Royals' tour touches fire-ravaged northern Alberta (Reuters)

SLAVE LAKE, Alberta (Reuters) – Britain's Prince William and Kate took a side trip on their royal newlyweds' tour of Canada on Wednesday to visit Slave Lake, Alberta, which was devastated by wildfires in the spring.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge toured a severely damaged part of the northern Alberta town, where burned out shells of buildings are all that are left following the May 16 inferno.

More than a third of the structures in the town of 7,000 people went up in flames.

William and Kate met for about an hour at a nearby college with residents who lost their homes. Then they greeted some of the thousands of royal-watchers who descended on the town.

The couple is due to attend festivities at the Calgary Stampede on Thursday and Friday before ending their Canadian tour and heading to California.

(Reporting by Andy Clark, writing by Jeffrey Jones)

British royals put down roots in Ottawa (AFP)

OTTAWA (AFP) – Britain's royal stars Prince William and bride Catherine marked their first official trip abroad as newlyweds Saturday by planting a tree in Canada's capital symbolizing their everlasting "love and marriage."

In front of a small crowd of well-wishers -- a marked change from the throng of hundreds of thousands who celebrated Canada Day with the royals on Friday -- the couple strolled among commemorative maples, oaks and conifers that dot the grounds of Rideau Hall, the official residence of Canada's governor general.

To applause, they shovelled soil onto the base a Canadian hemlock planted to commemorate the couple's nine-day royal tour of the country.

In 1907, then-governor general Earl Grey planted the first tree in the arboretum, a young maple to mark the first official trip to Ottawa by Japan's Prince Fushimi.

In the century since, planting ceremonial trees has become a Canadian tradition symbolizing friendship and international cooperation.

"This tree (planted by William and Kate) will serve as an ongoing symbol of the love and marriage of their royal highnesses," officials said in a statement. The hemlock is known to live up to 800 years.

Afterwards the couple chatted with an ailing man whose last wish reportedly was to meet the royal pair, and received a few words of advice from a couple married for 50 years.

Kate, wearing a grey Kensington dress by Catherine Walker, and William also paused for a solemn moment at a tree planted in honor of his late mother Diana, who would have turned 50 on Friday.

The duke and duchess of Cambridge later attended a reception with veterans and war brides at the Canadian War Museum and unveiled a mural before heading to Montreal for the second leg of their cross-Canada tour.

Royals' Quebec visit appears to be winning gamble (Reuters)

QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) – Anti-monarchist protesters failed to disrupt the visit of Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate to Quebec, which was the most politically sensitive portion of their Canadian royal tour.

A group estimated by local reporters at about 200 people used loudspeakers on Sunday to decry the royal family and call for sovereignty for the French-speaking province, but they were kept far away from the couple in Quebec City.

The royal family's Canadian visits in recent years have often avoided stops in Quebec, where many still see as a raw wound Britain's defeat their of France in 1759 giving it sovereignty over to Canada.

Hundreds of demonstrators protested the Queen's visit to Quebec City in 1964, and groups favoring Quebec's separation from Canada had vowed to give the newlywed Duke and Duchess of Cambridge a rough ride.

Despite those concerns, William and Kate chose to visit both Quebec City and Montreal as part of a nine-day tour of Canada that monarchists hope will restore flagging Canadian interest in the royal family.

Protesters at events in Montreal on Saturday were also outnumbered by well-wishers.

The couple visited a youth shelter in Quebec city before attending a ceremony honoring the "Van Doos", an infantry regiment based in the provincial capital that has done extensive duty in Afghanistan.

William, in brief remarks in French, acknowledged his weakness in speaking the language used by 83 percent of Quebec residents who would become his subjects if he becomes king as the British monarch is also Canada's head of state.

"Thank you for your patience with my accent, and I hope that we will have the chance to get to know each other over the years to come," he said.

After Quebec, the William and Kate will travel to Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories and Alberta, where they are expected to receive warm greetings as they did in earlier stops in Ottawa.

The couple will visit California after leaving Canada.

(Writing by Allan Dowd in Vancouver, Editing by Sandra Maler)

Royals tour Canada, Monaco gets a new princess (AP)

Friday was a royal watcher's bonanza, with wedding vows, an official visit — and poignant reminders of princesses past.

Monaco's Prince Albert II took the plunge with Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock of South Africa, marrying her in a civil ceremony ahead of a religious service Saturday. His father, Prince Rainier III, wed Hollywood actress Grace Kelly in the tiny country 55 years ago.

British royal newlyweds Prince William and Kate — the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — won raucous cheers from an estimated 300,000 people while touring Ottawa on Canada's national holiday. It was their first official visit abroad after their widely watched wedding in April.

And admirers of the late Princess Diana gathered at the gates of Kensington Palace in London to leave tributes to her and share their memories on what would have been the 50th birthday of "the people's princess."

Kathy Martin of Australia who left a tribute at the gates said both Grace and Diana were icons who died in car accidents at a young age — Grace in 1982 and Diana in 1997.

"They'll be remembered as princesses — beautiful, radiant princesses," Martin said.

Diana also was on the minds of some Canadians in the crowd greeting her son, William, and his wife.

"Happy Birthday Lady Di. Canadians love you," read one sign held up during the Canada Day celebrations.

The red-and-white-clad crowd chanted "Will and Kate" frequently during their appearance on Parliament Hill to mark Canada's 144th birthday on the second day of the royal visit.

Kate was similarly attired in Canada's colors, wearing a cream dress by the London designer Reiss, complete with a maple leaf brooch, and a brilliant red hat topped with a maple leaf. Queen Elizabeth II loaned the brooch to the duchess for the tour; the queen wore it in 1951 as a princess on her first visit to Canada.

William, who wore a blue suit and a red tie, thrilled the crowd as he spoke in English and French for the second day in a row and drew loud cheers when he referred to his grandmother as "the queen of Canada."

He also reminded the crowd how Kate's grandfather "held Canada dear to his heart" after training in the province of Alberta as a young pilot in World War II.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed the royal couple as "the world's most famous newlyweds."

Their other stops in Canada include Quebec City and Calgary before traveling to Los Angeles on July 8.

In sun-splashed Monaco, residents of the principality cheered as Prince Albert and his new bride appeared at a palace window, waved and kissed shyly after exchanging vows in the civil ceremony.

Albert's sisters — Princess Stephanie and Princess Caroline — were among an audience of several dozen inside the throne room, the red silk-walled hall where Grace and Rainier once took their vows. Rainier died in 2005.

Wittstock wore a silken blue jacket with ankle-length palazzo pants, an outfit press handlers said was made by fashion house Chanel, while Albert wore a sober dark suit and white tie.

Saturday's Roman Catholic ceremony will also take place in the palace, followed by a gala dinner by famed chef Alain Ducasse. The guest list included the kings of Spain, Sweden, Lesotho and Belgium; the presidents of France, Iceland, Ireland, Lebanon, Malta, Germany and Hungary; opera singers, models and race car drivers.

Wittstock swam for South Africa at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, while Albert has been an International Olympic Committee member since 1985 and competed in five Winter Olympics as part of Monaco's bobsled team. They met at a 2000 swimming competition in Monaco.

Albert, 53, acknowledged having fathered two children out of wedlock — a now-teenage daughter with a California woman and a son with a flight attendant of Togolese origin.

Before the wedding, the 33-year-old Wittstock said she wanted children of her own.

"I love children and have always wanted to have children of my own," she said on BFM television, sitting next to Albert with a close-lipped, tense smile. "We'll see in the next couple of months or years."

___

Associated Press Writers Jenny Barchfield in Monaco; Rob Gillies in Ottawa, Ontario; Charmaine Noronha in Toronto, and Matt Dunham in London contributed to this story.

Royals William, Kate set for races in east Canada (AFP)

CHARLOTTETOWN, Canada (AFP) – Prince William and wife Catherine were set for a day of dragon boat races and search and rescue drills in eastern Canada Monday after two protest-filled days in French-speaking Quebec.

The British royal couple arrived for a private reception in Charlottetown, capital of Prince Edward Island, on Sunday evening, from Quebec as part of their nine-day tour of Canada.

The couple had charmed a crush of well-wishers in Quebec City earlier in the day as police lines kept republican protests far from their first official foreign trip as newlyweds.

The duchess of Cambridge, sporting a blue lace Jacquenta dress by Canadian designer Erdem, accepted flowers from wide-eyed young girls as her husband the duke exchanged polite banter and shook hands with fans outside city hall.

William, who spoke in French and apologized for his awkward accent, thanked supporters for their warm welcome in the Quebec provincial capital, coming one day after anti-monarchist protests in Montreal marred their tour of Canada.

"I hope that we will have the chance to get to know each other over the years to come," he said, pledging to return to the city, once the cradle of French civilization in North America that spanned from Acadia in easternmost Canada to Louisiana in the southern United States.

As the prince spoke, a small plane passed overhead dragging a banner across the sky touting a controversial phrase delivered by French president Charles de Gaulle in Montreal in 1967, "Long live a free Quebec."

But it was as close to disrupting the royal visit as protesters would get in Quebec City.

A few blocks away, some 200 republican demonstrators with placards that read "end to the monarchy" and "William go home" jeered and chanted for an independent Quebec but were drowned out by well-wishers' cheers.

Organizers of the demonstration had promised to top angry protests in Montreal on Saturday.

Riot police had been called to keep the peace outside a Montreal children's hospital the royal couple visited and at the Quebec tourism and hotel business institute where they took a cooking class.

In Quebec City, barricades kept protesters away from the royal tour.

While out of earshot of the prince and princess, Patrick Bourgeois of the Quebec Resistance Network, said that "one cannot pardon the crimes of the British empire in India, Australia and Quebec."

Britain conquered the former French colony of Quebec in 1763, but its culture and language survived, and today it is a bastion of French culture in North America.

British rule, however, still evokes resentment in some quarters of the Canadian province.

As a member of the Commonwealth, Canada's official head of state is the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who is represented by a governor general.

On Sunday, William, second in line for the British throne, pored over a copy of the first treaty between the British and aboriginals in Canada, signed in 1760, presented to him by a Huron chief in a headdress made of wild turkey feathers.

William and Kate also toured the Quebec City's old quarter, perched atop a cliff that overlooks the point where the Saint Lawrence River widens on its way to the open sea. It remains the only fortified American city north of Mexico and a UNESCO world heritage site.

They visited the ceremonial home of the Royal 22e Regiment, also known as the Van Doos -- a corruption of vingt-deux (French for 22) -- the best known francophone and largest regiment in Her Majesty's Canadian Forces.

And they inspected children dressed as colonial British soldiers at Fort Levis, Quebec.

Monday evening William and the former Kate Middleton will move on to Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories for aboriginal sports and then Calgary for a rodeo before leaving Canada and heading for Los Angeles on July 9.

Royals Quebec visit attracts protests (AFP)

MONTREAL (AFP) – Hardline separatists plan to protest Prince William and Kate Middleton's visit to Quebec next month, saying the future British monarch symbolizes Canadian federalism and Anglo-Saxon dominance.

The separatist Quebecois Network of Resistance (RRQ) plans to organize a rally at noon on Sunday, July 3 at the Quebec City Hall, using the slogan "William, Get Lost!" as its rallying cry.

The protest is expected to coincide with the royal couple attending a ceremony intended to showcase the relationship between the Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada's best-known Francophone military regiment, and Quebec City.

"If Prince William and Princess Catherine want to come to Quebec as British citizens for a honeymoon they pay for themselves, we don't have a problem with it," RRQ leader Patrick Bourgeois told AFP.

"But if they come at the invitation of the Canadian federal government, which wants to offend and humiliate Quebec separatists, we will be there."

Bourgeois sees Prince William's visit as a purely political operation designed by the federal government to show the world that Quebec knows its place within Canada.

He is seeking a repeat of 2009, when demonstrations forced a visiting Prince Charles -- Prince William's father -- to enter a military barracks in downtown Montreal by the back door.

Years before, on October 10, 1964, police armed with nightsticks charged a crowd of students and separatists protesting Queen Elizabeth's visit to Quebec in an incident remembered as "Truncheon Saturday."

Quebec and most of the Lawrence River area was occupied by French colonizers starting in the 16th century. Britain, which had colonies further south, disputed the French control.

After several conflicts, many fought with help from their respective Indian allies, Britain wrested control of the region from France in the 1763 Treaty of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War.

Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, has been independent since the 1930s even though the queen remains the formal head of state.

Referendums for an independent Quebec were held twice, in 1980 and 1995, and separatists lost each time, although by a very narrow margin in the latest round. Though weakened by its defeat at the polls and internal fighting, the separatist movement is still hoping for a third chance with voters.

According to opinion polls, two thirds of Canadians would like to break institutional links with the British crown.

The British royalty, however, has ardent supporters of its own, represented by the Monarchist League of Canada, which claims 10,000 members, including 500 in Quebec, said provincial spokesman Etienne Boisvert.

Boisvert, whose French ancestors arrived in Quebec in the 16th and 17th centuries, conceded that France and Britain have a history of difficult ties.

But, he said, it was the British who "brought a parliamentary system of government, democracy and the doctrine of individual rights to North America."

He called the monarchy a "feudal institution that knew how to reinvent itself."

And the fact that the queen lives 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) away is not a concern for him, as she is represented in Canada by the governor general, David Lloyd Johnston.

In monarchist circles, people have proposed making a member of the royal family head each one of the 16 Commonwealth realms.

"Prince Harry, who has virtually no chance of becoming king, could set himself up here and found a Canadian branch of the monarchy," Boisvert speculated. "Or the future king could rotate -- six months in Canada, six in Australia, six in London."