On March 11th, visit Lake Louise Mountain Resort for their fifth annual Cardboard Box Downhill Derby. Show off your fastest, most stylish cardboard box sled and you will not walk away empty handed!

The success of Hollywood’s award-winning and critically-acclaimed Brokeback Mountain has spurred unprecedented efforts to woo tourists and moviemakers to the foothills of Canada’s conservative Alberta province where the film was shot.

The movie was shot along the Canadian Rockies, primarily in the Kananaskis Country region near Banff National Park, a rugged landscape often described by director Ang Lee as “mythical.”

There have been many movies filmed here – watch out for the “Assassination of Jesse James” starring Brad Pitt, due to be released later this year. This movie was filmed mostly at Spray Lakes, just outside of Canmore.

Three-year ban meant to assess population size.

Alberta’s grizzly bear hunt has been cancelled for the first time after the province announced a three-year moratorium Friday.

The move comes four years after scientists and environmentalists began calling for the government to halt the annual hunt. They say the animals’ survival in Alberta is in peril. The province had maintained there were enough grizzlies to sustain a small hunt.

On Friday, however, the government said it doesn’t have a reliable estimate of how many grizzlies remain in Alberta, and it is suspending the hunt until 2009. At that time, the province expects to have a population count. A decision on whether to reinstate the hunt will be made then.

For now, the grizzly will remain a big game animal and won’t be classified as threatened, a recommendation made to the government in 2002.

Hunters have been restricted from targeting female grizzlies, but of the 10 bears killed by hunters last year, four were females; the year before, two of the six killed were females.

Grizzly bears don’t produce many cubs. Females are generally not sexually mature until they are seven years old. When they do mate, they have just one to four cubs.

Scientists and environmentalists believe the population is dangerously low — no more than 700.

Source: © The Calgary Herald 2006

Source: Government of Alberta

This suspension is great news as there are enough human-caused grizzly mortalities without having to add hunting to the equation. There are several tours available to view these magnificent animals alive in their natural habitat. Please contact rocky-peak Holidays for more information.

A federal forecaster has predicted that Canada will not receive an early spring so the Groundhog maybe wrong this year!

Most Canadians will have to endure a very slow start to spring, according to Environment Canada’s latest three-month forecast.

Environment Canada says most of the country will experience cooler than normal temperatures during the spring.

This is great news for the ski resorts as most of them open until late April, and some right through to late May. This would mean the snow stays light right through to the end of the season.

The spring is a great time to ski, here in the Canadian Rockies. The lifts open for longer and after Easter, the crowds usually drop off and there are fun end of season activities at the ski resorts such as a slush cup.

The atmosphere is awesome in the spring time, and the prices are less.

Sunshine’s base is now over 2 metres (almost 7 feet)!

Snow report as of: March 1, 2006

PAST 24 HRS: 13 cm

PAST 3 DAYS: 44 cm

BASE: 205 cm

With another 13 cm of new snow in the past 24 hours and over 40 cm in the past 3 days conditions are incredible! All 12 lifts are running and there are over 100 runs to ski and ride on.

The Torino Winter Games have come and gone and now it’s Vancouver’s turn to bask in the Olympic spotlight.

The countdown to the Vancouver Winter Games officially got underway Tuesday when Mayor Sam Sullivan raised the Olympic flag during a ceremony at Vancouver City Hall.

The flag will stay at city hall until the Games begin in February of 2010.

“So now the world’s eyes are on Vancouver,” said John Furlong, the head of the Vancouver’s Olympic organizing committee.

“And as we look up at this flag – as it looks down on our city – we will be reminded of the responsibility we have taken on. We will be reminded of the promises that we’ve made to stage truly great Games for the world.”

The Olympic flag has been passed from host city to host city since the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. But that flag that was raised on Tuesday isn’t the same one Sullivan took from International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge and proudly waved from his custom wheelchair during the closing ceremony.

There are three Olympic flags and the one flying on the lawn of city hall is bigger than the ceremonial flag.

A tired-looking Sullivan arrived in British Columbia with the flags on Monday. He said being at the Olympics was like nothing he’s ever experienced before. He also admitted there were some anxious moments in the hours before the closing ceremony.

“I never had a billion people watch me do anything, and I also realized that I had to think what this was all about,” Sullivan said.

“It was all about the athletes. It was about people striving to be their best.”

Canadian athletes combined to win 24 medals at the Torino Games – Canada’s best-ever medal haul.

Canada’s previous best total was 17 medals. That plateau was reached in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Games.

Canadian Olympic officials are hoping to do even better at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. The goal is to win 35 medals and finish atop the medal standings.

Source: CBC Sports

Canadians can look forward to an early spring, based on three groundhogs failing to see their shadows on 2nd February.

Groundhog Day legend began with a German superstition that suggests if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on the Christian holiday of Candlemas, which is Feb. 2, winter will last another six weeks. No shadow indicates an early spring.

Europeans used to watch for hedgehogs, but a hedgehog shortage in North America caused settlers to switch to woodchucks, also known as groundhogs.

Groundhog Day cheers erupted in Wiarton, Ontario, as Wiarton Willie’s white-gloved, purple-robed handlers made the morning announcement that the rodent hadn’t seen his shadow, indicating an early end to winter.

Organizers of the Wiarton Willie Festival claim the albino groundhog’s track record over the past 50 years is “better than 90 per cent.”

On the East Coast, Nova Scotia’s best-known woodchuck also signalled an early spring. Shubenacadie Sam emerged from his heated home at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park outside Halifax and failed to see his shadow.

In Manitoba, Manitoba Merv made his annual appearance at Oak Hammock Marsh, north of Winnipeg, and agreed with his fellow forecasters.

But Oak Hammock Marsh does things a little differently. Employees prefer to let their sleeping groundhogs lie.

“We find it a little cruel to wake up those poor rodents, who should technically be sleeping until the end of March at least,” said Jacques Bourgeois with the interpretive centre at the marsh. “Just to wake them up for that one day, we found was a little tough on them. So we decided to personalize the spirit of Groundhog Day with a puppet.”

The news comes as many Canadian cities reported their warmest January on record. Environmental officials believe a vortex of cold air that usually traverses the globe is parked over Russia, blanketing Europe with arctic weather. In contrast, North America is bathed in warmer air from the jet stream.

That fact isn’t lost on Wiarton Willie, said his handler, Mack MacKenzie, who translated the groundhog’s comments: “Fools, it is spring already. Why are you making these silly predictions?”
Handler Bill Deeley is about to plant a wet one on Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania’s weather-predicting groundhog, on Thursday.

South of the border, Punxsutawney Phil delivered some unwelcome news.

The large crowd, gathered in Gobbler’s Knob, Penn., groaned loudly after learning the chunky critter saw his shadow, indicating six more weeks of winter.

So there you have it, spring 2006 is not too far away after all in Canada – according to the Groundhog or course!

Source: CBC News, 2nd Feb

Snow is falling heavily across the whole of the west of Canada and plenty more is predicted over the next few days.

Now is a great time to get a last minute ski deal and make the most of the fresh!

One of the greatest snow seasons in two decades has reached its midpoint and the peak months of March, April and May will offer fantastic skiing and boarding to all visitors. Fresh powder has been bombarding the resort since Saturday (Feb 25th) night. Sunshine Village has been closed for one day today, for routine maintenance on its gondola. This means the fresh powder they have received over the last 24 hours has been untouched!
For more information on Sunshine Village visit canada-ski.com.

Vancouver Rocky Mountaineer Vacations (RMV), owners and operators of the world-acclaimed Rocky Mountaineer train has won the 2006 ”Employees First Award” at this year’s B.C. Tourism Industry Conference in Penticton. Hundreds of industry members attended the 7th annual B.C. Tourism Awards ceremony, which was held on February 16, 2006. RMV executives were on hand to accept the award on behalf of the Vancouver based company. This latest accolade follows Rocky Mountaineer Vacations’ recent win of the prestigious 2005 World Travel Award as the ”World’s Leading Travel Experience by Train.”

Rocky Mountaineer Vacations, owned and operated by Armstrong Hospitality Group (AHG), offers year-round vacation packages to the most unique regions of Canada, including the world-acclaimed Rocky Mountaineer train, a two-day, all daylight rail journey between Canada’s West and the Canadian Rockies.

In May 2006, RMV will premiere the highly anticipated Whistler Mountaineer train, a three-hour experience between Vancouver and Whistler, B.C. and the new Rocky Mountaineer Fraser Discovery Route, a two-day journey between Whistler and Jasper, with an overnight stop in Quesnel, B.C.

For further information on rail routes and booking, please contact:
rocky-peak Holidays – Rail Vacations
Tel: 403-609-0286 or 1-888-PH-ROCKY (toll free North America)
Website: www.rocky-peak.com

Source: CNW Group (20/06/02), & the web editors