Whack! The sharp snap of club connecting with ball cracks through the stillness of the forest.  The noise startles a deer that lopes across the jade green playfield.  Welcome to golf, British Colombia style!

Vancouver Canada’s third largest city dishes up a veritable feast of calibre courses.  Considering cost, quality and accessibility, the University Golf Club in suburban Vancouver is difficult to surpass. 

Though it’s located a mere 20 minutes from central high rise hotels, the club’s 140 acres of parkland shelters coyotes, beavers and racoons in old growth enclaves.

Easily reached from Vancouver is Whistler, acknowledged as “Canada’s Number One Golf Resort Destination”.

Each of the four designer courses found in this superior sports playground has its own special qualities though one really stands out on my scorecard. 

Named as “Canada’s Best New Golf Course” in 1993 and more recently proclaimed as the top resort course in Canada, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler Golf Club was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr.

Over on Vancouver Island, Victoria’s Cordova Bay Golf Course feature striking views of water and mountain.  In addition to providing a sublime garden setting, the course’s role in protecting birdlife has been recognised by Audubon International.

Connected to Winnipeg only by rail and air, getting to Churchill is an adventure in itself.  The effort is rewarded, however, with the chance to see things you wouldn’t view elsewhere and the opportunity for experiences that won’t be found anywhere else.

An illustrated feature on Churchill, Manitoba can be written on assignment from 1000 to 2000 words, depending upon editorial requirements.  

by Thomas E King

     Gold! Gold! Gold!  On August 16, 1896 George Washington Carmack’s announcement echoed through the vast expanses of Canada’s Yukon.  The Klondike Gold Rush had begun.

The 40,000 fortune seekers faced a number of obstacles on their journey to the gold fields including a spring navigation of treacherous snow-fed White Horse Rapids in hand-hewn boats and rudimentary rafts they had built during the winter.

I could only marvel at their daring feats as I retraced a small portion of their journey 110 years later during a far safer encounter with Miles Canyon and the Yukon River. 

While a hydro-electric dam has created a large turquoise lake and taken much of the fury out of the rapids there’s still a strong current surging through the canyon, the captain of the MV Schwatka said as he powered the comfortable cruise boat through the constricted lava rock gorge.

An illustrated feature on Whitehorse and the Yukon can be written on assignment from 1000 to 2000 words, depending upon editorial requirements.  A sidebar on golfing in Whitehorse can also be provided.