Ice Cream Tour 2015 Wrap-up

Our delicious journey is over. Over 1700 kilometres, visiting 20 ice cream shops in 7 days. Spending time with my awesome daughter, exploring Alberta and BC, enjoying some great adventures and eating the best ice cream we could find. What a great Daddy-Daughter week!

Here’s a summary of “The Best!”

TOP 3 ICE CREAM SHOPS –

#1 Happy Cow in Fernie for their incredible homemade ice cream, great owners, beautiful shop. A wonderful experience. 11 licks out of 10.
#2 (tied) Poppadoms in Kelowna for their Indian Spice Cream. Phenomenal ice cream flavours (and the best butter chicken I’ve ever had). 10 licks out of 10.
#2 (tied) Village Ice Cream in Calgary, the taste of this shop’s ice cream is on another level, an absolute must visit. 10 licks out of 10.

RICHARD’S TOP 5 FLAVOURS –

Sea Salt Caramel and Cardamom (Poppadoms – Kelowna, BC)
Toasted Coconut (Happy Cow – Fernie, BC)
Salted Caramel (Village Ice Cream – Calgary, AB)
Nanaimo Bar (MacKay’s – Cochrane, AB)
Raspberry Yum Yum (Tickleberry’s, OK Falls, BC)

DANICA’S TOP 5 FLAVOURS –

Honeycomb (Happy Cow – Fernie, BC)
Strawberry, Honey and Cumin (Poppadoms – Kelowna, BC)
Melted Chocolate (Village Ice Cream – Calgary, AB)
Sea Salt Caramel and Cardamom (Poppadoms – Kelowna, BC)
Smurf Bubblegum (Garden Ice Cream Parlor – Vernon, BC)

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – #20 (The final stop)

We are at the end of our journey! What a week it has been. Some great places, some fabulous ice cream and a wonderful week with my daughter. How should we celebrate? With a final ice cream cone, of course! Could we possibly be getting tired of ice cream? NO, not in the least. It was off to our final destination.

Our last stop on our Ice Cream Tour 2015 is Village Ice Cream in Calgary. What a way to end it. This place only opened in 2012, but holy cow (get it? ice cream? cow?… oh forget it) has Village Ice Cream ever made a name for itself already! They proudly proclaim their ice cream is like a love letter to your mouth. Wow, they had me at ice cream.

Village Ice Cream is a quaint little shop tucked away in the Victoria Park Area. They have a store in Britannia Plaza as well.

There’s quite a story of how Village Ice Cream began. The owner, Billy, was trying to find life’s purpose on a motorbike trip to Rio De Janeiro. He got as far as Mexico but decided to give up. He later found himself on his grandmother’s porch in Montana eating homemade ice cream, trying to figure out what he should do with his life when it suddenly hit him. THIS is what he was meant to do! Hand-made ice cream, in small batches.

I started this tour with a Salted Caramel and that’s how I ended our tour. My daughter had Chocolate. Billy admitted it took him 2 years to perfect his Chocolate Ice Cream recipe. When we tasted it, it was perfect. Melted Bernard Callebaut chocolate is the key ingredient. The Salted Caramel is absolutely amazing! I’m not joking. I’ve had a lot of ice cream this past week, it gets 10 licks out of 10!

That’s it! Over 1700km, 7 days and 20 cones to sample the best ice cream in southern BC & Alberta.

Thank you for following our adventure. We will have one final blog with a top 5 cone list, our pick of the best 3 ice cream places, the weirdest flavour, highlights of our trip and news about a possible future tour.

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #19

A candy store AND ice cream shop side by side? Am I dreaming? Nope.

In Nanton this combination actually exists. The Nanton Candy Store needs no introduction. It is legendary in Alberta. Six years ago, an ice cream shop was added next door and anyone in Alberta with a sweet tooth came to Nanton. The hardest decision – which shop to visit first?

We saw Pauline and Mike, they run both shops. We had a great visit. They have 32 flavours of Foothills Creamery Ice Cream.

Mike is the master of the Garbage Can flavour. He invented it after a customer suggested it was too hard to make a decision of what flavour to choose. So Garbage Can has several different flavours and it is never the same twice. In fact, every spoon is different. My daughter couldn’t resist eating Garbage Can, and I had Cookie Dough. Both were fantastic. Creamy, smooth, rich! Perfect blend in the Garbage Can, according to my daughter. My Cookie Dough had plenty of chunks and was delicious!

We gave Nanton Ice Cream 9 licks out of 10. Only one more stop left. Village Ice Cream in Calgary, here we come!

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #18

The Frank Slide…

In 1903, more than 80 million tonnes of Turtle Mountain came down and buried part of the town of Frank in less than 90 seconds. The enormity of this slide can not be described with words or pictures. You really just have to go there to fully experience how big this rock slide really was. The Frank Slide Interpretative Centre is an incredible source of information about this natural disaster.

In the shadow of the Frank Slide lies the town of Bellevue. It’s pretty quiet here most of the time, except for the Old Dairy Ice Cream Shoppe, it was hopping.

The shop has been around for 25 years and owner, Bernita, greets every visitor with a smile. They have 47 flavours and her favorite is Turtle.

This shop does not make their own ice cream, they order it from Foothills Creamery in Calgary.

I picked Belgian Hazelnut and it was rich and creamy. There was a nice hazelnut taste, however, I found the flavour slightly watered down.

My daughter had Rocky Road. Maybe it was because we just had homemade marshmallows at Happy Cow in Fernie, but you could taste the difference in marshmallows. I guess we were spoiled at Happy Cow.

Still it was very good ice cream and we gave The Old Dairy Ice Cream Shoppe 8 licks out of 10.

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #17

One thing we’ve been blessed with during the whole Ice Cream Tour is beautiful weather. Sunny and hot! Very hot in some cases. Today, we woke up to a little bit of rain.

As we headed to Fernie we were still kind of surprised that nobody makes their own ice cream in Cranbrook.

We were delighted to find out that Happy Cow in Fernie does! Boy, do they ever make their own ice cream.

You NEED to visit this shop in Fernie. It’s outstanding!

Wendy and her husband Dan own this quaint retro shop, ice cream truck and ice cream bicycle cart that they drive around town on hot days. They sell cones, pints, quarts, ice cream cookies and cakes. I’ll take one of each please!

Wendy was even on the radio in Cranbrook talking about our little adventure and they were looking forward to seeing us today, but I think we were even more excited to meet them!

Dan explained to us how they make their ice cream from scratch. Like Wendy says, “If we don’t make it, it doesn’t go in there.”

They have the same ice cream machines that Ben and Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs used when they first started.

They even let Danica make ice cream! So unbelievably cool.

Happy Cow has 40 flavours, all home-made in small batches with local, organic, and REAL ingredients. They even make their own marshmallows for their ice cream.

I went with Toasted Coconut (which is made with coconut milk) and my daughter had their most popular flavour, Honeycomb, where they replace the sugar in the recipe with honey.

Both of these… BLEW. US. AWAY.

They were flavourful, rich, creamy. You can really taste the difference when ice cream is homemade and made with real ingredients. Our ice cream was maybe a day old.

We also tried samples… I can not tell you how good a sample of the Mint Chocolate Ice Cream tasted. Real mint tastes a lot different from mint flavouring, let me tell you.

With no hesitation, both my daughter and I agreed… an 11 out of 10.

Phenomenal!

I would drive all the way from Calgary to Fernie and back for just one single scoop.

Amazing!

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #16

One thing we have not done on this tour yet is mini-golf. So, as soon as we entered Cranbrook my daughter and I looked at each other and said, “Game on!”

The Elizabeth Lake Lodge has an incredible mini-golf course. It’s like the Pebble Beach of mini-golf. We both agreed, it was such a tough course. It’s 18 holes and each hole was a completely different challenge. My daughter got 2 holes in one and schooled me at mini-golf. They really look after this course and I wished we stayed here for the night so I could have a re-match in the morning.

We were so disappointed to hear that the Sugar Shack in Cranbrook closed. We heard they used to make their own ice cream and no one else in town does anymore. However, when we saw the ice cream sign at the Elizabeth Lake Lodge mini golf course after 18 holes, we knew it was meant to be.

They only have 5 flavours, and the ice cream is from Foothills Creamery again. Foothills Creamery is turning out to be a popular place for ice cream shops that are unable to make their own.

I finally had Maple Walnut (the most popular adult flavour on this trip) and my daughter had Coconut. I had total ice cream cone envy when I tasted hers. So much coconut, so sweet and creamy. Then I tried mine. OMG, this Maple Walnut was SO good. You’d think a walnut tree fell into the bucket. There were tons of walnuts. This was an easy 9 licks out of 10.

As a side note, Shaw TV in Cranbrook and the local radio station B-104, came out to interview us on the golf course. It was also great to catch up with some friends in Cranbrook (Tom, Gina and Rene) and meet 2 popular house pigs in Cranbrook. So cute!

Fernie’s Happy Cow is our next stop, stay tuned!

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #15

This was the view we woke up to this morning! Christina Lake, Canada’s warmest lake. We stayed at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast, The Sunflower Inn. Our host Kathleen told us about the 4 ice cream places in town, unfortunately they were all closed by the time we arrived.

We are on the home stretch now. Our next stop; Creston, and no we did not visit the Kokanee Brewery for a number of reasons, my daughter is too young, she hates the smell of beer and I’ve already done it! We also did not see a Sasquatch… yet!

The Happy Trails Ice Cream Parlour was our destination. This retro ice cream shop was not a disappointment at all. Complete with the black and white tile floors and Roy Orbison playing, it felt like a step back in time.

They also sell dairy-free and gluten-free products, but they don’t make their own ice cream here.

Foothills Creamery is the supplier and our choices were Tiger for me and Saskatoon Pie for my daughter. Tiger flavour was good but I wished the stripes of licorice were darker and thicker. The orange and black seemed a bit too mixed together for me. It was very creamy and tasty though. My daughter liked the Saskatoon Pie but it didn’t have any pie crust pieces. The Saskatoon berries were plentiful but they lacked flavour.

We gave Happy Trails 7 licks out of 10.

Next stop, mini golf in Cranbrook and maybe some ice cream?!?

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #14

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but normally we try to do some fun daddy-daughter stuff (zip-lining, tubing, go karts, etc.) and then hit a great ice cream place or two.

Today was a bit different…

our plan was to visit the falls in OK Falls and then go to one of the most popular ice cream places on social media, Tickleberry’s. One problem… there are no falls in OK Falls anymore.

Time for a history lesson. OK Falls used to be called Dog Town because it was on the south end of Dog Lake. The lake was later renamed and so was the town. As for the falls, the lake used to empty into the Okanagan River and the falls were about 15 feet high. However, because of flood control the falls were removed when the rocks were blasted away in the 50’s to create flood gates for better flood control for the town and others downstream.

So, with no falls to visit all we could do was eat ice cream. Tickleberry’s is the place in OK Falls and it is very well-known around interior BC.

As soon as we arrived we were recognized by 4 different people in the parking lot. They read about our tour in the Penticton newspaper. Thanks to Marleen, Margaret and Lauren. The 4th person… none other than the owner of Tickleberry’s, Aaron.

The store used to be smaller and the owners lived in the back half of the building. Tickleberry’s reputation for ice cream grew and they had to make the whole building an ice cream mecca. They’ve also recently expanded to Penticton.

We met with Shaelynn (one of the ice cream makers), Mel and Caitlin. They gave us the lowdown on this institution of ice cream. It was started in 1990 by Dale and Jennette Hoy, and it is now run by their 2 children Aaron and Kelsey. They are so dedicated to their craft they both went to Ice Cream University at Penn State. The course there is the oldest, largest and best known program on ice cream. I’ve always wanted to attend Penn State!

Tickleberry’s scoops about 2,000 cones a day and is Western Canada’s biggest ice cream distributor.

My daughter had the Chocolate Strawberry Chardonnay. It had an incredible taste and was so smooth and creamy. The Chardonnay brought out the flavour of the strawberries and the chocolate was irresistible.

My Raspberry Yum Yum was also so flavour full. Fresh strawberries wrapped in a thin chocolate coating in a vanilla ice cream.

Tickleberry’s gets a 9.5 licks out of 10.

To top off a great day, we got interviewed by 660 News in Calgary. Listen for the story this weekend!

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #13

If there’s one thing that Penticton is famous for its fruit! There are so many fruit stands on the sides of the highway. You can pick your own cherries, nectarines, peaches, apples, etc. The orchards are everywhere, no wonder the fruit flavoured ice cream tastes SO good around here.

We stopped at Granny’s Fruit Stand and Bakery. It’s off Highway 97 just before Penticton. They have gelato at Granny’s and it was very tempting… but it is our Ice Cream Tour, and besides the fruit looked AMAZING! We washed everything right there and could barely wait until we got to the car to sample some of the Okanagan’s finest.

We then rolled into Penticton and headed straight for Ogo’s on Main Street. This is a very unique place only 13 feet wide. It actually used to be an atrium for a lawyer’s office. They now have a cool mural on the wall with attachments like wings from a plane and skis. Ogopogo, the mythical creature that calls Lake Okanagan home is the theme of the place. They even have an 8 foot mascot.

You’ll find 56 flavours at Ogo’s and although they do not make their own ice cream, they do order in from some of the best ice cream suppliers. I must add that the customer service here is second to none. Sharon is incredibly sweet (like her ice cream) and obviously loves what she does.

Our choices today; Birthday Cake for my daughter and Kahlua Chocolate Fudge for me. Birthday Cake tastes just like mashing up ice cream and vanilla cake with sprinkles together. Yummy! The cake was blended perfectly and wasn’t too sweet. Kahlua Chocolate Fudge was very creamy and you could easily taste the Kahlua. I wish there was more fudge stripes in mine but it was still very tasty.

Just as we were about to enjoy our cones the Penticton Western News showed up for a follow-up to the story that they ran last Friday. Good time for a photo-op!

We rated Ogo’s 8.5 licks out of 10. We’re now onto OK Falls and the legendary Tickleberry’s.

Ice Cream Tour 2015 – Stop #12

Today’s adventure was completely spontaneous. We were invited to go tubing again on the south end of Mara Lake and we just couldn’t resist. We had so much fun on Monday, how could we refuse?

The afternoon was spent watching the tube bounce around like crazy in the water and listening to the kids scream at every turn and bump.

Then it was my turn on the tube. Now, I could see why the kids were screaming. Wow, what a ride! It can get very bumpy outside the wake, but that’s when the fun and screaming begins. Now, I’ve never been much of a boat guy, probably because I spent very little time around them growing up but I’m now able to see how they can provide so much fun for your family.

After an incredible dinner (thanks Rob, Jennifer and CJ) we headed back to Kelowna but not before a stop for ice cream. After all, this is our Ice Cream Tour.

One of our favourites before the trip was Marble Slab. On our way back from tubing we stopped at the Marble Slab in Vernon. This company started in Texas in 1983 and came to Canada 20 years later. “From cow to cone in 10 days” is their motto. I think on this tour we’ve had that in under a day. Their most popular is the Birthday Cake flavour.

Now, the big difference with Marble Slab are the mix-ins. You can choose from a huge selection of chocolate bars, sprinkles, marshmallows and many more. They take your choice of 20 ice cream flavours and then pour your mix-ins on top. They mash it all together and put it on a freshly made waffle cone.

I went with Nutella and they mixed in Butterfinger, my favorite chocolate bar. My daughter had the Red Velvet with Kit Kat pieces. Both were very good but really the mix-ins are the difference. The ice cream was decent but it lacked in flavour compared to the incredibly fresh places we’ve visited so far. We both agreed it is our Ice Cream Tour not a mix-in tour. We gave the ice cream 7 licks out of 10, of course we still finished it all!

Next, we’re off to Penticton for Ogo’s and Tickleberry’s in OK Falls.

ice cream tour

Author: Richard Stroobant