Canadian Journey

Last night we checked into the Delta Bow Inn in downtown Calgary, had an early supper in the bar and slept till dawn. The hotel is quite comfortable and has good views over the city.

One of the landmarks of the city is the Calgary Tower. This has an observation deck about 700 ft off the ground with a 360° view of the city and surrounding area. This is one of the views of the city I took from the tower, with the Rocky Mountains just visible on the horizon.

With all the skyscrapers you might think that Calgary looks like America, but it doesn’t feel like that. Calgary still has a ‘frontier town’ feel to it.

Calgary is famous for the annual ‘Calgary Stampede’ (where everyone gets dressed up as cowboys for 10 days and they do a lot of bucking around with horses) but we were there just after that.

There is a lot of construction going on (in readiness for the Winter Olympics 2010) and everyone seems very laid back, welcoming and hospitable.

There is some stunning new architecture to be seen around town. This spiral staircase is just across from the Bankers Hall building.

Calgary’s history is sometimes commemmorated in quirky ways. This statue of two women having a tea party marks the time in 1927 when Emily Murphy, Canada’s first female senator, was finally successful in having the law changed so that the term ‘person’ could legally include women as well as men, and she could take her seat in the Senate.

I took this photo because I rather liked the way this little person was playing in the statue!

The river Bow runs through the city and there are some beautiful riverside walks just a couple of blocks from our hotel. This beaver dam is right in the city centre. Beavers are a protected species and when beavers build dams in the river they are usually left alone.

We stayed two nights and one day in Calgary to help us acclimatize to the change in time zones and we really enjoyed our stay in this ‘stampede’ city!