Jasper is beautiful, as expected, and we were happy to see so many Elk and Mule deer around the town itself.

The Maligne canyon is actually an old underground river that used to flow through a cave, but now the cave roof has disappeared leaving behind a beautiful canyon.

The river was frozen over when we went and, knowing that they conduct tours on the river, I had to climb down and explore. It's a little off putting as the river cracks as you walk along it and you can hear the water flowing underneath, so after a while my nerve went and I climbed back up to the pathway.

We then followed the canyon until the river finally showed itself and we came to the various bridges that cross it.

Hoping the ice doesn't suddenly give way!

  After a month in Kelowna, it was time to move on. Kim found us a place in Jasper and it didn't take long for use to agree to move there, it looked beautiful.

This time we decided to break up the trip with a stop over, our trip to Kelowna had made us aware of how much the snow can slow you down, as such I booked us a cabin in Clearwater, about half way to Jasper.

The cabin was beautiful, if a little basic, and we spent a fun day driving around the local national park looking for moose. No luck of course, but we did find an amazing frozen waterfall.

The road trip itself was fairly uneventful, but we were excited to see our first Elk near Jasper.

Our Clearwater cabin

I heard that Big White had a special on Fridays, $5 lift tickets after 4pm, so naturally I had to take advantage. I was lucky enough to arrive dead on 4pm so had some empty lift queues until around 6pm when everyone else made it after work.

I had exhausted myself by then anyway, although I trooped on for another hour before the cold really started setting in.

Amazing place, amazing night's snowboarding.

Kim and I decided to have a beginners ski lesson together, we timed it for the Wednesday and, although we had booked a group lesson, we were the only people in the lesson. Naturally Kim had plenty of talent and we were both whizzing down the beginner slopes in short order.

I enjoyed myself far more than I had imagined, there's more to this skiing lark than first meets the eye!

A bit of pre-lesson practice. Nice form there Kim.

On the slopes, looking comfortable.

Our Canadian instructor. A very, very patient man.

No jackets required.

Well, it had to be done, so we bought tickets for the Kelowna Rockets vs Medicine Hat Tigers ice hockey match.

The teams are in the West Hockey League of Canada and, despite being under 21, are pretty much equivalent to division 1 UK football teams, in fact probably better as they are where the talent for the major teams comes from.

Anyway, Kim managed to land us rink-side tickets for an amazingly atmospheric game. The Rockets beat the Tigers 10-1.

The Rockets enter the rink

Best seats in the house! (if you want to see some violence)

Violence! Yay!

On the way to Big White is a frozen lake (well, in winter) that is used by snowmobilers, cross country skiers and snowkiters!

Naturally I dragged Kim up there 3 or 4 times chasing some non existant wind, but at least we had a bit of an explore

Pretty interesting roads on route

Prime snowkiting terrain. (see the kite in the background? this was the one time I didn't have my gear with me )

The coldest loo in the world.

Fashion in Canada

The facilities were amazing.

We had a bit of a cold Australia day this year, but that didn't stop us from having the obligatory BBQ and beers on the balcony.

I was stoked to find some Tusker lager at the local liquor shop, and we found the largest prawns I have ever seen!

Good food, good beer, cold weather

-9 on the balcony!

These are prawns?

Cooking our steaks

How's that for a feast!

(note the tusker lager!)

There's quite a few lakes around Kelowna, so we did a few road trips to take a look around. The drive north follows some fantasic lakes, some were frozen, some were not and some were frozen to the half way point.

Very bizarre.

The most boring sport in the world, ice fishing.

Kids playing hockey

The flat in Kelowna is awesome, it's ultra modern with two bedrooms, a balcony and BBQ.

Very quiet, relaxing and just what the doctor ordered.

Nice