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I’m Gonna Need A New Bucket List

More of a vacation than anything, PLP’s latest “field study” was a good time, needless to say. In between the driving, and the constant exhaustion, were many experiences I really hope I remember for a long time. From escaping the ‘Locked Room’, to riding a boat in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, we did just about everything. Anyways, enough of you feeling bad for yourself for now. Let’s talk about the learning side of this trip.

What most would call the first of the underlying topics of the trip, was the historic story of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). A few days prior to the trip – which happened to be the second day of the school year – we were introduced to the CPR. It was really the first piece of information we got as to what our field study was to be based around. While it seemed like a relatively interesting topic for most, no body was as excited as Ms. Maxwell, our teacher. She seemed as though she knew more about Sanford Fleming than 12 years old know about Kylie Jenner. This only added to the hype surrounding the upcoming trip though, so we were all listening to what she had to say. We watched a movie about the railway called “Rocky Mountain Express”. It was a really cool movie for me at least, because I often find documentaries really interesting. We finished our lesson by learning about the significance of Craigellachie, BC, via an episode of the Rick Mercer Report. At this point we had learned enough that we would understand at least the basics of the CPR, and we were ready to learn more about throughout the trip.

If I was to tell you everything we did this trip in this one write up, you would probably starve in the time it would take. So, in the name of safety I’m going to fast-forward through all of the less interesting events that took place on the trip, and just focus on what I learnt. Anyways, let’s get back to it.

Our first stop was in Craigellachie, which is a very small town located in the Selkirk Mountains, between Sicamous and Revelstoke. This was where the last spike was driven in to ground, completing the railway back in 1885. We got to see a few trains go by, just a few meters in front of us, it was crazy…and loud! We read a bit about the last spike, and it became clear that this was a pretty important event that took place, as it impacted Canada greatly. In fact, we still use the same railway today.

Our next stop was at the Three Valley Gap Ghost Town. This was just one little village located off the side of the highway about half an hour down the road from Craigellachie. We had a pretty tough assignment lined up for this stop. We had to make a story that took place in the ghost town. We really didn’t know what to expect and it made it even harder when we pulled up and were told we had even less time to make the video. Honestly I really didn’t enjoy this one. It was wet, cold and more than half of our planned shots were impossible due to the fact we couldn’t actually get in the places. So yeah, basically, if I learned anything here I guess it was that I should understand my options before planning (which wasn’t actually possible 🙄)

The next day we stopped in Rogers Pass. We learned how the railway was difficult to construct through this section, and how they found a way to make it easier on the trains as they were climbing in elevation. We watched an informational video on how potential avalanches are predicted and neutralized, as Rogers Pass is known for its deadly avalanches. The rest of the day was taken up by seeing some cool, live wolves at the Northern Lights Wildlife Wolf Centre, and some taxidermy at the Banff Park Museum National Historic Site.

The next morning in Calgary we worked in team building at the Locked Room. We decrypted hidden messages, worked as a team, and made our way out of the mythically-themed room, faster than the other teams. After that we visited another museum downtown, and learned about various topics such as animals, military, nature, but all with an underlying theme of culture.

I thought this was a really nice museum. It had such a wide variety of artifacts from every corner of the globe. Some of the stuff in there was really interesting and full of history. It’s crazy to think of how many individual stories were in that museum alone.

The next day was all about dinosaurs! We drove from Calgary to Drumheller where we explored the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology. It was super cool and had by far the best dinosaur exhibits I’ve ever seen. We roamed around for quite a while and then the class met up and we headed out for a tour of the land around the museum. We learned that the area Drumheller is located in, is called the “Bad-Lands”. This was because when explores and colonists ventured in to this region, the soil wasn’t rich enough to grow crops, so they simply couldn’t live on the land. Hence the name. The tour guide told us about all the sedimentary layers of the land formations, and showed us some really old examples of nature. Once we finished the tour, we headed back to the museum and we were given an assignment. We were to find one dinosaur in the museum and make a video about. More specifically, it’s story. I really quickly, and safely, walked to the t-rex exhibit, because come on, who doesn’t want the t-rex? I had my camera so I took loads of different shots of the dino, so I would have a diverse and more intriguing video. Once done that I edited for about 45 minutes, just sitting by my exhibit. Although I wasn’t 100% finished when out time limit ran out, I thought I did a really good job of telling the t-rex’s intimidating story.

 

 

Wednesday was all about Beakerhead. We basically roamed around the city, going from installation to installation, and experiencing whatever they had to offer. When I think about it, we didn’t do as much learning, more of just seeing art pieces and playing with cool things to be honest. However, I still think the fact that we saw how art and science can be used will influence us in some academic way in the future.

Now, for these next two days, I was extremely hyped because I had never been to the Rockies and had never seen all the cool lakes and glaciers. The drive in to Banff was so beautiful, probably the most enjoyable drive I’ve ever taken. I had my camera out, taking lots of photo/video, because there’s nothing better for a photographer than coming to one of the most photogenic places in the whole world. Just this past summer I really got in to photography (keep up to date with my blog because I might write something about all that) so this was absolutely perfect for me. We first stopped at the cave and basin attraction, which I quite enjoyed…despite the constant sulfuric smell. We got to see the vibrant blue natural hot springs which were super nice to stand beside.

Next up was the highlight of the trip, the most breathtaking surroundings I’ve ever been lucky enough to witness, a boat ride on Lake Minnewanka. There was so much to photograph I didn’t know where to start. I was just running around snapping pictures left, right and centre. The lake was stunning, but I’ll let the pictures below do the talking.

Credits to Lucas Koop for some of those images

Friday was another really good day, probably the best day overall. We went to the Columbia Icefield and took a huge, massive-wheeled truck up the glacier and got out on the ice. It was pretty cool and the view all the way around was staggering. We heard some frightening stories from our truck driver about how people get stuck in glacial crevasses, and were found many years later, pretty crazy! After that we took a different bus (this one was just a tour bus) to the Glacier Skywalk. It’s essentially a glass, see through walkway, overhanging a massive cliff. Below is a beautiful river with waterfalls and on either sides are mountains and glaciers. Luca even spotted a mountain goat chillin’ in the valley below. Definitely some dope experiences and ones I’ll remember for a long time.

Not technically last, but the last properly interesting spot, was none other than the gorgeous Lake Louise. I was making a documentary style video about Lake Louise, so I spent so much time just looking out over the turquoise water at the glacier. I had so much footage from Lake Louise, probably almost as much as everything else combined! Although it’s a beautiful place, I thought Minnewanka was nicer. There was just something about it that made me so attracted to it. I’ll definitely be going back some time.

So, that’s a wrap! That was the 2017 Calgary PLP 9 Trip through my eyes. Until the next time I sit down for multiple hours on end tapping an iPad screen, bye.