Bwana_Brown's VirtualTourist Home Page

May 13 - It had been quite some time since I had done anything except drive back and forth across the Prairies, so it was with great pleasure that I went on a week-long business trip to Chicago near the end of April. Not only was the city far more enjoyable than I could have imagined, I was also blessed with fantastic spring weather and was welcomed to the city by the two Queens of the city - 'Deecat' and 'Dabs'! With living in the wilds of either New Brunswick or Saskatchewan, it is not often that I have the chance to meet other VT members, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to sit down and compare notes with them. This view of the amazing 'Cloud Gate' in Millenium Park is just one of the many attractions and activities I enjoyed describing in my new 'Chicago' page.

April 6 - Part of the weekend was spent exploring the 'Old Wives Lake' area, site of southern Saskatchewan's largest natural lake and also one of the most important designated North American migratory bird sanctuaries. My trip also provided an interesting glimpse into a past way of life on the Prairies, with several relics of an earlier settler lifestyle cropping up here and there and revealing clues as to how life on the Prairies has slowly changed over the past century.

March 23 - With winter finally starting to ease its grip on Saskatchewan, I took advantage of a sunny afternoon to make the short drive to the nearby 'Lumsden' area to explore the meandering curves and strange moraine-like valley walls of the Qu'Appelle River.

February 27 - After my third 17-hour roundtrip drive (over a 3-day long weekend in each case) to Alberta for house-building duties in a four-month period, I decided to slow down a bit and enjoy some of the lesser travelled roads while returning to Regina, Saskatchewan on my latest trip. I started with 'Big Valley' in Alberta as I experienced the gash in the Ice Age leftovers in this part of the world, caused by both the melting of the 1-mile thick sheet of ice and the resulting scouring of the Red Deer River. Continuing eastward into Saskatchewan, I took a good look at a former railway bridge that is now the longest (3000-ft) pedestrian bridge in Canada - in my newest VT page of 'Outlook'. I even managed to see some Elk and a Coyote watching my progress as I crossed the sparsely populated and snow-covered flatlands of this frozen part of Canada!

January 6, 2008 - My 'Sylvan Lake' page describes how Sue and I spent two weeks over the Christmas/New Year period in the countryside near the small Alberta, Canada hamlet of Markerville. We were there to help one of our daughters and her husband with house construction chores but we always manage to see something interesting while in Alberta!

September 16 - Earlier in the month, my biking buddy Russell and I made a day-long bicycle trip over a rough section of abandoned railway right-of-way along the beautiful Saint John River in New Brunswick, Canada. In places we bit off a little more than we had intended - check it out in my 'Gagetown' page!

August 31 - On our way home from a wedding in Toronto, Sue and I took the time to explore rural Ontario along the north shore of Lake Ontario as we drove the scenic Loyalist Parkway to 'Kingston', one of Canada's most historic cities and also the home town of world-famous Canadian singer, Bryan Adams!

June 24, 2007 - My 'Gaspé' page recounts the fantastic trip my wife and I enjoyed near the end of May as the sun came out for our 6-day drive around the tip of Quebec's rugged Gaspé Peninsula. We saw whales along the amazing north coast drive, hiked in the Chic Choc Mountains, slogged to the top of Forillon National Park and finished it off with a return to impressive Percé Rock!

During my childhood days in New Brunswick, Canada, my parents never strayed too far from their home province, except for a trip to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia as well as visits to relatives in Montreal and Connecticut, USA. I always had a love for geography and did a lot of reading about the world, giving me a desire to see it for myself at the first possible chance! My opportunity finally came in 1972, when I went to Zambia to work for 3 years immediately after obtaining my university degree in Electrical Engineering (Zambia was GREAT !!). While there, I met my British wife, Susan, who had spent 20 years being raised in Zambia (by the way, all the good things that people say about Victoria Falls are true - it is fantastic!). We returned to my Canadian homeland for a few years before we set off again for another 3 years overseas - this time I was working in the South Pacific Ocean, in Papua New Guinea. This sojurn offered us the chance to take a round-the-world trip in 1981 as well as a few other shorter jaunts. We again returned to Canada and since then we have slipped in the odd trip wherever we can. We have three girls (2 born in Zambia and 1 in PNG) and are now proud grand-parents (4 times)! I have included our variety of travel experiences over the years so you, hopefully, can reach some understanding of the places that we have been at that particular moment in our lives! By the way, if you get the chance, please also come to Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada - it is a beautiful place to visit and live, which is why I keep coming back from all these trips!

The Summer of 2007 was a great one in New Brunswick, so I took advantage with several early morning canoe trips (in my old wood-canvas Chestnut craft) only a few minutes drive from home. This view of the mists rising off the Oromocto River at dawn was taken in mid-August, 2007 as I enjoyed a four-hour excursion along its twisting route with my new and silent electric motor making the job a bit easier! I never saw another person but did enjoy great sightings of Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Kingfishers and White-Tailed Deer as I quietly explored this waterway.