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Tour Spotlight: Canada Land & Sea

Tour Spotlight: Canada Land & Sea

June 1, 2018

Author: Lisa Crockett/Friday, June 1, 2018/Categories: Travel News, Newsletters

Fantasy’s five tours of eastern Canadian provinces are extremely popular and highly regarded by RVers everywhere. In 2019, Fantasy will be expanding the Canadian tour experience with an all new tour – this time in western Canada! The brand new 38-day Canada Land and Sea Tour incorporates impressive scenery, friendly people, famous attractions and some fun times – all taking place in the “Land of the Great White North” and finishing in the magnificent Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Great Canadian Barn Dance

The tour begins in the small town of Hill Spring, Alberta, population 142. The traditional Fantasy Welcome Dinner and Orientation takes on a different turn here – with Alberta-style food and entertainment in a prairie barn located right at the campground. 

The first attraction on the next day’s guided tour is named Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, and it’s a rather literal translation. Prior to the days of guns and horses, ancient native people here would hunt bison by stampeding them over cliffs and rock ledges. This location provided food to people for 5,700 years.

Music fills the air at the next stop – Fort MacLeod, the original settlement of Canada’s Northwest Mounted Police. Fantasy guests thrill to a performance of their celebrated musical ride astride beautiful high-stepping horses in a tradition which has been going on for 140 years.

Waterton LakeCanada’s Waterton Glacier International Peace Park shares the U.S./Canada border with Glacier National Park. Day 3 brings the group to this magnificent location where they’ll enjoy a cruise on the clear blue waters of Waterton Lake, followed by lunch lakeside. The following day, the driving portion of the tour begins – heading to Cochrane. The group tours the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary. Pet wolfdogs have become popular throughout Canada, however many owners discover they cannot properly care for them. This 160-acre sanctuary rescues these animals, rehabilitating them and re-homing them as pets.

The group stops for two nights in Rocky Mountain House, where the journey on the legendary Cowboy Trail begins. It’s a scenic route through Canada’s Rocky Mountain foothills with impressive scenery and wildlife all along the way. Next stop is Hinton, which is just a few miles from the entrance to Jasper National Park. With a three-night stop-over, there’s plenty of time to explore the town of Jasper and soak up the amazing scenery – perhaps spotting bears, deer, mountain goats, cougars, wolves, bighorn sheep, coyotes, beaver or some of the other wildlife roaming the Park. Guests may opt for a side trip to Athabasca Falls which flows from glaciers in the Colombia Icefield and the largest river in the Park. The final day is spent on a luncheon cruise of Maligne Lake, Jasper’s most famous tourist destination.Moraine Lake

Leaving Jasper, the group travels to Banff along the Icefield Parkway, stopping at the Columbia Icefield. They board a gigantic Ice Explorer Snowcoach and travel over the Athabasca Glacier. Fantasy guests stay busy in Banff the next four nights starting with a guided bus tour, stopping at Yoho National Park and Takkakaw Falls. At Kicking Horse Pass, they see the spiral tunnels of the Canadian Pacific Railway, allowing heavy trains to both ascend and descend the steep terrain. And of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to Banff without lunch at beautiful Lake Louise, known around the world for its natural beauty.

The journey continues – traveling into British Columbia, or B.C. as the locals call it. They enjoy a raft trip on the Kicking Horse River, complete with a picnic lunch. Driving on, they cross spectacular Rogers Pass, home of Canada’s newest ski area, and ride the gondola up the mountain for a breakfast buffet. The day continues with a visit to the Revelstoke Hydro Dam, spanning the Columbia River and the BC Forest Discovery Centre.

Okanagan ValleyIn the Okanagan Valley, the group visits several farms as well as touring a farm-to-flask distillery, offering more than 25 internationally awarded spirits. Then there’s a cruise on Okanagan Lake – 84 miles long, 3 miles wide and up to 930 feet deep! As the group continues south, they arrive in Oliver, aka the “Wine Capital of Canada”, with vineyards dotting the landscape. Naturally, Fantasy has set up a wine tasting, lunch and a visit to a local cider house, all sourced from local Okanagan Valley farms.

It’s back to Canada’s wild and wonderful mountain ranges as they travel between the Coast Pacific Mountain Range and the Cascades, stopping to ride the Hell’s Gate Airtram, which travels high above the Fraser River from the Cascade Mountain Range to the Coast Pacific.

Leaving rural B.C. behind, the group arrives at their West Vancouver campground, where they stay for the next three nights. There’s a guided Vancouver city tour, visiting Stanley Park, Granville Island, Chinatown and the historic Gastown District.

Next, everyone (and their RVs!) board the ferry for Vancouver Island for three nights of camping and tours. Victoria, which is actually the capital of B.C., has retained its British heritage with lovely sculpted gardens and London-style double decker buses. The group tours the city’s Inner Harbour and Parliament Buildings. The next day, they tour the rugged coastlines of Vancouver Island itself, followed by a whale-watching cruise, where Orca whales and dolphins may be seen breaching and jumping through the sparkling waters. Vancouver Island

Fantasy’s Vancouver Island stay culminates with a tour and a genuine English High Tea at Butchart Gardens. Then it’s back on the ferry, returning to the U.S. via Anacortes, Washington, located on Fidalgo Island, which is halfway between Vancouver and Seattle. There’s a road off the Island which leads to the final destination – Seattle.

The four days in America’s “Emerald City” are jam packed with tours and activities. The visit begins with a tour of the Boeing Factory – the only public tour of a working commercial jet assembly plant in North America. Next, it’s the Future of Flight Aviation Center and a stop at the Museum of Flight, with 175+ displays of air and spacecraft. 

There’s a downtown tour and a visit to the Chihuly Garden Glass Museum – eight galleries and a glass house exhibition center featuring Dale Chihuly’s amazing glass sculptures. Next door, the group boards a high-speed elevator to the observation deck of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle.

There’s one final day of the Canada Land and Sea tour, and it’s spent at sea – cruising spectacular Puget Sound – the perfect end to an experience which started only 38 days prior in the tiny village of Hill Spring, Alberta.

The brand new Canada Land and Sea tour embarks on August 23, 2019 and in 2020, it departs on August 21st. It’s truly an amazing way to explore this incredibly beautiful part of the world.

Please note: itinerary subject to change


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