you are here: | Jeannie D explores beautiful snowy Canada
Jeannie D explores beautiful snowy Canada
Jeannie D explores beautiful snowy Canada
In the mountains of Canada, Jeannie trades her heels for snowshoes, ice-skates and skis but still brings the bling to the slopes of Vancouver.
Jeannie loves to jet set, so she jumped at the chance to explore the western part of Canada, a place full of rugged beauty where the adventure-loving locals would never let something as silly as freezing temperatures or relentless rain stop them from enjoying their gorgeous great outdoors.
Grouse Mountain is to the West Canadian city of Vancouver what Table Mountain is to our Mother City and Jeannie took the largest aerial tramway in North America to the top. Here above a city of millions, you could be in a little Alpine skiing village. It hosts Winter Olympics events, other curiously Canadian sports and Julia Grant was our guide to them all.
Dinner for two and a romantic stroll is a local favourite and many proposals play out here each year. When seasons change, it’s a more macho affair. With axe throwing, sawing, chopping and rolling, The Lumberjack Show, which takes place here in summer, is live action theatre featuring two logging camps from the early 1900s and a battle to determine the top lumberjack.
A much favoured local sport is snowshoeing. Inspired by animals like the hare, whose oversized feet allow it to move quickly through the snow, snowshoes were created by the indigenous First Nation’s people. Today, they’re a fun way to stay fit through Winter.
If you’re feeling competitive, you can time yourself on the Snowshoe Grind or, there’s a more social trail which ends with roast marshmallows, a roaring campfire and hot apple cider.
If you grow up in a warmer climate, at the seaside, you boogie board. In Canada, you taboggan. It’s the most fun at the least expense and about the only thing you can hurt is your pride. Jeannie channelled her inner six year old, remembered riding a tea tray down a stairway and let rip. As it is with a go-kart, the closer you are to the ground, the more you feel the speed and our presenter clearly felt it.
Grouse Mountain is serious Winter sports territory, they’ve hosted the World Cup Gaint Slalom, the Winter Olympics and these ski runs are rated in the world’s top one hundred. What makes them stand out is that they’re right on Vancouver’s doorstep.
When the Winter snow melts, beneath these ski runs are grassy slopes which host the Mountain Bike World Cup and even an eighteen-hole Disc Golf course - where instead of clubs and golf balls, you throw a frisbee around the course.
Clearly Canada’s making a real impression on Jeannie but there’s still more to explore. Join us next week where she’ll be soaking up the best of what the land of maple syrup and mountains has to offer.
