I really really hate too much swearing.
Some people I know take it way too far.
I feel like I'm being prudish when I find them too much, but you know, there's only so much of the f-bomb I can take before it becomes ridiculous.
Assertive communication is a style in which individuals clearly state their opinions and feelings, and firmly advocate for their rights and needs without violating the rights of others. Assertive communication is born of high self-esteem. These individuals value themselves, their time, and their emotional, spiritual, and physical needs and are strong advocates for themselves while being very respectful of the rights of others.
Assertive communicators will:
- state needs and wants clearly, appropriately, and respectfully
- express feelings clearly, appropriately, and respectfully
- use “I” statements
- communicate respect for others
- listen well without interrupting
- feel in control of self
- have good eye contact
- speak in a calm and clear tone of voice
- have a relaxed body posture
- feel connected to others
- feel competent and in control
- not allow others to abuse or manipulate them
- stand up for their rights
The impact of a pattern of assertive communication is that these individuals:
- feel connected to others
- feel in control of their lives
- are able to mature because they address issues and problems as they arise
- create a respectful environment for others to grow and mature
The assertive communicator will say, believe, or behave in a way that says:
- “We are equally entitled to express ourselves respectfully to one another.”
- “I am confident about who I am.”
- “I realize I have choices in my life and I consider my options.”
- “I speak clearly, honestly, and to the point.”
- “I can’t control others but I can control myself.”
- “I place a high priority on having my rights respected.”
- “I am responsible for getting my needs met in a respectful manner.”
- “I respect the rights of others.”
- “Nobody owes me anything unless they’ve agreed to give it to me.”
- “I’m 100% responsible for my own happiness.”
Assertiveness allows us to take care of ourselves, and is fundamental for good mental health and healthy relationships.
I remember we had Prestel On-Line dial-up, and it was charged per minute as a national rate phone call. I was into Yu-Gi-Oh! at that time, and I spent most of my time browsing sites for it, and making my first posts on a forum called Kyokou Geemu. I also made my first online friend! We don't stay in touch all that often, though.
I think it was from my dad – he said something like “do what you want to do and what you need to do, and sod the bastards that get in your way”.
I stole this quiz from Bay. 8D
“Liran, I’m worried something bad will happen to her.” Cisco said at length, too uncomfortable to continue listening in to the conversation. She pulled a Pokémon whistle from her pocket and blew on it to recall her Aipom – much to Liran’s horror.
“Cisco, you can’t do that here!” Liran growled, snatching the whistle back. “There are too many Pokémon in the–”
Liran didn’t need to finish his sentence. Not just Aipom had heard the whistle; the entire breeding centre erupted into a cacophony of Pokémon voices. In a split second Howie had flung the window open wider, seen the panicking Aipom hanging from his guttering, and yanked her inside.
“Nera!” Cisco cried, as Liran tried to restrain and quiet her. “Liran, Liran, Nera’s just a baby! She’ll be so scared!”
There was a resounding crunch noise over the receiver as the transmitter from Nera’s collar was destroyed under Howie’s foot. Liran discarded his headphones in agony, detaching himself from an anxiety-stricken Cisco in order to nurse his ears.
On this day, Canada turned 143 years old. Happy Birthday, Canada!
We had stayed overnight in Kamloops, in the Plaza Heritage Hotel. This was a pretty old-world style hotel, I can tell you. But it was perfectly comfortable and pleasant.
Mum and me in front of our train coach.
We were picked up at 07:20 from the hotel, and then got back on the train. At 08:00 the train started to depart from Kamloops.
Interestingly, Kamloops means “Meeting of the rivers”. There was a chimney in the distance spouting steam; we were told this was a pulp mill. This uses leftover sawdust from the previously seen saw mills.
Additionally, we were now travelling on Canadian National Railway lines, not Canadian Pacific Railway.
At 08:30 we had stopped for a while to let two very, very long freight trains pass.
▵ Mt Savona stands at 1,532m tall.
At 09:00 we passed a town called Tranquille. This was formerly a closed community; a sanitarium for sufferers of tuberculosis. This just made me think of Silent Hill or something and creeped me out a little bit. There was a book written about it called “A Whole Little City by Itself” if you want to check it out. Let us know, because Mum is still trying to find it.
Some of the Thompson River, I believe.
At 10:15 we passed Ashcroft. This was 48.7 miles from Kamloops. I think I mentioned in the last post that they only get eight inches of rain per year.
At 10:30 we reached the Black Canyon and its tunnel. The Black Canyon is named because of the dark rock it is made out of.
At 10:45 we had morning tea, which involved tea and cookies. I drank so much tea on the train. So much tea.
At 11:10 we passed Spence’s Bridge. Also, a lady we saw on our flight walked through our carriage. Very strange. There were rafters on the river; Alex said the best way to mess with them was to go out on the vestibule, point down the river and shout “WATERFALL!”.
At 12:00 we passed a place called Cisco. “Cisco” means “unsure” in one of the First Nations languages.
At 12:10 we passed Hell’s Gate bridge. The only scary part about this was the way Alex said it.
▵ Jackass Mountain stands at 2,008m tall.
I think this is the bridge at Cisco, but I can't be sure.
At 12:40 we started following the Fraser River and its gorge. The Fraser River was named after Simon Fraser, who led one of the first expeditions on behalf of the North West Company.
At 13:15 we found ourselves waiting for freight trains again.
Between Basque and Vancouver, there is an agreement between Canadian National and Canadian Pacific that the trains travel west on Canadian National rails, and east on Canadian Pacific rails.
At 14:20 we passed Boston Bar. We might have changed crews here, but I can’t remember.
At 14:50 we got to Hell’s Gate itself. At this point there was another 15 miles of Fraser Canyon left.
The town called Hope is the end of the canyon, and the start of the Fraser Valley. The town called Yale is the endpoint of where the paddle steamers could reach up the river from the coast.
In 1948 there was a deep flood of the Fraser River, due to the snow melting quite late in the year, along with other atmospheric anomalies.
At 15:45 we reached Saddle Rock, which is sat in the middle of the Fraser River. There was a tree log stranded on top of it, demonstrating how high the river can get. There were many First Nations fishing spots around this area.
At 16:00 we reached the aforementioned Hope. The Trans-Canada highway splits up here. Hope is elevated 75ft above sea level.
▵ Hope Mountain stands at 1,837m tall.
There were honestly people rafting in this.
At 16:35 we reached Rosedale. This is a small farming community.
At 16:45 we got to Chilliwack. The name of this place apparently comes from a word said by the traders of the Sto:lo people, meaning “we’re leaving now” when they would leave the trading post.
At 17:30 we reached Fort Langley, which was a European colony founded in 1822. It was a fur trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
At 17:35 we passed Douglas Island, a 187-hectare uninhabited island. Alex told us at this point that a famous song by some famous British comedians was incorrect, stating that lumberjacks floated logs down the river. They, in fact, have always floated them up the river!
At 17:45 we saw part of the Trans-Canada highway, a.k.a. Highway 1. It stretches for around 7,000km across Canada, from Victoria to Newfoundland.
At 18:10 we passed New Westminster, and the Fraser River bridge. At this point, we saw Sky Trains from Vancouver.
Shortly afterwards, we arrived in Vancouver, the city of glass.
My strangely colour-coordinated stuff.
I cannot even begin to tell you how amazing that train trip was.
The Rocky Mountaineer service from Calgary to Vancouver (the route is called First Passage to the West) runs on Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways. These are freight-only railways aside from the Rocky Mountaineer – Rocky trains are given priority by the service controllers.
The first trip by the Rocky Mountaineer was made in 1990. 2010 marks its 20 years of service!
A map of our journey from Calgary to Vancouver.
Breakfast was at 6.55 on Day 1. We had a “continental” breakfast – a croissant filled with ham and salad, bagel with jam or cream cheese, yogurt and granola, and a sliced apple. We were given the carriage rules by our host, Alex; you must always wave if you see people waving at the train, and you should always shout if you think you see a black bear.
The Rocky Mountains are “young” mountains; they are only 125 million years old.
One of my first shots of the Rockies.
Canmore was our first sight. It was named after a Scottish king. Canmore became a station on the railway as in the beginning, stops were made wherever coal was found. Canmore also has the Winter Olympics ski jumps from 1988. Canmore is becoming a bigger town as people are drawn here since they can’t move into Banff national park – this requires dealing with the Parks Board of Canada. Additionally, people like to live in Canmore as it is less busy, and commute into Calgary.
▵ Three Sisters – these three mountains, when covered with the right amount of snow, look like nuns in their habits. These mountains are 2941m tall.
▵ Mt. Rundle is 2949m tall.
At 09.15 we made it to Banff. Banff is 84 miles from Calgary and was formed around hot springs. The hot springs were turned into a national park when it was just 10 square acres – Banff National Park is now 2564 square acres. It is a UN World Heritage Site.
We started to notice things on the tracks – propane gas tanks. Apparently these are used in the winter to produce hot air, which is used to warm points on the railway when it is snowy or icy on the tracks.
While we were waiting at Banff station for the additional passengers to get on, we saw a couple of North American Ground Squirrels. I have a video of this.
▵ Castle Mountain stands at 2862m tall.
At 10.20 we saw the town of Lake Louise. Unfortunately we were not able to see the lake itself, as it was five miles away from the railway.
At 10.55 we were introduced to the Spiral Tunnels. These were used to combat the problem with the steep climb in a short area needed – an idea borrowed from the Swiss. It is popular with sightseers to wait for a freight train to come along and then take a photo. When freight trains amount to around 90 wagons, it is possible to see one end of the train still at the entrance of the tunnel while the other is emerging from the exit.
▵ Mt Ogden is 2684m tall.
▵ Mt Cathedral is 3189m tall.
At 11.15 we arrived at Field. Here we changed the engineer and driver crew, as they had been travelling for five hours with us.
Alex mentioned that there were lots of dead trees in some areas, and that it was pine beetles that were killing the trees. Apparently the trees will be cleared instead of waiting for nature to take its course – we wouldn’t want trees falling on the track or the Trans-Canada Highway.
I dunno, these mountains all look pretty similar.
We went out on the vestibule at this point to film the mountains. It was very cold out, and there was sleet and perhaps snow.
We crossed the divide between Alberta and British Columbia. Here we had to set our clocks back another hour so we were GMT-8 or PST – Pacific Standard Time. Alberta is on MST, Mountain Standard Time, which is GMT-7. The continental divide is about 130 miles away from Calgary on the railway.
At 11.40 PST, we entered the Rocky Mountain Trench. Here we had the Rocky Mountains on one side, and the Columbia Mountains on the other side. They are two distinctive ranges, as one was created from crust shifted by tectonic plate movements, and the other was created by lava and magma.
12.24 marked our passing by Kinbasket Lake. This is a large reservoir on the Columbia River.
At 12.55 we reached the Stoney Creek Bridge in Rogers Pass. We could see the Selkirk range of mountains.
▵ Mt Shaughnessy is 2862m tall, part of the Selkirk range of the Columbia Mountains.
At 13:10 we passed through the Connaught Tunnel. It was named for the Governor General of Canada, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught.
At 13:15 we had lunch! Mine was turkey salad, bread, a mango dessert, and chocolates.
At 13:39, we passed under some snow sheds. These protect the railway and its trains from avalanches. If the weather is bad enough, the railways will stop locomotive traffic and artificially cause avalanches so as not to cause any unexpected ones.
We passed through Illecillewaet at 13:50.
Now I’m not sure what happened to my notes but apparently we arrived at Revelstoke, where the Illecillewaet estuary is, at 14:48. There could be some time zone discrepancies. In any case, this is where the crew from Field changed over with the crew that would take us onwards to Kamloops.
In the past, freight trains stopped at Revelstoke and extra pusher engines would be added in order to push trains up Rogers Pass, due to the gradient. The construction of the McDonald tunnel fixed this problem, but there are still lots of tracks at Revelstoke. It has 10-15m of snow every winter. There are tin roofs with no gutters, which allow the snow to slide off.
▵ Mt Begbie at Revelstoke is 2732m tall.
By this point we had followed the Columbia River all the way from the continental divide to Revelstoke.
At 15:22 we reached Three Valley Gap. There is a family run hotel and restaurant here, owned by the Bell family. It is apparently very famous in the area.
At 15:50 we reached Craigellachie. This is where the last spike for the Canadian Pacific Railway was placed. There is a monument at Craigellachie with one rock from each Canadian province, and one from Craigellachie in Scotland.
Didn't get a better picture.
At 16:20 we reached Shuswap and its lakes, which I filmed a lot of from the vestibule. Videos to come later.
Alex provided us with some information about British Columbia. There are only four million people in BC – there are 32 million people in Canada, which means there are more in California alone! Even so, Canada is the second largest country in the world by land mass, second to Russia.
16:50 was snack time.
At 17:00 we reached a place called Canoe. This was 56 miles from Revelstoke. There is a sawmill here that makes 2×4 plywood for export to the US. Unfortunately, sales have taken a downturn recently, as the US are not buying much plywood. There is a saying, “When America sneezes, Canada catches a cold.”
At 17:10 we reached Salmon Arm, which was the biggest town on the Shuswap lakes. There is a bird sanctuary here.
17:45 – Out of interest, at this point Dad told me that a freight train had passed with 127 wagons on it. This sort of train is a normal size for the Canadian freight railways, and usually require at least three engines (normally two pulling and one pushing).
At 17:50 we reached the point where the Adams river flows into the Shuswap lakes. This is the world’s largest salmon-swarming river. Every four years (when the salmon life cycle resets itself), it has more salmon in it than any other river in the world.
At 18:10 we passed a town called Chase. This was the end of the Shuswap lakes, and the start of the South Thompson River. Alex noted to us at this point that towards Kamloops, the climate would begin to be much more arid.
Pretty sure this is around Chase, anyway.
At 18:45 we reached Campbell Creek. This was a reasonably lush area, but the other side of the mountains is therefore very dry. This is called a rain shadow effect.
Some more facts from Alex:
- Ashcroft gets only 8 inches of rain per year. Kamloops on the other hand gets 15 inches of rain per year.
- Native Indians populated the valley 4,000 years ago.
- 15,000 years ago, most of Canada was under ice. It took 5,000 years to melt.
- In 1811, the first white man visited Canada. He was an American fur trader.
- In 1858, gold was first discoveredon the Fraser River, by miners from Oregon.
- In 1885, the railway was finished.
- Kamloops has a population of 80,000. This is where we spent the night.
We went out later today, as Dad wanted to watch the bike racing, but he eventually became frustrated with all the adverts every ten minutes. What’s up with that, Canada?
We decided to get the C-Train today. That’s a tram through the middle of Calgary. Some of the trip is a “free zone” where you don’t have to buy a ticket – it’s only about five stops but it does save you walking quite a few blocks!
The C-Train, part of Calgary Transport
We walked to Eau Claire from there. At Eau Claire there was a bunch of shops, and inside the main mall there was some sort of presentation for a Youth Justice team, but nothing that really interested us a lot. We got some lunch and sat at the other side of Prince’s Island for lunch.
Now, I need to go to bed, because we’re getting up at 4am so we can check in at Calgary Tower for the Rocky Mountaineer at 5.30am tomorrow.
I promise we’ll take plenty of pictures and film!
Today was another walking kind of day.
We wandered around the shopping streets, including Uptown 17th Avenue SW. I bought a tie with Space Invaders on it (watch out for that tie at work!) and a t-shirt with Yoshi on it because I was too self-conscious to buy a Pikachu one. I really wanted a Zelda shirt but they only came in men’s sizes.
Dad and me being tourists with a moose.
Anyway.
We came home after some time and then we went out for dinner at Ric’s Grill. It was very expensive, but delicious. Also they serve amazing iced tea. I always drink far too much iced tea on this continent.
Before you go, here’s what I had for dinner.
Teriyaki beef, vegetable and ginger stir fry
Oh yeah, and the internet is now working, so I’ll start adding photos.
