Besides blogging about my trips, I’ve been hired to write the occasional travel writing assignment. Here are some I’ve published (others are technology related, about tools too out of date to be relevant). I’m open to other assignments, so please feel free to contact me:
DreamScapes article on roadtripping in Atlantic Canada
National Post article on Cycling in Cuba
Here are a few unpublished articles as well, that I wrote on other trips (if you’re interested in publishing them, drop me a note via the contact page):
Liverpool offers a seaside vibe and good cultural options north of London
Liverpool seems to have a message for visitors: while they are still the birthplace of one of the most famous bands to have emerged from the UK, they are no longer just about those fab four.
Perhaps the best evidence of this new focus is the relatively new Liverpool Museum opened in 2011 and devoted to the city’s history. Along with the more longstanding Merseyside Maritime Museum, Walker Art Gallery, and ever-present docks, these attractions plus the seaside vibe make the city (just over two hours train ride from London) worth a visit especially for those who want their visit to the UK to be about more than just London.
And for those still keen on a pilgrimage, there’s also The Beatles Story museum.
At the new Liverpool Museum, interactive segments about the city’s early history, industrial and maritime roots make good use of technology to feature interactive video characters where visitors can collect the stories of individual Liverpudlians or “Scousers” as they’re nicknamed, in different occupations and eras. A life sized rail car from the elevated train, ties from the docks, and other artifacts from the city’s maritime history take visitors through the city’s history from its origins through its boom as a major port in the industrial revolution to the present.
Moving up to the third floor, a staggering view demonstrates one of the new museum’s most beautiful aspects, a floor-to-ceiling window on the dockside view of the city’s iconic Royal Liver Building topped with its famous mythical cormorants.
The same dockside area is great for a wander along the harbor front of the Mersey River, towards the Albert Docks. Working docks until the 1970s, the red brick buildings that overlook the water were restored in the 1980s to house museums, galleries, restaurants, shops, and a giant photogenic ferris wheel familiar from other English cities.
Conveniently in close proximity, this grid of buildings contains many of the city’s other museums, including the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the International Slavery Museum, and the Tate Liverpool.
Predictably, the Merseyside Maritime Museum contains the history and various models of ships to have graced the port, but also divides into sections celebrating different marine settings, from the merchant marines to cruise ships to war ships. A current exhibit revisits the Titanic story from the perspective of Liverpool’s involvement as its port of departure.
Yet another local involvement is addressed by the International Slavery Museum which looks at a darker side of Liverpool’s past as a hub for the transatlantic slave trade. Opened in 2007, the museum’s exhibits examine plantation life, the slave trade by the numbers, first-hand accounts in the words of contemporary characters, and an immersive video simulating the pain slaves suffered on their transatlantic passage.
At the Tate Liverpool, airy galleries and the occasional window to the waterside complement mostly modern artworks along with featured shows, including one that just wrapped up on “Glam” and another set to open in early June on Chagall.
Away from the water, the centre of town features several neo-Classical buildings including St. George’s Hall, and the World Museum. Again conveniently nearby is the Walker Court Art gallery founded in the late nineteenth century by a local brewer and mayor that now features salon-style rooms and art from Rembrandt and Reubens to Degas, Turner, Gainsbourgh, and more contemporary artists like David Hockney and Banksy. The gallery also features the winners of the biannual John Moores Painting prize, as well as contemporary commissions. The court area at the centre of the museum galleries hosts an airy tea room where many visitors seem to be persuaded to stop and relax.
While these two main hubs offer one-stop cultural visiting, other attractions also call tourists to other parts of town, from the UK’s largest Anglican Cathedral to the World Museum to the Victorian Sudley House. Further afield, Liverpool is only an hour by train to Manchester, yet another industrial city with a city museum, a good art gallery, one of the largest science museums in the world, and of course the national football museum.
Lunch in the Rockies
Finding the perfect mealtime scenery is key to making the most of the Rockies
Driving in the Rockies is all about finding the right spot to eat lunch. As I write this I’m watching the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefield make its slow retreat up the mountain. So far it hasn’t moved—I’ll keep you posted.
Unlike the glacier, you have to move fast if you want to see even the major Rockies parks of Banff and Jasper (not to mention many others nearby like Kootenay and Yoho or Mount Robson and Waterton). So there’s a certain amount of pressure to make any scenery that you’re going to look at for a lunch-sized amount of time be pretty spectacular. Particularly in the fall when the leaves are turning and summery options like swimming seem less appealing, lunchtime gazing becomes that much more important.
While it’s almost as impossible to find a bad lunch spot as it is to take a bad picture given such luscious scenery, your quest will lead you to test out many pullouts and destinations along the way. A great discovery for instance is a little spot just outside Banff called “Two Jack Lake” (named for the two men named Jack who used to frequent the area), where different picnic tables provide different choices for lunch on land that juts into the water or just off shore. The fact that a small tribe of elk also stopped at this location made it even more worthwhile for me and my fellow picnickers. Also near Banff, Lake Minnewaka, which is the only lake in Banff National Park that is large enough to allow motorized boats, offers facilities for barbecuing. While the spot is slightly more crowded due to nearby marina, their 90 minute boat cruise (cost: $40) is a relaxing activity to try before or after lunch.
Sometimes you can turn a great lunch spot into a reward after a long drive or a hike. The Athabasca Glacier stop can be a good break if you’re driving from Lake Louise to Jasper since it is relatively in the centre (there is also a cafeteria at the Icefields Centre in case you didn’t get to pack a picnic). At one of the nicer stops in Banff National Park, the viewpoint for Peyto Lake offers just enough of an uphill climb that you’ll want a longer stop both to catch your breath and to linger in appreciation of the incredible blue colour of the lake below. In Yoho Park, pulling off for lunch just before or after Kicking Horse Pass can be a good break after driving through a remarkable corridor of mountains.
Stopping at Lake Louise, Morraine Lake (made famous from its appearance on the back of the 20 dollar bill) or Emerald Lake can provide ample opportunity to gaze at more stunning shades of blue-green water. Longer hikes can provide more goal-oriented lunch spots where working up an appetite makes food seem that much better. And even lunch at a more non-descript lunch spot (sometimes hunger gets the better of the seeker) can be made unexpectedly more exotic when by wildlife like marmots that try to share your sandwiches. In my case the marmot was so bold that it seemed unfortunately as if it had been fed by naughty tourists, but still made for a cute photo.
In any case, while starting and stopping for photos is a necessity on a trip through the Rockies, it’s the spots you stop for lunch that you remember the best – so choose carefully.
Welcome to outer space
Eerie geography abounds in Canada’s Badlands
Many people don’t know that Canada has its own badlands. If you thought you had to travel all the way to South Dakota or Utah to see the unsettling geography, you’ll be startled to discover the canyons and hoodoos of Drumheller, Alberta.
Variously described as dry landscapes where the softer rock has been eroded by wind and water to leave canyons and gullies, on first encounter, badlands seem almost alien. The colours and scrub-like terrain only serve to boost the sense that you are very far from the ordinary world, even when you only left the city of Calgary an hour ago.
Adding to the mysteries of Drumheller, a drive into town turns comic with giant dinosaur models taking over the city. This includes the world’s largest dinosaur statue standing just outside the tourist information centre. At 86 feet, he comes complete with visitor lookout platform in his mouth. Beyond the playful, the town also offers a serious research centre in the excellent Tyrrell Museum which attracts from all over to study the nearby dinosaur fossils. The museum’s name celebrates Joseph Burr Tyrrell, who is credited with finding the first dinosaur fossils in the Drumheller Valley in 1884.
From the museum there are several self-guided walks you can take to further explore the badlands, starting with a stair climb just beside the parking lot which leads you to higher ground that looks out over the museum and surrounding valley. Scenic drives leading out of Drumheller allow you to see more of the canyons from spectacular points like Horsethief Canyon Lookout. From here you can also cross the Red Deer River on the Bleriot Ferry, one of the last remaining cable-operated ferries in Alberta.
Drive a couple hours further south and you will reach the UNESCO world heritage site Dinosaur National Park, an area rich in fossils where you can tour real-world paleontology research sites.
With dinosaurs and out-of-this-world geography, Drumheller is certainly a worthwhile stop on the way to the Canadian Rockies.
Be seen at the springs
The Rockies’ hat trick of hot springs let you experience the civilized side of the wilderness
Some people go tent camping or hiking as a way of experiencing nature the way their ancestors did a hundred years ago. Personally, I’d rather replicate the origin of the hot tub experience. Thanks to the trio of hot springs in Banff, Kootenay, and Jasper National Parks, this luxury relaxation is just as accessible as its more strenuous alternatives.
Closest to civilization is the Banff Upper Hot Springs, given its proximity to the town of Banff and the “main drag” of the Icefields Parkway. Discovered in 1884, the springs face the famous Mount Rundle, and their temperature ranges between a toasty 37 and 40 degrees Celsius.
Slightly farther afield are the Radium Hot Springs, located at the southern tip of Kootenay National Park and named for the traces of radioactive Radon in the water (bathers are assured that the radioactivity given off is harmless, less than an ordinary watch dial). As well as the hot spring pool at 39 degrees, this location also features a cooler pool set at 27 degrees. Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, made the first recorded visit to these springs in 1841 and is said to have bathed in a one-person sized pool dug out of gravel.
Travelling north, the Miette Hot Springs near Jasper are the hottest of the Rockies springs, flowing out of the mountain at 54 degrees Celsius before being cooled to a relatively temperate 40 degrees in the hot pool. While these springs are farther afield, a meandering 17 km detour from Highway 16 out of Jasper, Miette offers more temperature options, with three other pools: a slightly cooler 38 degree hot spring, a cold pool of 21 degrees and an iceberg pool at 15 degrees. These different temperatures allow you to shock your system (and enhance your relaxation) by hopping from one pool to the next.
Although the temperature alone makes for a relaxing experience (20 minutes is the recommended maximum soak before taking a break), the water at each hot spring is also infused with several minerals, top among them Sulphate, Caldium, Bicarbonate and Magnesium. Back in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this mineral content was lauded for their therapeutic health benefits. As a result, the springs were a place to be seen socializing. Today the crowds seem to be mostly tourists, although the noted availability of annual passes makes a visitor deeply envious of the locals. With single entry fees ranging from $6-8, and family and hostel discounts available, there’s no excuse not to try all three. For more information, visit www.hotsprings.ca.