ICY FIELDS, WARM MEETING

ALBERTA'S SIGHTS ARE STUNNING, BUT THIS TRIP YIELDED MORE

Author: By Adam Pertman, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, July 19, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

The journey I made with my wife and two children from Calgary to Edmonton -- via the Rocky Mountain towns of Banff and Jasper, which lie at the two ends of the perfectly named Icefields Highway -- was one of those rare trips that accomplished it all.

That was partly because of the stunning sights we took in, particularly the majestic Canadian Rockies and the magical ice fields tucked within them. The ice fields, consisting of a huge sheet of permafrost that's 1,200 feet deep at some points, flow into the towering, centuries-old Athabasca Glacier, itself an imposing and awesome vision.

More on these marvels of nature later, though. Because there was also another reason, beyond the physical splendor that (gently) assaulted us at every turn, that made this vacation stand out: During its course, we met relatives who, until recently, we had thought did not exist.

Any visit with your kin has a particular dynamic of its own, of course, and meeting new people invariably enhances a vacation if you turn out to like them. The experience of finding a new family of Pertmans contained a unique element, however, since I grew up believing that the only people with my last name to have survived the Holocaust were my parents and their four children.

As a result, everywhere my older brother has traveled during his adult years, he has opened the local phone book to look for Pertmans; I have frequently done the same. My other siblings, a sister and another brother, simply assumed that they had received an accurate recounting of history from my parents -- who apparently didn't know of their error -- and that any search efforts inevitably would prove futile.

Then, last year, while fiddling with a friend's new home computer, she suggested we do a ``people find.'' That's a service in which you simply type in a name, and the software amazingly conducts a search through phone books, business directories, and other sources everywhere.

I typed in Pertman and, a short while later, a name came up in Canada. After the shock wore off, I dialed his number. A few minutes of chatting with David Pertman, in Calgary, revealed that he knew my father's brother back in their neighboring hometowns in Poland; after a few more calls in the following weeks, we figured out that David was my father's second cousin.

I also learned that David had two sons in Edmonton, one of whom had two children and the other of whom had three. In subsequent conversations, I discovered David had a batch of nephews and nieces in Israel as well, most of them Pertmans. Extraordinarily, in a second's time, I was catapulted from the isolated sense of being part of an endangered species to the overwhelming realization that I belonged to a thriving clan.

So my wife, Judy, and I planned a trip to Western Canada to coincide with a decidedly family-oriented occasion, the bar mitzvah of one of David's grandsons. Given the spectacular locales we intended to visit, it promised to be a multitiered adventure. And so it was.

We flew into Calgary, the capital of the province of Alberta and a charming city best known for its annual Stampede. It's an elaborate, prestigious rodeo/spectacle that began in 1912 to celebrate and cash in on Calgary's cowboy-rancher heritage, and which draws a million observers and participants annually from all over the world today.

So much of what's written about Calgary centers on the Stampede, which takes place each July, that one might be tempted to think that there's little else of interest in the city. But one would be wrong.

In addition to finding good music (we happened to arrive in time for a jazz festival) and excellent restaurants (including a few in a Quincy Market-like riverside mall called Eau Claire), we also enjoyed Calgary's extensive gardens, watched a bit of cricket in Riley Park, rode up the elevator of the downtown space needle to take in the view from the observation deck, and enthralled our 4-year-old (OK, and ourselves, too) with an afternoon trek around the Calgary Zoo.

The zoo was certainly Zack's highlight, partly because he got to feed his first elephant, but mostly because it contains an impressive and expansive section that re-creates our planet when it was inhabited by dinosaurs. And they're full size.

Like many Canadian cities, Calgary also offers a wide selection of indoor activities like climbing structures and play spaces. That's because so much of the year is bone-chilling cold that spending time outdoors can be difficult, unless, of course, you partake of the first-rate skiing, of which there's quite a lot within a short drive.

It was during our second day in Calgary, after we left the zoo and before we ventured through Calaway Park -- an Old West theme park akin to Sturbridge Village, but with rides -- that we drove to the home of David and Ida Pertman.

They live in a lovely residential portion of the city, and they greeted us warmly. He was the reticent one, as is my father; she, like my mother, was the talker and recollector. They are not only of a generation but of a type; hey, I thought, they could even be related.

We ate fresh fruit together at their kitchen table, discussed mutual roots, and learned details about their postwar odyssey from Poland to Israel to Canada, in a route and timetable almost identical to the one that took my parents and their children to Baltimore in December 1958. Yet, somehow, the two Pertman families had never crossed paths.

The afternoon together ended with hugs and promises to see each other later in the week in Edmonton, where David's two sons live and where one of their sons was to celebrate his bar mitzvah. I was eager to meet the rest of my relatives, but I wanted to keep to our schedule of driving with Judy, Zack, and Emmy the long way, through the mountains and with lots of stops along the way.

Patience certainly has its rewards.

Within an hour, the main highway transforms into a spectacularly scenic roadway as it approaches the entrance to the massive western national park system. Soaring mountains rise from every direction, some still capped with snow in the heat of June, others topped with natural formations that look like ethereal carvings of castles, animals, and undefinable shapes that would otherwise appear only in dreams.

Banff, our first stop within the park, is a community surrounded by as much controversy as beauty. The Canadian federal government wants to tightly restrict growth there, while most residents and businesspeople favor some controlled expansion to accommodate the intensifying avalanche of tourists who roll into town from around the world.

Whoever wins the argument, Banff already has evolved during the last 20 years from a relatively quiet mountain retreat frequented mainly by vacationing Canadians into an Aspen-like destination for all who can afford to come, complete with rows of fine shops and restaurants.

That said, it's a wonderful place to be, and growth so far has been closely regulated. No building stands over two stories high, and most hotels, restaurants, and stores remain on the small side, aren't branches of international chains, and retain a local charm and character.

Oh yeah, and the whole place is in an exquisite setting that will take your breath away.

During the lengthy winter season, it's a haven for skiers. The rest of the year, it's a glorious area in which to hike, walk, ride horses, take in an outdoor concert or play, hop onto a ski gondola to the top of a mountain for a view that flows from your eyes to your spirit, stop in for a decadent, luscious afternoon tea at the sprawling, castlelike Banff Springs Hotel, or take some photos of a herd of wild horned sheep as they stroll a few feet from your car on a winding mountain road.

Even with two small children in tow, there was plenty of accessible outdoor activity in Banff, so it would have been easy to stroll and roll (Emmy's baby carriage, that is) for several more days there. We wanted to get to Edmonton in time for the family event, though, so we moved on.

Our next stop, less than an hour's drive up the Icefields Highway, was Lake Louise. Lakes abound in the region, each more serene and picturesque than the last; some abut the numerous campgrounds within the vast national park.

It is Lake Louise, though, that has developed into a tourist mecca, and for good reason. Its inviting blue-green water seems to shift color with your every movement, and its tranquillity is disturbed only by soft waves induced by the oars of rented canoes. Hikers weave their way through the trees that blanket the surrounding mountains, while an occasional rock climber makes his way up the imposing Mount Victoria at the lake's end.

What a scene. You could spend a whole vacation basking in the beauty of Lake Louise and partaking of its outdoor pleasures (and, unless you want to commute from Banff or a campground, you would probably stay at Chateau Lake Louise, a grand hotel that monopolizes one edge of the water).

But again, we were on a tight schedule, so we spent only a few hours and then piled back into our Ford Taurus.

(It's worth noting that we arranged to pick up the rental car at the airport in Calgary and to drop it off in Edmonton, where we would catch our plane home. Most airlines charge no more for such ``open-jaw'' tickets that allow you to arrive in one place and leave from another, and some auto-rental agencies don't impose fees for dropping off their cars in another city.)

If we had it to do over again, the next phase of our trip would last a full day instead of a few hours. The Icefields Highway, often impassable in winter because of human-height snow, is a nonstop picture-postcard when the weather's good. Which means that the mountains, the lakes, the valleys, the orchids, the sheep and deer and moose at the side of the road (and walking into the road) all beckon you to stop and take a photo, or just stop and take a long breath.

We stopped several times, but would have allotted far more time for a leisurely drive had we known what awaited us beforehand. No loud complaints, however; a taste of paradise turns out to be more fulfilling than teasing.

Speaking of paradise: The advertisements for the Columbia Icefields show a huge bus with oversized tires moving tourists onto the ice that runs into the glacier, along with the slogan, ``How To See Heaven Frozen Over.''

The copywriters can be accused of only slight hyperbole.

Just staring at this natural marvel -- and you do find yourself staring -- is almost satisfying enough. But the real jolt comes from paying your $20, riding onto the ice field on one of those huge buses, and then walking around for a half-hour in a pristine setting that probably looks about the same as it did during the last ice age.

The tours operate from May through mid-October from a roadside facility opposite the ice fields, which are one of the world's largest nonpolar ice masses and which draw their water at the intersection of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Antarctic oceans. Hiking is permitted throughout the area, but serious accidents have been reported, so those who want to venture far or high are advised to do so only with guides.

It was about 120 miles from Banff to this idyllic spot, and another 60 miles or so to our next destination. The small town of Jasper, at the other end of the highway, looks much as Banff probably did two decades ago; that is, it's less developed, less slick, and offers fewer amenities.

All of which makes Jasper a very appealing place to lounge. Except that there's too much to do, like hiking some more, taking another gondola to another magnificent peak for another awesome vista, and strolling around one of the local lakes. We even found a lake that has a small, pretty beach on one of its shores and has been landscaped for wheelchair access, which means we could walk its entire perimeter with a baby carriage.

The most famous body of water around Jasper is Lake Maligne, about a half-hour's ride from town and well worth the detour. Boat trips are available at all the hotels and at the lake itself, and they invariably advertise that they stop at ``Spirit Island.'' It turns out that ``Spirit Island'' is a dot of land just yards from shore, but it's alluring and evocative and aptly named: The story goes that a photographer long ago described the tiny island as the soul of the Canadian Rockies and said it moved his spirit.

Our reluctance to leave Jasper and its environs was subsumed by my desire to get to Edmonton, so we headed out after just a couple of days. Our driving tour of Alberta was nearing an end, but the prospect of meeting new Pertmans negated any sense of disappointment about leaving nirvana behind.

Since scores of other bar mitzvah guests also had descended on their homes from out of town, David's two son's (my third cousins) Asher and Wayne were distracted and apologized for not giving us more time. But their interest in meeting us, getting to know us, and learning about our extended family was evident, and they proved to be generous and warm hosts.

Moreover, their children -- who weren't encumbered by entertaining duties -- turned out to be wonderful people who were friendly, curious, and enthusiastic about their new cousins. Asher's sons, 13-year-old Jeremy and his 11-year-old brother, Tyler, had a ball with Zack, who is 4; and Wayne's three college-age children, Shea, Justin, and Quinn, not only glommed onto our kids but also took us around the city and into their hearts.

It's tough to explain why it matters so much to discover new relatives, especially ones who live so far away that regular contact will be difficult. When you grow up with very little family, somehow, its value and meaning become magnified. When you have believed all your life that your bloodline was nearly severed in war, the sentiment grows exponentially. And the fantasy of long-lost relatives evolves into something so elusive that its attainment takes on an importance unconnected to reason.

So Edmonton, a lovely city with lots to do and see, for me has primarily become the home of most of the ``other Pertmans.'' One day, with a bit of luck, perhaps I'll feel the same way about an Israeli city or two.

Whatever happens here on in, I know this much already: I invested a fair amount of time, effort, money, and emotional capital to travel around the province of Alberta, Canada, with my family. And I returned a richer man.

We didn't have much time, however. So we went to the mall.

Sounds like a particularly outrageous waste of time, doesn't it? To travel thousands of miles, to a lovely outpost in a beautiful section of a fascinating country, and use a few precious hours to do a bit of shopping?

Ah, but that's not the allure of the West Edmonton Mall, though some visitors undoubtedly must come to snap up bargain merchandise because the American dollar's exchange rate is so good. Nope, we came in search of thrills, chills, showmanship, and other sorts of adventures.

We weren't disappointed.

Forget the Mall of America in Minnesota. This is the world's largest indoor shopping megastructure, and shopping is hardly what it's all about.

``This is much better, much bigger, much nicer. It's just better,'' said Ali Hyman, 14, who decided to see the West Edmonton Mall during a recent visit with her mom from their home in New Canaan, Conn. And Hyman should know: She lived near the Mall of America for two years before moving east.

Walk through one of the 58 entrances here, and a whole new world appears. In addition to the 800 stores (we don't care about them anyway, remember?), the place contains -- among many, many, many other things -- two 18-hole miniature golf courses, one of which you play in near darkness under black lights; a regulation ice-skating rink; a sports museum; a casino; nightclubs and restaurants including Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe; underwater rides in a full-size submarine; and a bungee-jumping facility.

Just a few more attractions at the mall, which spans the equivalent of 48 city blocks: A huge, 20-ride amusement park that features two roller coasters, the biggest children's climbing structure you've ever seen, and a host of low- and high-tech games; a wave pool the size of five football fields; live performing dolphin shows every few hours; a 28-lane bowling alley with 25 pool tables; and camps where parents can sign their children up for half- or full-day stays, any time of the year.

Oh, and for visitors who just can't seem to cram it all into just a day, there's a hotel right on the premises.