Salmon Arm and Canmore
From Paradise Valley we drove North to Whistler on our way to Salmon Arm for the night. We arrived to a grey, damp and chilly Whistler, which was made even more atmospheric because of the population of crows hopping around and staring directly at you as you are sipping your coffee.
In our rainy wanders around Whistler, we got to see how some people enjoy our beautiful outdoors, by traveling in this:
In Salmon Arm we stayed at the Salmon Arm Camping Resort. It was a nice little campground, complete with a mini putt golf course, but given we were only there for one night, we didn’t even unhitch the trailer from the truck. The next morning we hit the road for Canmore. On our way we drove through the lovely Glacier National Park, where I tried to get some photos out the window of the low clouds that were accompanying us on our drive that day.
It was a long couple of days of driving, and as we approached Canmore, we discovered that there are three very different campgrounds, all with very similar names: Bow River Campground; Bow Valley Provincial Park; and Bow Valley Campground. As fate would have it, we visited all of them before figuring out that we were staying at the Bow Valley Campground. Due to our confusion, we arrived a bit late, but the next morning, on my way back from the showers, I was treated to an amazing sunrise shining on the mountains to the south west.
The colours in the sky were so amazing, that I went for an early morning wander and found paths that led to the Bow River, where I could see the sunrise shining on Mount Yamnuska.
The name for the Bow River comes from the reeds growing along its shore that were used to create bows. The name for Mount Yamnuska is an anglicized version of its Stoney Nakoda name, which translates as flat-faced mountain. While we didn’t go close enough to see this, there are apparently over 100 different climbing routes across its face.
Canmore is a lovely little town, with a lot of gentrification happening on all of its edges, and has the lowest vacancy rate in Canada for rental properties. There is a lovely boardwalk, Policeman’s Creek Boardwalk, right downtown, that you can take to get a beautiful view of the Three Sisters.
The Policeman’s Creek is named after a North West Mounted Police post that was built on its shores in 1893. It is Canmore’s third oldest building and is now a museum. Along that walk you will also come across the Ceannmore sculpture by Alan Henderson:
The Albertan sculptor was commissioned to make a sculpture for the town and he took inspiration from its name, Canmore. The town was named after a place in Scotland, and in Gaelic, Ceannmore means “big head”, so that’s what Henderson created, a nine tonne blue granite sculpture (according to Atlas Obscura, in the winter the townspeople have made a toque for him to wear).
As I mentioned the walkway in the town take you to a lovely view of the Three Sisters.
The Three Sisters are an iconic trio of peaks that you can see from Canmore, known individually as Big Sister, Middle Sister and Little Sister. They are strikingly beautiful and I would find myself looking to catch glimpses of them as we moved around the area.
Downtown Canmore is filled with galleries and tourist shops and this lovely scrap metal bear “Blossom” for people to pose next to:
While we were there, we went back to the Canmore Nordic Center Provincial Park to play disc golf. While we had our bear spray with us, we did not see any bears.
We really enjoyed our stay in Canmore, and from there we headed to Saskatchewan on our way to Birds Hill Park in Winnipeg.