crafted by Ken Burns? Urbane and wild at heart are never far apart in Western Canada.
WESTERN CANADA
If you’re a gourmet, you may be hip to the fact that Vancouver, British Columbia, out on the
edge of the Pacific Northwest, is also on the cutting edge of haute cuisine, a mecca for celebrity chefs, and a culinary trendsetter, famous for its fusion of ethnic influences (Japanese tapas, anyone?) and its mania for fresh local produce... where local chefs are waiting to guide you on an epic tasting safari of the best it has to offer, including the Granville Farmers Market, that haven of artisan cheese and chocolate makers, and the main source of the city’s gourmandacious wonders.
When you stand on Athabasca Glacier, it may not matter much to know that the ice under your
feet is centuries old and as deep as the Empire State Building is high... or that the runoff from the icefields around here supplies most of the fresh water of North America... or that the ice under your boots is what’s left of a vast sheet that carved out the spectacular Rocky Mountain landscape around you. But then it’s hard to not think of a glacier as something strangely alive, a force as big and mysterious and powerful as any on the planet... and you can touch it.
You can’t drive to Churchill, Manitoba, and there’s only one paved road through
the middle of town, but this isolated municipality is on a major thoroughfare of another kind. Every winter, hundreds of polar bears pass through this place en route to their seal-hunting grounds on the ice of Hudson Bay. These white, wandering giants are near-mythical creatures that can fast for months, swim 100 miles at a stretch, catch beluga whales when they’re hungry enough... and going nose-to-nose with one (from the safety of a tundra vehicle) is a once-in-a-lifetime thrill you won’t forget.
Call your travel agent or Tauck at 800-788-7885
www.tauck.com 51
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