Day 4 – Mountains and Family History

This was the view that greeted us on the morning of Day 4 of our trip – glorious Mount Robson with the Fraser River in the foreground. Magnificent!

Our accommodation at Mount Robson Lodge was in a rustic log cabin and what a cozy cabin it was. However, the most magnificent thing about it was the view from the porch.

The photo below is an early morning shot taken from the front of the cabin. Mount Robson can be seen on the right side in the morning haze. You can see David off to the left in the meadow taking more photos. The magenta colour in front is fireweed and the occasional Indian Paintbrush.

Just before we left for the day’s adventures, we headed down to the shore of the river where they launch the rafts for their rafting tours and took this photo. What a magnificent site! Mount Robson is the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies with an elevation of 3,954 m (12,972 ft).

Our first destination this day was to head back to Valemount to visit the museum in the restored Canadian Northern Railway station. It contains some historic artifacts related to some of my ancestors, Roy and Earl Woodley, who were early settlers in this area.

Some of the memorable items included a calendar from Feb. 1926 from Roy Woodley’s store, a postal sign for Red Pass where Earl Woodley built a hotel and store, plus an old pinball machine! Below are some photos of Earl’s hotel and store. Sorry for the quality of the photos. I photographed them from a book.

The next part of our trip was on the Yellowhead Highway 16 which made its way through Robson Provincial Park, into Jasper National Park and on to Hinton Alberta. The theme of this section was mountains, of course.

As we approached Hinton, it was getting late but we knew we were close to our destination – Old Entrance B&B Cabins, Teepees, and Trail Rides. This place is owned and operated by my cousin, Mary Luger. We had booked a reservation at one of the cabins for 4 nights and planned to visit with newly-discovered cousins as well as explore the original homestead land established by my ancestors in the early 1900s. That news will be in the next post. Stay tuned!