You Never Know Who You'll Meet En Route

It was two years ago- in the summer of '07 - while en route to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro that I ran into some new friends. While standing to check into our flight heading from London to Ethiopia's capital city- Addis Ababa, I couldn't help but wonder just how I knew the guy standing beside me. And than it clicked- it was TV host an animal expert Jack Hanna, who you'll know from his regular appearances on David Letterman, Ellen and his Emmy winning show "Into the Wild." Hanna and his wife Suzi were traveling to Rawanda to produce a documentary with Natalie Portman on the famed Silverback Gorilla's.

With our flight cancelled and our schedule's delayed Jack, Suzi, myself and my travel mates Sue Lambert and Colin Herbert had the chance to share some laughs and time while traveling south to our destinations.

We stayed in touch and that meet and greet turned into some additional adventures. Over the next year and a half I worked with Travel Alberta and a host of folks who helped to produce a stellar road trip featuring some of the best of the best of what this Province has to offer in terms of wildlife. It was just through August Jack, Suzi and the team from Spectrum Productions traveled together through Alberta, Canada filming episodes for upcoming episodes of Into the Wild.

And I joined them.

Follow along through these daily dispatches as we cover some of this province's top adventures.

For more on Alberta and all is adventures check out Travel Alberta's website

The Calgary Zoo's Red Carpet Reception

The last time 'Jungle Jack', Hanna's long time aka, visited the Calgary Zoo was in 1995. So he was excited to get back, and what he experienced floored him as we stopped in to check things out as part of his eight day tour through Alberta.

Hanna's has been to a few zoo's in his day- not only does he produce 36 shows in a year – but zoo's are his business. As Director Emeritus of the Ohio’s Columbus Zoo, he’s been a major force to its substantial success. He’s done more than well with it, taking it from an 100 acre facility to a 600 acre park dedicated to education and conservation, recently named America’s #1 Zoo.

I caught up with the crew on day two of their travels shooting show's for an upcoming episodes of Into the Wild. The first stop was Waterton Lakes National Park- A Unesco World Heritage Site. "Waterton is like something out of a picture book, it is beautiful. One of the only places like this in the world, there are only a handful of other places, such as Switzerland that are this beautiful," said Hanna. The crew from Spectrum Production's, Hanna's team who have produced Into the Wild for the past three years, were happy with the footage they captured for upcoming episodes.

Hanna was excited to get back into the Calgary and experience the zoo. “Zoo’s now are about discovery about education, you can’t have conservation if there is no education,” said Hanna, a major proponent of animal conservation and any efforts help the animal kingdom.

“Its gorgeous, things looks so realistic, its so nice when you feel like you are in a natural environment," said Jack's wife Suzi who co-hosts the show upon arrival to the Canadian Wild's Section of the Calgary Zoo. And she's right, the habitat's that are home to the big horn sheep and mountain goats, really do give you that feel of being in the rockies, complete with local flora and fauna.

This is where our 14 hour day at the zoo got started, a little taste of what us Canadians's know and love – Big Horn Sheep, Grizzlies, Swift fox and owls. The Swift Fox is an amazing success story for the Calgary Zoo, who have helped to re-introduce them to the wild. Head of the Centre for Conservation Research Dr. Axel Moehrenschlager- did his thesis on these animals, at Oxford, and than came to the zoo to head their conservation efforts around it including re-introducing these species to the wild. Dr. Moe played host to Jack and Suzie as they made their way around the zoo.

Underground Banff

You’d never know it was even there. Jack and Suzi are big promoters of education and awareness about animals and their preservation. So coming into Banff they were excited to explore a project that has help further wildlife species within the Park. You’d see them as you drive through along the Trans Canada Highway - a series of wildlife passes that have adopted some success. “The over and underpasses work to keep the gene pool active”, says Lorena Dmytriev of Parks Canada. “What you have done here is amazing,” says Jack on their inspection. Suzi headed out on a hunt for tracks of wild species that use this corridor. She found those of a Black Bear. Both the Black Bear and the Cougar like to use the underpasses. Grizzlies and Elk will use the overpasses- they don’t mind being exposed. We all ran up and on top of one of these- you wouldn’t know you were on an overpass…you’d think it would be something else.

It averaged out to be about 200 traffic accidents a year with Elk, since the introduction of these wildlife crossings we’ve seen a 96% reduction in that number.

“It’s the connectivity that maintains the bio diversity.”

A grizzly bear can call up to 450 square km’s home, or it’s “turf”, and so and if you get a highway that dissects the land, than you can separate the gene pool, limiting the species evolution. It keeps the gene pool stronger if there is a larger population to draw from. So the overpass allows for that access and the opportunity to species evolution.

By the time our day was done we were ready to hit the hay at the Rim Rock Resort Hotel – built on the back of the cliff. You walk up to the hotel and are met by a beautiful entrance with a small vertical impact…you walk inside to a 15 floor property with half of it scaling down the side of the valley. Build in with an amphitheatre-esque design affords guests a spectacular view of Mount Rundle and or well into the Bow Valley and over the town of Banff. It was just this year that the hotel won for best “The Canadian Culinary Foundation’s 2009 Pastry Chef of the Year”- of which the crew sure took advantage of over a stellar dinner.