My Travels with Tintin – Canada

I have a few Tintin albums in French, but “Tintin au Tibet” (Tintin in Tibet) is arguably as good as any to represent my “trip” to Canada. It was originally published in 1993 by Casterman.

Tintin has an interesting publishing history in Canada. As a bi-lingual country, we have access to both the French and English editions… although there’s no doubt he’s much more popular in French. However, that also means that there’s no real domestic publishing to speak of. The French editions have been available since the late 1940’s – primarily imported via bookstores in Quebec – and are the standard Franco-Belgian ones from Casterman. The English ones have been around since the late 1950s/early 1960s, and were originally imported following their official publication in the U.K. by Methuen & Co. Nowadays the standard ones from Farshore (a.k.a Egmont U.K.) are widely available.

Interestingly, Casterman did release a special Québécois adaptation of the album “Coke en stock” (Red Sea Sharks) known as “Colocs en stock” in October 2009. Adapted by sociologist Yves Laberge, the book translates the standard French dialogue into regional Québécois French expressions, slang and local cultural references. The title itself swaps “Coke” for “Colocs” (slang for roommates/cohabitants) as a regional play on words. Given that it’s quite regional to Québéc… and commands a premium price online… I didn’t bother trying to track it down.

Instead I chose “Tintin au Tibet” (Tintin in Tibet) because a) the snowy landscape of the Himalayan Mountains is a close stand-in for the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and b) I like the album. There was also no real mystery or fun anecdote on how I acquired my nice hardcover album. I went to a local book shop and there it was. Sold!

My trip to Canada:

Technically speaking, my first “trip” to Canada was in 1972… and I never really left. So, this entry in my “Travels with Tintin”  section is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Having said that though, arguably the two most famous tourist spots to visit in Canada are either the Banff, Alberta, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, or Niagra, Ontario, home of the world-class Niagra Falls (Canadian side). Since I was living in Seoul, Korea at the time, I feel like our “trip” to both of those spots in Canada therefore qualifies for inclusion. I mean, it’s not every day that you can be both home and on vacation at the same time, right?

Our trip to Canada was from  June 29 to July 15, 2018. Now usually our trips home to Edmonton, Alberta came by way of Vancouver, British Columbia (which makes sense if you’re traveling from Seoul). But in 2018 we were circumnavigating the globe, from Seoul to Rome, Italy, then Athens, Greece, and then (via Geneva, Switzerland and London, U.K.) to Toronto, Ontario. As luck would have it, my good friend (since High School) lives in Toronto, so we had arranged to spend a few days visiting with him and his wife. After spending a day (June 30) recuperating from our two previous destinations, we spent July 1 checking out what Toronto had to offer – which, only Canada Day was quite a bit. After grabbing a bite to eat for Sunday brunch at the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto, we made our way to the docks and took the Toronto Island Ferry across Lake Ontario to Centre Island. It’s always a popular, family family-friendly destination best known for its extensive parkland, beaches, and the Centreville Amusement Park – and on a Canada Day Sunday it was all that and more! Of course it was a hot day, so even just walking around and checking out the island attractions at a leisurely pace took quite a bit out of us. I believe we could have stayed until the late evening to get a good view of the fireworks, but we decided to beat the rush and head home slightly after dinner instead. You’ve seen one fireworks display, you’ve seen them all, I guess.

The highlight of the trip was the next day. On July 2, we took the shuttle bus from Toronto out to Niagra to see the falls. I’ve seen them before, but for my son it was the first time. They really are a sight to behold. I’ve never seen them from the American side, but the Canadian side is the one where all the pictures come from. That huge horseshoe-shaped cliff where the water plunges over the side is awe-inspiring. The view from the top was great, but we decided to splurge a bit and take the tour down to where the old power generating station was. It’s one thing to see them from afar and up above… it’s another to see the water pouring down around you. After seeing the falls we toured the town a bit. It’s very much a tourist centre… you can buy any bit of Niagra Falls branded paraphernalia you could hope for. Our biggest purchase was a baseball cap… and it was mostly to keep the sun off. Still it was fun to visit and see the sights, and even our family friends from Toronto were slightly surprised that they had a good time. I guess there really is something to be said for going on vacation at home!

We spend a couple of days in Toronto, mainly just shopping. I was lucky that my friend happened to live quite near a local hobby store – Wheels and Wings Hobbies – so I was able to pop out a couple of times and check out their stock. I was even able to purchase a couple of small (but hard to find in Seoul) kits. Don’t tell my wife!

After that it was on to Edmonton, Alberta. Most of that portion of our trip was taken up by visiting with family and catching up on local things that needed to be done (banking, etc.). However, we were able to squeeze in a few days to visit the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We started our trip in Jasper –  it might not be as famous as it’s cousin, Banff… but for my money it’s just as nice, but with less tourists – even though we counted ourselves as tourists I guess. In Jasper we took the SkyTram up near the summit of Whistlers Mountain – an elevation of 2,263 metres. It’s not quite the top though, that’s an additional 1.4 km hike (with a another 200-metre elevation gain) to the true summit. Still it offered a commanding view of the area. You could see the townsite as well as all the surrounding mountain peaks. We did walk around a bit. Since you’re above the tree-line, it’s mostly just rocks… but we did manage to make a new friend – a Least chipmunk. Some people were trying to feed them, but we refrained. Partly because it’s never a good idea to feed the wildlife – especially in a National Park, but also because I had one crawl up my leg when I was a kid and bite my finger when it didn’t find any food. I thought I’d spare my son that same experience.

After a day of hiking around Japser we drove down the Icefield Parkway – possibly one of the most beautiful drives in the entire country, if not the world! It connects the towns of Jasper and Banff (well, technically Lake Louise, but close enough) and it winds its way right through the heart of the Canadian Rockies. There’s plenty of places to stop along the way to take in the view, but I’ve already had a soft spot in my heart for the Crowfoot Glacier. It’s an iconic hanging glacier perched on the northeastern flank of Crowfoot Mountain in Banff National Park – about 32 km northwest of Lake Louise.

When explorers originally named the glacier a century ago, the ice mass featured three prominent promontories resembling a crow’s claw. Of course it’s been in retreat since the end of the Little Ice Age, and the lowest “toe” completely disintegrated by the 1940s – so I’ve never seen it. However, it brings back memories of the family vacations when I was a child and the first time my dad explained the name to me. I hope my son will have the same special feeling, since we stopped the car, got out and I explained the same story to him.

We spent a couple of days in and around Banff. We visited both Lake Louise and (for my money the nicer) Moraine Lake and hiked (well walked) around the edge of the lake. The views were as spectacular as I remembered – not hard since I’ve been there many times… but this was my first time as a “tourist”, right? We also stopped by to check out the famous Bow Falls in Banff. Rather than a steep, vertical plunge like Niagra Falls, Bow Falls is a block-style waterfall where the 30-metre wide Bow River cascades heavily over a short 9-metre drop. The volume of water creates immense churning force and audible roaring, especially during the spring when the snow melts. It’s also, rather famously, connected to Marilyn Monroe. Bow Falls was featured in the 1953 Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum film, River of No Return, where characters were swept over the white water falls. We viewed them from a safer distance.

After our trip to Banff we spent a couple of days in Calgary, visiting family and seeing the sights – okay… mostly the shopping-related sights. Then it was back “home” to Edmonton and then on to our then current home in Seoul. My first time to circumvent the globe!