Touring British Columbia - A Case of Canada

With forest fires raging in my home state of Idaho, a leisurely ride through the Canadian Rockies beckoned to me like a tall, cool glass of water. It was August and time to escape the 100-degree heat in Boise, along with the smoke covering the city like a veil.

The Suzuki Boulevard C50T I'd lined up was perfect for the trip: It's comfortable and relaxing to ride. My husband, Lynn, on the other hand, rolled out his '82 Suzuki GS1100 streetbike. Mine takes the curves better, but his classic gets all the attention when we stop (something about it being an inline four-cylinder that accelerates like a rocket).

My three-week return date seemed months away. I planned a loop that wound from Idaho into Montana and on to Canada via Glacier-Watertown International Peace Park. From there my husband and I would journey north along the Continental Divide on the Columbia Icefields Parkway from the mountain town of Banff to Jasper. It would be cool in both senses of the word.

Leaving Idaho this way is like playing a game of "follow the rivers"-first the Payette along Idaho 55, then the Salmon via U.S. 95 and, last but not least, Idaho 12, surely one of the primo motorcycle roads in the country. We savored its many tight and sweeping turns along the Lochsa and Clearwater Rivers before crossing the Continental Divide at 5233-foot-high Lolo Pass on the Montana border.

This being one of the worst fire seasons of recent years, haze dogged us to Hot Springs, Montana, where a room awaited at Symes Hot Springs. It's a stately old resort hotel-full of character but no air conditioning. Fortunately members of the Velocette Owners Club of North America staying there for the group's annual gathering tipped us off about asking for a floor fan at check-in. We were lucky to stumble on the VOCNA, as its annual meeting place typically is a well-kept secret. And the floor fan was a nice plus.

Lynn kept his U.S. National Parks pass in his jacket pocket as we rode north toward Glacier National Park the next day. This was my first visit, and I put the Boulevard in low gear to climb historic Going-to-the-Sun Road over 6646-foot-high Logan Pass. This 50-mile-long road carved into the side of near-vertical cliffs is an engineering masterpiece offering views of spectacular mountains and (sadly) melting glaciers. We waved to passengers touring in the historic red Jammer coaches, named because their gears used to jam on the mountain roads. Now restored, the 33 coaches run on propane. A fun ride-if I wanted to get off my bike.

At dusk we checked into Glacier Park Lodge, a grand hotel built by the Great Northern Railroad, which invested in hotels and ranches to lure tourists to the Northwest. Massive 800-year-old tree trunks in the lobby give this hotel its nickname, the "Big Tree Lodge." Hundreds of firefighters were staying there, and the evening's entertainment turned out to be watching flames from a nearby fire leaping into the sky. Fortunately the winds turned before the flare-up spread, and we called it a night.

With passports in hand we easily crossed the border into Canada's adjoining Waterton Park. The mountains and buttes along the way are glorious, and riding on the uncrowded asphalt ain't bad, either. We stopped to view another great railroad hotel in the region, Waterton's Prince of Wales. Perched on a promontory overlooking seven-mile-long Waterton Lake, it reminded me of a Swiss dollhouse.

Our goal that day was Banff, about 300 miles away, so we didn't linger. Riding north took us through Alberta's wide-open prairie country, but while the sun was shining near the start of Alberta 22, black clouds ahead spelled trouble. We barely had time to get out the rain gear before the hail started pelting us. We hunkered down for the long wet ride, and by the time we entered Banff National Park via the Trans-Canada Highway it was nearly dark.