Where the Prairies kiss the Rockies.

Waterton Lakes National Park, Southern Alberta, where Canada meets The United States! Where the water is blue and cold as ice, where Mule deer give birth and protect their babies, where you can cross the border to reach Montana. Where the Gophers look different! Where beautiful lakeshore hikes were ours. Where butterflies shine in our third spring season of this year. Unbelievable that the snow is only gone for a few weeks in this beautiful part of the world. After two months without seeing any snow, we're so happy to see the white mountain tops : )!

We enjoyed our stay in Waterton Lakes: beautiful hikes, a campsite near the water surrounded by mountains and a bunch of nice neighbor-campers, thanks to you all. Goodbye Alberta, goodbye USA, goodbye WLNP!



Greetz from Banff NP feat. Moose, Grizzlies and many more...

T H and Th.

Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump.

On our way to Southern Alberta we passed this interesting piece of native history. Many years ago and year after year the Blackfoots yearly organised a big Buffalo hunt! When the weather was perfect and Mother Earth's Heartbeat had the right rhythm, the hunters chased the herd bottleneck-wise to a very steep cliff. Thousands of Buffalos found death in the northeast of Porcupine Hills. One brave hunter thought he had the best view from the bottom of the cliff...he never saw the giant bull coming, Head-Smashed-In!

Years later, a tremendous amount of bison skeletons and skulls where found at this site. Unfortunately, the Buffalos are gone, and so are the natives...Thurber came, saw and conquered!

Up to Waterton Lakes NP, nature calls: Mountains, blue lakes, awesome hikes and Grizzly Bears here we come!

So long

T H and Th.

Calgary (Alberta).

Calgary: according to many, Worlds Most Weathy City! This city feels like the beginning of our final chapter. It sounds crazy but at this point, The Rocky Mountains are within handreach, a big adventure is coming up but first: Eau Claire!

We had a great time in the city. It's clean and it smells a little touristic. The Glenbow Museum has a very interesting look at the history of the indigenous people of this country. It's a very sad story over and over...The devil can corner you in a house...but not in a tipi. I can tell you that we were the devil! They did a great job on Prince's Island, this green park is really worth a visit, we enjoyed our walk and so did El Thurberro! And every effort ends with a little moment of total relaxation!

Up to the USA border, Waterton Lakes NP here we come!

Take Care folks!

Ioooooo

The Beauty-The Beast and The Hound.





Drumheller: between T-Rex and Triceratops.

We finally reached the Alberta border. If you would ask a German guy how to find Drumheller, he'd answer: Immer gerade aus! Crazy, you can see a rainstorm coming a hundred kilometers in front of you, straight ahead, Le Plat Pays! If you say Drumheller, I say Dinosaurs! This is where many of them died many many years ago. Even today researchers still discover ancient wildlife in the Badlands of North America. It's an amazing scenery of rock-a-like formations with a special vegetation and lots of groundsquirrels -Gophers-!

The Royal Tyrrel Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller is world famous for it's giant dinosaur collection. Skeletons, fossils and a load of interesting information are coming your way if you visit this place...it's amazing what they have and what they know about our prehistoric ancestors and it's even more amazing what they don't know...or at least not yet.

Black Beauty and Big Bones feat. T Th and H.



Manitou Beach!

 

A freshwater lake with a very high salt density, higher than the Death Sea! Spares us a trip to Israel. I always wondered how it was to just float on the water, hanging around, almost no gravity! But first, on our way to Manitou Beach we past a lot of potash mines, potash is a common name for salts that contain potassium. It is mainly used in fertilizers and Saskatchewan is world's biggest producer. These wagon_containers are waiting to be filled.

And here we go: Head up, belly up, toes up but nothing special. It was nice but definitely not what I expected...I actually didn't really know what to expect but at first I thought I was swimming in the wrong lake till I actually made an effort to float and I did...at least a little bit, maybe because of all the rain they had lately, crazy sh*t!

OneLove

T H Th.

ToonCity and Saskattractions.

If someone would ask me: Give me some words to describe Saskatoon? My answer would be: River, Art, Salsa, Beautiful People, Dark skies and Aboriginal day. The Saskatchewan River runs straight through the city. We see high waterlevels these days because heavy rains in different parts of the province cause heavy flooding.

We had great times in this cultural city thanks to a lot of lovely people. Rachelle and Josephine, thanks for showing us the city in a different way, we'll meet again in Europe and our hospitality will be as generous as yours. Thank you to the twinsisters -Elly and Erika- and Joshua for the story about dogs...: ), remember Gentse Waterzooi en Crêpes!

  


























That's right, we made Gentse Waterzooi and we thaught this young crowd how to make Crêpes, lijk int pannekoekenhuizeke. And meet Arley, a very smart little girl with El Salvadorian roots. Another kid just crossed my lens, hanging around, having fun and totally unknown feat. His Deck,The Beauty and the Hound!

Rachelle was our guide and our guide loves Salsa. One Latino Night and a Salsa By The River introduced us to this beautiful latin dance. Thumbs up for Martin and Tamara: Mexican vibes on the dancefloor! Flowing like a South American wind before a North American thunderstorm!

And if the night falls and the storm comes, the clouds take over the dance! The cold breeze chases away the stuffed mosquitoes and the dark black and blue sky whispers...goodnight Saskatoon, goodbye, it was our pleasure.

21st of June, National Aboriginal Day in Wanuskewin Heritage Park, North of ToonCity. An interesting rainy day full of Native art, dance and wonderful artists. After a long and very sad (hi)story...the 21st century calls Native people, Heritage. Definitely something to think about. But again, beautiful people and interesting stories about Heartbeats, Katanka and Gitchi Manitou.

Time to travel on my friends, we end this story tomorrow with a special visit thanks to Alex and Maureen. Next stops: Drumheller, Calgary, Waterton Lakes, Bannf, Jasper, Whitehorse, Dawson City...Alaska!

Goodnight, Goodmorning...

One Love

THTh.

Saskatchewan, lovely times!

Our 7th Province is Saskatchewan! Part two of the prairies brings us the Doukhobors in Veregin, a visit to the monks in Muenster and an excellent supper with the Knorr Family and many more. Welcome in Saskatchewan!

The Doukhobors are an ethnic group of Russian origin. They were defined as a religious philosophy, social movement, or simply a "way of life" known generically as Spriritual Christianity. We visited the 'Old' heritage site in Veregin after spending the night at their parking lot!

Our next stop was Muenster! Time for some Wooffing. We had a very interesting stay at St. Peters Abbey. It was great to meet the monks and we had the honour to work with the gardener and his daughter, Jim and Rachelle Ternier. A lovely man with a passion for plants, especially perrenials and even more, their seeds and a spontaneous young woman who just likes to help her father! People from all over the world contact Jim to order his seeds. Thanx for sharing your knowledge with us Jim, we had a great time!

June is flower season in this province, everything looks and smells very nice. The Orchard is blooming and the irises are lovely. We enjoyed everything around us and helped Jim where we could, soms in het nederlands, soms in het frans, latijn zelf en engels ; ).

The food in the Abbey was great and so were the monks. Thanks brother Kurt for having us over! You're a perfect Mother-hen for the Wwoofers. And brother Basil, thanks for taking care of us and for introducing us to the Knorr family!

After mentioning that we really wanted to eat moose, brother Basil arranged us a supper with a local familie of hunters and I can tell you that it was one of the best meals we had this last seven months. We loved the taste of the tender moose (Eat moose: CHECK!) and all the other great dishes they presented us, thanks Wally and Olga for having us over and thanks Elly for the awesome mosquito-attracting dessert, it was our pleasure meeting your family! Elly and Diamon visited us the evening before we left...

Another good experience passed by very quickly. Saskatoon here we come, Rachelle will take us on a trip through the city and we will celebrate her birthday together. We'll also meet Elly again and she will introduce us to her twinsister, great times coming up...keep on reading dear friends! And did you know that the monks have their own special methods to keep it quiet at the Abbey...: )! Check http://www.stpetersabbey.ca/ for the springpicture 2011.

Eat The Moose 

OneLove

T H and Th.



 

LionNewsFlash from AVWS-Rosseau, Ontario.

Do you all remember the platform I built together with Ed Jock and Joe back in the sanctuary? 'Movement and Exercise' for Subira were the keywords in this enrichment project. A few weeks later I'm very happy to recieve great news from The Lion Queen...and here she is!

This was the first time the staff saw Subira on her new deck where she has a nice view over the sanctuary! Thank you very much Julia, it was my pleasure to work on this project, ; )!

Greets to all of you!

T H and Th in Muenster, Saskatchewan!

For Sale

RV Westfalia LT 28 - 1995

European Model and Engine
5 Cylinder Turbodiesel
12-15 l/100km
5 gear manual
km: 175 000
Available: september 2011

: )

T&H.

We Love Manitoba.

We Love Winnipeg, this city kinda surprised us! It is certainly nothing fancy but it's nice. It has nice high and old stone buildings that give it a certain touch. We had a nice time wandering through the parks, through the city visiting different quarters or simply enjoying a canadian beer on the patio of a nice pub.

 

Unfortunately the Winnipeg Art Gallery was closed on Mondays so we did not get a chance to visit, it's a modern nice looking building in the citycenter, too bad we missed the art collection!

We love Riding Mountain National Park, if you want to see wild black bears in Canada you have to be in this park in the spring! We saw seven in two days and a lot of other wildlife, among them Manitoba's provincial Animal: the Bison!

A mother bear and two cups crossed our path while we were driving through the park! Bar cubs are probably the cutest things on earth and it was amazing to see them hopping around in front of us! Unfortunately they are gone as fast as they appear, they come and go. And so do the snakes (common Garter Snake). We also experienced this on Thursday, we had our first real bear encounter on a hiking trail and it openend my eyes. I kinda lost my fear for bears somewhere in the sanctuary but if you're hiking and you meet three of them unexpected on a trail during their lunch...your heart stops beating, your breath is taking away...until they start running, luckely for us in the opposite direction. And oh yeah, we couldn't hike the entire Gorge because we've lost some time getting stuck in the ditch on HWY 19, I guess I was too busy bearwatching...: )
 

We also hiked the Grey Owl trail, Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was a British environmentalist. He discribed himself as a half-breed and adopted the native ways of living. He called himself Grey Owl and lived in the wilderness of Riding Mountain National park in 1931. The trail is beautiful and you'll find his cabin at the end of it.

And we love SportsmanPark, our trip to Riding Mountain wouldn't have been the same without the most generous Canadian we've met so far. I can also tell you that it will be hard to take this King's throne!!! Thank you so much AJ! We will not forget what you've done for us! We had a great time at your campground. Take care man and keep enjoying life like you are doing...we wish you both all the luck as parents in a few weeks!

So if you ever visit RMNP, don't hesitate to visit Adrian and Holly's campground between Onanole and the park, hell yeah...great place-great food-great people, loved it!!!

The prairies are fun so far, Manitoba was beatiful and another great experience! Coming up: Saskatchewan, The Dukhabours in Veregin and between the monks in Saint Peters Abbey!

Take Care.

OneLove.

Thomas Hannah and Thurber.