I had heard much about Banff and was excited to tour it the next day. The best part was visiting the famous "Castle in the Rockies"-historic Banff Springs Hotel. Other than that, Banff struck me as a true resort town: lots of visitors and expensive name-brand retailers. We enjoyed a generous breakfast at the Coyote Caf and then gladly said adieu. But our next stop, Lake Louise, was also packed with tourists. Much more fun was Moraine Lake, a beautiful jewel in a glacial basin outside Lake Louise. We parked the bikes in front of our room at Moraine Lake Lodge, enjoyed afternoon tea in the library and then canoed the length of the lake to a small waterfall. It was our favorite stay of the trip.
In the past a trip over the Canadian Rockies spelled trouble for trains, which needed to summit the Continental Divide at a nearby 4.5 percent grade known as The Big Hill. Eventually the Canadian Pacific Railway built the two Spiral Tunnels, which allowed the trains to curl over (or under) themselves, thus reducing the steep grade to 2.2 percent. We made a quick detour west on the Trans-Canada to watch a train do just that and then doubled back to the Icefields Parkway. This beautiful road parallels the Continental Divide through Banff and Jasper National Parks. Riding its length under high peaks holding glaciers in giant bowls was 143 miles of pure pleasure. We stopped to gaze at the massive Athabasca Glacier, part of the Columbia Icefields and the most-visited glacier in North America. The day ended at road's end-in Jasper, a pleasant resort town catering to park visitors.
At almost 13,000 feet, Mount Robson-just west of Jasper-is the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. Although its snowy cap is often obscured by clouds, we lucked out the next day when the sun lit up its peak as we rode by on Canada 16. We turned south at B.C. 5, which winds along the Yellowhead and Thompson Rivers. I lazed along through the scenery, thinking deep thoughts, none of which I remember now. In Blue River a Harley stop-off called the Log Inn served us two of its tasty "Mother of All Burgers" along with the requisite biker-bar ambience. We made it to Kamloops, a commercial hub of about 85,000 people, in time for dinner with a cousin I hadn't seen in 50 years. Naturally we had a lot of catching up to do.
From Kamloops, two-lane roads curve through forests and woods and along narrow lakes nestled between the ranges of British Columbia's Kootenay Rockies. Few cars bothered us as we rode east on B.C. 6 through the Monashee Mountains and then hitched a ride across Arrow Lake on the Canadian ferry system to the Valley of Hot Springs. With Arrow Lake to our left, we passed dozens of osprey nests on the way to Halcyon Hot Springs, where we enjoyed "taking the waters" in pools above the lake.
We spent the rest of our Canada sojourn exploring this region of British Columbia. It was here that Canada relocated 22,000 Japanese citizens during WWII in 10 pitiful internment camps. What remains of the facility at New Denver is now the Nikkei Internment Memorial Center, where visitors can learn about this massive uprooting and how internees lived. It's a moving and highly worthwhile stop.
Near the end of the trip as I soaked more cares away at Ainsworth Hot Springs resort on Kootenay Lake near Nelson, I mentally revised the lyrics of an old Joni Mitchell song. "Oh Canada, I could drink a case of you, and you'd still be on my mind."