The Northwest Passage – Edmonton

We visited today the Fort Edmonton Park which is one of the many parks situated on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River about 6 miles from downtown.

The 150 acres of the Park is divided into 4 sections (as set out below) and is preserving the historic buildings of Edmonton.

Some of the buildings are original and have been donated to the Park by the owners and others have been recreated based on the originals. They also give rides on street cars from the Municipal and Metropolitan eras and a steam train, although that was not running today.

They also have a good selection of working cars from the early 20th century which they drive around the site.

The Park provides a good balance between education and fun for the kids as, in addition to the historic buildings, there is a period fun fair in the Metropolitan era section. They also have people in period costumes acting out roles, such as suffragettes.

The New Capitol Theatre showed a very interesting 15 minute film about the establishment and rise of the city of Edmonton from about 300 people to thousands after the railway was built in 1891.

The Park is certainly worth a visit if you are interested in the history of Edmonton.

Whilst at the Park, the sun disappeared behind a haze and we were later told that this was caused by the hundreds of forest fires currently burning in British Colombia.

We returned to the hotel for a first meeting with the One Ocean people who are running the “Pathways to Franklin” trip to the Northwest Passage. They advised us that, due to ice breaking away from the Greenlandic ice sheet, the ship was not be able to get into Resolute Bay and we would be taking 2 flights to another location to meet the boat. The good news was we did not start at 5am but at 8.30am and the increased ice meant that we were more likely to see wildlife such a polar bears.

Any trips to the Artic or Antarctic are very weather dependent so it will be interesting to see what the next 10 days brings. As from tomorrow we will be mostly out of the range of WiFi so the posts will be more sporadic.