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Alberta

Outdoor Adventure in the Canadian Rockies With Your Family

Program No. 23439RJ
On this active adventure with your family, learn about the geology, wildlife and history of the Canadian Rockies and watch for grizzly bears, eagles, mountain goats and more!

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Prefer to enroll or inquire by phone? 800-454-5768
Age 9 - 17
ROOMING OPTION PRICING
The figures below indicate the rooming options available.
DATES
Jun 30 - Jul 6, 2024
Per Adult
3,299
Per Child
2,299
Select
Jun 30 - Jul 6, 2024
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
4,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
Select Date
Jul 14 - Jul 20, 2024
Per Adult
3,299
Per Child
2,299
Select
Jul 14 - Jul 20, 2024
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
4,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
Select Date
Jul 21 - Jul 27, 2024
Per Adult
3,299
Per Child
2,299
Select
Jul 21 - Jul 27, 2024
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
4,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
Select Date
Aug 11 - Aug 17, 2024
Per Adult
3,299
Per Child
2,299
Select
Aug 11 - Aug 17, 2024
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
3,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
4,299
/ Adult
2,299
/ Child
Select Date

At a Glance

Experience the beauty of the majestic mountains as you ride on horseback along the Bow River trail with your family. Search for massive grizzly bears from up above on gondolas in one of the best places on earth to see them in the wild. An exploration of the Canadian Rockies is a dive deep into the great outdoors. Experience the incredible opportunity to explore the Rockies on hikes over iron catwalks above rushing rivers and on a white water raft as you glide over rapids. Together, you and your family will discover a region so abundant in wildlife, colorful nature and geology that you’ll think you’ve stepped into another world.
Activity Level
Outdoor: Spirited
Walking two miles daily, stairs, river float on Class II to III rapids. Elevations up to 5,700 feet.
Small Group
Small Group
Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

  • Float the upper waters of the Kicking Horse River on a gentle but exhilarating white water rafting trip as your rafting instructor reveals the secrets of the mighty river.
  • Explore Yoho National Park, home to timber wolf, lynx, cougars, black bears, moose and more, and learn about Burgess Shale fossils, one of the most significant fossil sites in the world.
  • Witness a true feat of engineering — the Spiral Tunnels — two vast tunnels running figure-eight loops through the snowcapped mountains, and watch a train looping over and under itself, deep into the mountains and up the valley to the Kicking Horse Pass.
Featured Expert
All Experts
Profile Image
Colleen Campbell
Colleen is a Victoria, British Columbia native who has lived all over Canada and in many parts of the world. She holds three degrees in visual arts, has studied in the sciences and has worked as a wildlife field researcher, concentrating on coyotes and grizzly bears. She believes that studying wildlife means learning about all their interactions — plants and other animals — and about how and where they travel. Colleen was also full-time faculty at Mount Royal in Calgary for more than 30 years.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Profile Image of Brent MacDonald
Brent MacDonald View biography
Brent Macdonald has been a resident of the Canadian Rockies for almost 30 years. As a geology expert, he provides a wealth of knowledge about geography and geomorphology. Brent has had a diverse career as a freelance natural history interpreter, also working as a consultant for a geotechnical engineering company. He has shared his knowledge of geology and natural history as an interpreter and guest lecturer. Brent is also a certified mountain leader and ski instructor.
Profile Image of Colleen Campbell
Colleen Campbell View biography
Colleen is a Victoria, British Columbia native who has lived all over Canada and in many parts of the world. She holds three degrees in visual arts, has studied in the sciences and has worked as a wildlife field researcher, concentrating on coyotes and grizzly bears. She believes that studying wildlife means learning about all their interactions — plants and other animals — and about how and where they travel. Colleen was also full-time faculty at Mount Royal in Calgary for more than 30 years.
Profile Image of Sonya Pollock
Sonya Pollock View biography
Sonya Pollock grew up in Calgary, Alberta and loved taking trips out to the Rocky Mountains as a child. These trips with her family solidified her love of nature and wildlife. Her passion for helping animals resulted in her pursuit of an MSc in animal behavior and welfare where she studied thermoregulation in the Indian rhinoceros. She’s currently a Ph.D. candidate in wildlife ecology at the University of Alberta where she studies grizzly bear habitat selection in Banff National Park.
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
As Long As the River Flows
by Larry Loyie
In the 1800s, the education of First Nations children was taken on by various churches, in government-sponsored residential schools. Children were forcibly taken from their families in order to erase their traditional languages and cultures. As Long as the Rivers Flow is the story of Larry Loyie's last summer before entering residential school. It is a time of learning and adventure. He cares for an abandoned baby owl and watches his grandmother make winter moccasins. He helps the family prepare for a hunting and gathering trip
The Great Rocky Mountain Nature Factbook
by Susan Ewing
Ewing's family-friendly guide, with black-and-white drawings throughout, answers the curiosity of engaged visitors about the plants, animals and natural features of the Rockies.
A Prairie as Wide as the Sea: The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall
by Sarah Ellis
Ivy Weatherall and her family leave a comfortable life in London for the promised riches of Canada's expanding West. Expecting to make their fortunes on Uncle Alf's ranch, the Weatheralls are shocked to find themselves living in a sod hut on a rented farm. Ivy is determined to taste life to the fullest, whatever hardships she may encounter. Writing in her diary, she recounts learning the new skills expected of a young farm girl. She struggles to help the family survive, but ultimately learns that responsibility brings its rewards.
Raven's End
by Ben Gadd
A young raven, with no memory of his past, arrives to the beautiful and dangerous landscape of Yamnuska, Banff. A book that looks at the complex world of ravens.
Handbook of the Canadian Rockies
by Ben Gadd
Geology, plants, animals, history and recreation from Waterton/Glacier to the Yukon.
Mark of the Grizzly
by Scott McMillion
McMillion gives readers a thorough understanding of the behavior of these magnificent, yet deadly creatures through examples of encounters gone very wrong.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
by E.C. Pielou
Eighteen thousand years ago, an immense sheet of ice covered all of present day Canada and northernmost U.S. This story tells of how a harsh terrain was transformed into the environment we know today.
Reading The Rocks, A Biography of Ancient Alberta
by Monique Keiran
Scientists at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology and natural history writer Keiran worked together to bring about this vividly detailed account of Alberta’s rich geological history, beginning with the Big Bang and traveling into the modern era. Includes over 200 full-color photographs and 45 maps, timelines and line drawings.
Rocky Mountain Nature Guide
by Andy Bezener
This guide includes information on mammals, fish, birds, trees, shrubs, wildflowers, insects and reptiles from the entire span of the Rockies - Alaska to New Mexico. Featuring over 300 exact full-color illustrations.
Switchbacks, True Stories from the Canadian Rockies
by Sid Marty
A native Albertan and park warden in the Canadian Rockies, Marty relates colorful anecdotes from friends, colleagues and his own youth in this collection of tales, which includes A Horse Named Candy.
Rocky Mountains
by Jonathan Grupper
This National Geographic "Destinations" book, featuring breathtaking color photographs, introduces the wildlife and terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Geared for kids ages 6 to 12.
All Fall Down: The Landslide Diary of Abby Roberts
by Jean Little
After her father dies, Abby and her family move west to live with relatives who run a hotel in the mining town of Frank, Alberta. Abby keeps busy helping out at the hotel, being chief caregiver to her little brother with Down Syndrome, and learning Morse code at the telegraph office. When the devastating Frank Slide buries much of the town, Abby must do all she can to help. But a long-buried family secret emerged just before the disaster — and now she will have to wait for the dust to settle before getting the answers she so desperately wants. Inspired by two of her own relatives, one who helped run a telegraph office in the late 1800s and another who shares Abby's story (and her family secret), Jean Little crafts a compelling story rich with emotion and historical detail.
The Rocky Mountain Berry Book
by Bob Krumm
In an inspired move, Bob Krumm included recipes in this family oriented field guide to 15 berry species of the Rockies. Now children may pick and parents may cook, and everyone will be pleased.
Stories from Where We Live, The Great North American Prairie
by Sara St. Antoine, Paul Mirocha (Illustrator), Trudy Nicholson (Illustrator)
An anthology of writings about this North American ecoregion, from Alberta and Saskatchewan south to Texas -- wonderfully useful as a young person's guide to people, nature and place.
This Wild Spirit: Women in the Rocky Mountains of Canada
by Colleen Skidmore
In 1912, Mary Vaux, a botanist, glaciologist, painter, and photographer, wrote about her mountain adventures: “A day on the trail, or a scramble over the glacier, or even with a quiet day in camp to get things in order for the morrow's conquests? Some how when once this wild spirit enters the blood…I can hardly wait to be off again." Vaux's compulsion was shared by many women whose intellects, imaginations, and spirits rose to the challenge of the mountains between the late-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. This Wild Spirit explores a sampling of women's creative responses—in fiction and travel writing, photographs and paintings, embroidery and beadwork, letters and diaries, poetry and posters—to their experiences in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.
Lost in the Barrens
by Farley Mowat
Two brothers face the wilderness with no food and little hope of rescue when their canoe is destroyed by the rapids in this tale of adventure for ages ages 9-12. To survive, they build an igloo, battle a towering grizzly bear, track several wolves, slaughter caribou for food and clothing. They tame two lost huskies for companionship -- and maybe a way home.
The Amazing Death of Calf Shirt and Other Blackfoot Stories, Three Hundred Years of Blackfoot History
by Hugh A. Dempsey
A wonderful collection of stories, illuminating the history of the Blackfoot people of the prairies of southern Alberta and northern Montana.
Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains
by James Halfpenny, Todd Telander (Illustrator)
An essential pocket guide to tracks, scats and signs of not just the mammals of the region, but also of the reptiles, amphibians and birds. Each of 70 species gets a double-page spread, with line drawings of the animal, scat and track, range map and description.





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If you want to attend the live lecture, please do not wait until the last minute to enroll.
If you enroll after a lecture is complete, we’ll send you a recording of the event.