Tag Archives: Canada

Philippine Mars Awaits Its Turn

By the time this post goes live, Philippine Mars will probably have made its final trip from Vancouver Island to Arizona where it is joining the Pima museum collection. Whether I have got to see it on that journey or not, I don’t know when I am writing this. It is supposed to make a couple of stops en route but will I be there? During the visit to see the Hawaii Mars prepare for its last flight, Philippine was sitting on the ramp at Sproat Lake being prepared for its move. From the water we could get a reasonable view of it up on the slipway. Fingers crossed I get to see it fly but who knows.

Sunrise on the Mountains

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The place we were staying in while in Canmore was on the edge of the town but had a great view across the town towards some of the mountains. The early light was from behind us and on to the mountains themselves. First thing one morning, I woke up and looked outside and saw some gorgeous red light illuminating the rock faces. What a wonderful sight with which to start your day.

Hope On Our Route

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Last year, when we made our trip to Kelowna, we stopped en route for lunch at a town called Hope. It is a small town and surrounded by mountains which makes for quite a distinctive view. There is a large park in the center of the town and the place we had lunch faced this park. The town was used for some filming for the Rambo First Blood movie and, when I happened to see a clip of this recently, I recognized the location immediately. Apparently, the town has some statues of the actors, but we didn’t see those while we were there.

A Family of Elk Along Bow River

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While walking down by the Bow River, we saw a family of elk off in the distance. They were crossing the river downstream. We continued on our walk and, when we finished the loop trail, we were back at the same spot and saw plenty of people on the bridge staring in the same direction. I hurried up to see what was afoot and the elk had moved up the river to close where we were. Oh, how I wish I had a longer lens!

Amazingly, the people along the river seemed to have no interest in the warnings you always get about wildlife. They were getting way closer than seemed wise. The bull elk was a chunky looking fella and, with some of his herd there, I imagine his temper might be tested. Fortunately, nothing went wrong. Interestingly, he had a tree branch stuck in his antlers when we first saw him. He did manage to shake that out after a while. It made him look lopsided!

Plenty of Rail Traffic Through Canmore

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The location we were staying at in Canmore was very close to the railroad. This is the Canadian Pacific mainline across Canada after leaving Calgary. We had a lot of trains come through night and day, but it was really not terribly disturbing. Not long ago, Canadian Pacific merged with Kansas City Southern to create CPKC. The trains often had a mix of locos from both original companies. I imagine it will be a long time before they are all painted in new colors. Quite a scenic view with the trains in the foreground and the mountains in the background. We did have other operator equipment occasionally showing up in the trains but not too often. I knew someone that would be fascinated by the length of the trains, so I videoed one as it passed. It makes for a long video so be prepared if you watch the link below.

Strolling Through Canmore

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Our trip to the Canadian Rockies had us in the area around Banff. However, we had chosen to stay in the town of Canmore – a short distance away from Banff rather than in Banff itself. This proved to be a great decision. I’ll share some thoughts from Banff in another post, but it was a very busy and touristy place. Canmore was not immune to that, but it had a far more comfortable feel to it. We were staying within walking distance of everything in the town so could easily go exploring.

I include a few shots here of the town itself but there will be some more posts that include some specific elements of what we were doing while we were there from where we stayed to the wildlife we encountered. Definitely a nice spot to use as a base. A bit of a drive to get to some of the more famous parts but it worked well for us. Very accessible and plenty of good food options!

Is This Really the Road?

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Once we had crossed the border into Canada, we traveled for a while before arriving at Radium Springs. Here we took a turn into the Kootenay National Park which also provides the main road up towards Banff. As we made the turn and took the entrance into the park, I was convinced that something was wrong. We were driving right at a cliff. Sure, there appeared to be a crack in the cliff but that surely couldn’t be the road. However, that is exactly what it was. The road ran through this tiny gap and into the valley beyond. It was quite a stunning way to enter a park!

Conair Q400 Water Drop Testing

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I went to Abbotsford for the day to see the arrivals of the planes for an event on the airport that weekend. Abbotsford is also home to Conair with them undertaking conversion of aircraft for firefighting duties as well as maintaining their in service fleet. They have a fleet of de Havilland Canada DHC8-400s that have been converted to waterbombing duties for fighting wildfires. One of them was undertaking some test flying while I was there.

It took off while I was waiting for some other arrivals and then started undertaking a series of water drops at the far end of the field. I did try getting some shots of it, but it was far away, and the heat haze was brutal, so this was not going to be a good result. After eight drops, they landed and taxied back to the ramp. Fortunately, later in the afternoon, they came back out for some more runs. This time, since I was about to leave anyway, I headed to the other end of the field to get some shots of the test drops.

Unfortunately, the weather became rather damp, and I was standing out trying to get some shots without getting drenched. Seeing something like this without being in a dangerous spot where real fires are raging was a nice bonus. I did also try a little video while I was at it so that is lower down too.

My Luck with the Snowbirds Continues to Go Downhill

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Last year, when I went to the Abbotsford Air Show, the Snowbirds were displaying with eight jets instead of nine. There had been an issue with one of the crew and they were completing the season down a jet. When I headed to Comox this year for the show, I was hoping to get a full display from the Snowbirds. That was not going to be the case. On arrival, my friend Mark advised me that one of the pilots had injured an arm in a non-aviation related accident. Oh well, I thought.

Then, when they started up for the display, one of the jets wouldn’t play ball. I thought they might run to a spare jet but, no, we were down another jet. This meant we would only have seven jets for the display. Surprisingly, this didn’t cause as many issues in my shots as I thought it might. The four ship cross was gone which was disappointing but, when shooting tightly on the formations, things actually seemed to look okay. In fact, sometimes it stopped me having to worry about getting the whole formation in shot since they had “cropped” for me.

It was a pretty good display and I enjoyed watching it. Here is a selection of shots from the day.

An Aurora Is a Bit of a Rarity These Days

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For many years, the majority of maritime patrol operators have been using P-3 aircraft. However, with the advent of the P-8 Poseidon, the number of P-3s is rapidly reducing. Canada operates its own version of the family called the CP-140 Aurora. With their continued operation, that are now becoming a bit of a treat to see. I had hardly ever seen one in action before so, when they were displaying at the show at Comox, I was really pleased to get a chance to get some photos of one.

As with all military jets these days (or so it seems), grey is the order of the day. Not the most exciting paint job but a different version of grey is definitely good. They threw the plane around with plenty of energy in the display so the photo opportunities were good including a pass with the weapons bay open. The replacement of the Aurora is currently being pursued so they won’t be around for much longer so good to get them now while the opportunity presents itself. Funny how little I was interested in P-3s when I was younger and now I am hunting them down!