Peachland View
18
DECEMBER 21, 2012
TRAVEL
A visit to big sky country – Montana A group of British tourists explore the wonders of America Eric Hall Special to the Peachland View I look after tour groups from Britain visiting Canada; but some of the tours cross into the United States. In 2011, I spent nearly three hours wait-
Patrick Bell
ing with a bus tour, at the Pacific I5 crossing south of Vancouver. So when I was asked to take a tour from Alberta into Montana, I was somewhat cautious. But our border crossing into the USA at Sweetgrass worked very well.
The tour started in Calgary at the Bow Valley Hotel. You get a good view from there of Encana’s new head office, The Bow. This 59-storey building was recently completed and is the tallest building in Western Canada. Encana, a ma-
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jor natural gas producer, is moving over 2,000 of its employees into The Bow. The crescent-shaped blue glass tower is a real beauty. We headed south from Calgary to visit the HeadSmashed-In Buffalo Jump interpretive centre on a Blackfoot native reserve, near Fort Macleod. For 6,000 years, the Blackfoot tribe stampeded buffalo over a cliff near the Porcupine Hills. Before horses were available, this was a great way to kill the buffalo and all parts of the animal were used. We continued from there to Lethbridge and a view of the High Level Bridge. This massive steel trestle over the Oldman River was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1909. The bridge is the largest railway structure in Canada; it’s very impressive. We took some photographs and then headed to the Coast Hotel. On day three, we needed our passports as we
are going to cross into Montana at Sweetgrass. I was glad that we could send a fax with a list of the people and passport information ahead of time. It worked out very well, as we are able to continue after only 20 minutes.
“Old Faithful can be viewed on the internet, so I look around for the webcam. When I find it (it’s attached to a tree), I give my wife a call. A few minutes later, I give her a wave via the webcam; isn’t technology great? This may seem a long time for Canadians, but British visitors entering the USA by road must complete an I94W visa waiver and pay $6. They also have a finger-print check and a retina scan and all that takes time. We stopped for lunch at the Pizza Hut in Shelby. Shelby is no English village and was a cul-
ture shock for my British group. But we get a good value lunch and a real American welcome from the staff. The restaurant manager, Kim, tells me that when I phoned to book the lunch stop and spoke to the assistant manager, she couldn’t take the order as I was speaking in a foreign language (English?). Y’all surprised me with that one. Our next stop was at the Lewis and Clark Centre in Great Falls. The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804 - 1806) was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast from the United States. Organized by President Thomas Jefferson, the “corps of discovery” started from St. Louis following the Missouri River. Native people had told Lewis and Clark about a waterfall on the Missouri River and they assumed it would take a day to portage around it. They found five separate waterfalls here and it took them 11 days to
Wishing you Peace and Joy this Holiday Season!
From Dr. Phil Kachanoski, Dr. Karl Oppenheim and their fantastic team at Peachland Dental Centre. Thank you for your loyalty. We look forward to providing you with our very best care into 2013 and beyond!
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Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Please travel carefully and remember that live online road reports are available on the www.drivebc.ca website. Please have a safe and enjoyable holiday season. - Bill & Edna Barisoff