Grande Cache, Alberta, CanadaGRANDE CACHE
Breakfast in a Provincial Rec area
After Gine read that some people spend
the whole day in the Day use of the O’Brien Prov Rec area, she thought that is
perfect for breakfast – really – it is a super big parking lot, no picnic
tables and we couldn’t even see the river we said no way!! And kept going,
along the highway there were some “pull-outs” – can it be worse: as they are
only an extra line on the fast paced highway and you hope that no-one runs into
you – not even a little bit as a divider – so it was then another late
breakfast for us when we arrived at the Kakwa River Prov Rec Area: we
discovered it is a campground (and no you can’t see the river!!) we still had
breakfast but were not interested in anything else and then continues on.
View at the South View Prov Rec Area
Another 20 Min later we pulled out and
here we saw the first green chairs – as in this area, they put in green chairs
in all the provincial parks in the Greenview area– they even made a little
viewing platform to see down on the valley: as per Paul the view from the
highway during driving is better.
Yes, we are back in the hills – lots
of forest covered hills
Down by the Power station
And as we head downhill towards Grande
Cache, we can see the dust up in the mountains and then comes a huge gigantic
“factory” the Milner Power station and yes, we can see where they get the coal
– from the mountain right there but we are no so impressed on how they
“harvest” the coal from the mountain.
- It started to operate in 1972 and provides electricity to Alberta
- It is a dual fuel plant which uses natural gas and coal
Charging the laptops at the Visitor
info
We decided to stop at the visitor info
first and charge up the laptops and even better we got free wifi – perfect,
they also have a super nice outdoor set up with some old fire-look-out stations
(sadly they are all closed as they got vandalised) and inside they have some
interesting info about the early fur trades and coal mining:
- It takes 0.55 kg of coal for 1 Kwh: which would like 10 100 watt light bulbs for 1 hour
- Coal is the most abundant domestic source in North American energy, it is affordable and the energy is clean
- Coal-fired generating stations produce 75 % of all electricity in Alberta
- In Grande Cache or the Smokey River Valley they have 15.000 hectares of land with an estimate of 145 Mill tons of coal in this coal field
- After the cold is crushed and it get burned in the and heats water, they raise the temperature of the steam then to 510 C it then enters the turbines under pressure which causes the turbines to turn at a speed of 3600 revolutions per minute – the generator makes 150 MW per hour
Upstairs was an art exhibit and
several staffed animals. What I think was super cool they had different kind of
stones and fossils there so we could see how shells, trees and dinosaur
footprints were found in the area.
and the lady was super nice.
I may should mention that on the
outside is a dinosaur skeleton – and yes, we already missed two dinosaur
museums!!!
We then went around the old fire look
out stations from the 1940s walked along the walkways and came to a tepee: one
which was typical of the local area and they were built so they could withstand
a lot of snow and was insulated against cold weather – by the way they are not
portable. Inside the visitor info they had a portable tepee/
And there was a “Grande Cache” –
because here we are in Grande Cache.
The cute town of Grande Cache:
- The name is French, an Iroquois employee of the Hudson Bay Company who was stationed in the Peace River but was originally from Montreal (and yes that is why he spoke French). He was active in this area from 1818-1821, he went all the way into BC for trading. One time he was so heavy laden with pelts and the snow was so deep that he constructed a wooden cache on the banks of the Sulphur River and at some time the area got known as Grande Cache
- And we are here at the eastern slope of the Rocky mountains
A hot afternoon at the Grande Cache
Lake
We decided enough charged up and we
are ready to hit the lake: only 5 km outside of town is this lake -with a nice
picnic area and also a sandy beach and huge grass area. With the wind it was
perfect not too hot, the lake was “clean” if you don’t go in and swim to far
out into the staff growing here. Gine brough the paddle board out and we had a
lazy hot day in the sun…
We moved to have a picnic table closer
to the truck so that Mandy could be with us and had supper with lake view and
to be nice clean we used up all our water to “shower” ourselves off before
heading into town.
Red sky near the Memorial park
We needed fresh fruit and then we
checked out the parking area near the supermarket – we found it interesting
that it said in one spot: parking reserved for commercial trucks from 5pm to 10
am… and as we drove a bit along the parking lot we came to the Miners Memorial
park – perfect not only is there some grassy area and a mountain sheep, but
also a picnic table with electric pug ins right near a Inukchuck fountain –
guess it is not difficult to find out where we stayed tonight!!! With a
beautiful red sunset we stayed outside until it was so dark we couldn’t see
anything anymore.
Is the sun out or what???
We wake up to sunshine through the
window – there is no cloud in the sky, but the sun is kind of not clear – it
was still perfect for a morning coffee outside on the picnic benches
Take the journey - in the Labyrinth
Gine said: this is a Gine-Stop the
Labyrinth Park: and we both did walk the whole labyrinth all the way to the
center – it is kind of cool made of stones – and in the background you can see
the mountains. After this highlight of the town we do the typical before
leaving a town: dumping and filling up gas
- This is an ancient geometric path and in the center is an audio tunnel that creates a rare natural echo when facing north-east
- Quiet your mind – become aware of your breathing – relax – silently follow the pace your body wants to go: your right brain will be energized and your left brain will gently guide you: this is a walking meditation park – a unique and peaceful place to unwind
2025-05-22