The Cave and Basin

During one of their last days in Canmore we went to the Cave and Basin in Banff National Park. I should note here that the entire time they were visiting I was assuring them that bears were not an issue, ooops.

We were welcomed by a delightful ranger who advised us that there was indeed a bear in the area and we were to just be cautious. My sister without blinking just responded with 'well that's that then, back to the car!' She wishes.

Off we toddled along the decking walkway that at points was easily 12 feet above the ground, when a ranger went running past us speaking into his walkie-talkie. Watching where he went - just to the viewpoint on the walkway - and pointing out over into the fields my brother-in-law swung his backpack over his shoulders and started to run along the path to the ranger where he was shown where there was a grizzly bear laying among some trees.

For ten minutes we were happy upon the decking taking photographs of this young female grizzly who appeared to be napping. Then she got up and decided to take a like walk toward us – might I repeat at this point we were at least 12-15ft above the ground on the platform walkway so we felt safe enough. The ranger was there with us too so all was well… that was until a fisherman appeared from halfway along the walkway. Without sounds panicked I squeaked ‘ehm.. where did you come from?’ to which he squinted at me and said ‘those stairs’ pointing to a set of stairs that led right down to where the bear was heading.

The bear wouldn’t come up the stairs would she…? Of course she did.

By this point I don’t know what was more funny, my brother-in-law squealing with delight that he got to stay near the ranger and photograph the grizzly or my sister hyperventilating while explaining ‘but my son has only been eating salmon! He must smell like salmon!’ Bloomin hilarious!! Of course my sister says this cheekily but I genuinely feel she may have been slightly serious.

We are ushered up toward the Visitor Center, but not before the ranger shouts at my sister and I (and several other tourists) to stop in case the grizzly makes a direct line off the decking up towards us. Again, it was hilarious watching my sister and all the while my nephew is grinning from ear-to-ear oblivious to what is going on around him. Obviously we all survived and my brother-in-law got some amazing shots of the bear who appeared in that weeks Rocky Mountain Outlook newspaper – the poor girl was just hiding from a frisky big male.

(Unfortunately I did not get any photos of this incident but my brother-in-law did)

Entering into summer

With posts becoming few and far between you do wonder what we get up to all day.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lovely parents came over for a week at the end of February - celebrating our 'Canniversary'. This celebration brought with it a number of enlightening moments, many of which will reveal themselves over the coming months and year.

March was a whirlwind personally as I moved to a new job. I am very fortunate to work for such a great organisation and the work they do is phenomenal - or phenomenally Canadian according to L. I work with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative dealing with all things donation related. It is wonderful fun and I am continually learning every day about the projects that we lead or support on, from the tip of Yukon all the way down into America to Yellowstone National Park. For obvious reasons all things bear interest me the most though hearing about the destruction and damage of Dam's (Site C being the most current and horrific) on the environment is overwhelmingly sad. Yet the government see $$$$$ rather than nature. Plonkers.

April was by far my most cherished month here. The arrival of a beautiful baby boy and most beloved sister!! I haven't seen my nephew since he was three moths old and now he is a full year, they changes in him were astounding. He looks like a little man, or more specifically my dad. He is the cutest and most charming baby ever, and a super-duper flirt with the ladies! Waving and grinning
at every girl he saw! We had a wonderful time together and couldn't believe how quickly time flew by.

And here we are at the end of May. Yikes. This month we had L's mum visit us for a week and to take full advantage of the Holiday Monday we decided, at the last possible minute, that we would drive to Victoria. That is correct, a 14 hour drive EACH WAY for a 3 day break. On Friday night we strated our ambitious drive and stopped in Sicamous, then at 5am Saturday morning we continued the journey to reach Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island. It was the best decision ever as I have missed the ocean so much, I am truly a water person and lakes just do not have the same influence on me.

Sunday we explored downtown Victoria, enjoying Fisherman's Wharf and a marching band competition in front of the Legislative Building then on Monday morning 4am (after watching an amazing sunrise) we drove back to Canmore. Worth every minute.

Catching up almost to present - which would include the tale of L cutting his foot on a rock while climbing Saturday and 24 hours later being taken to hospital by moi with blood poisoning. He had to have 4 days of IV antibiotics, we are now friends with all A&E Dr's at Canmore Hospital, and now he has a further ten days of heavy duty oral antibiotics to make sue it doesn't come back.

As you can see we are keeping busy and continuing to explore Western Canada. With one more significant visitor booking to arrive in August for three weeks of climbing, hiking, kayaking and surfing who knows what stories we will come back with!

Out and Aboot

I honestly don’t think Canadians say ‘aboot’. They have a lovely soft way of saying it and to me it sounds more like ‘abowt’. Anyway I digress!

We have been managing to explore a little more of the area on our weekends, whether it is from the comfort of our front door or jumping in Scooby and driving to Lake Louise.

On a random Sunday night we decided to jump in the car and drive to Lake Louise for sunset as we thought the light would be perfect over the water. The light was perfect however the water wasn’t water, it was still ice. We hadn’t realised that the lake would still be frozen in June. It was beautiful nonetheless. 

Slushy Lake Louise

The best part of this impromptu trip was the massive, spectacular, rambling, grizzly bear that we saw at the side of the road a mere 100m away. It was amazing!! They are huge and I honestly think I could sit on it and it wouldn’t notice. They are also ridiculously camouflage amongst the trees and bushes as Lewis could not see it until it wobbled a branch on a tree. Phenomenal Sunday evening!

We have also been taken by the perfect light and long days that we have been lucky to experience in ‘Monsoon June’.

Happy June all!

What you do for a good photograph

Can we do more?

Onwards we go, again! It was the easiest drive of the trip, a tiny 22km. A little town that is located near the Banff National Park boundary, Canmore is a beautiful hubbub of outdoor fanatics and health food shops.

And this is where the story of Victoria comes to a screeching halt. As beautiful and as warm as Oak Bay in Victoria is, it has nothing on Canmore. I am unashamedly in love with Canmore and have no time for any other town at this moment in time. And neither does Lewis. In fact, I don’t think he even has time for me right now thanks to everything that Canmore has to offer.

It was here we felt as though we had arrived in Canada, the one with the startling different lifestyle that we were wanting to have and had moved from Scotland in search of.

Within two days, Lewis had found a potential employer, had an interview and was offered a job. Meant to be? I think so!! It was also within the first two days of arriving in Canmore we discovered the dire rental situation. There is nothing to rent.

It appears everyone is taken with Canmore, particularly people from Calgary who like to buy apartments to use on sporadic weekends.

There would be one apartment posted on kijiji every couple of days and the demand was unbelievable. Landlords explained they had almost 50 calls by noon and they had to remove the add due to the demand. Finding an apartment in the town was possibly the craziest and most insane search we have had to endure yet. It may beat the Scooby purchase.

Olaf the snowman? Nope, it’s Lewgi.

The drive from Jasper to Banff deserves an entry of its own.

Holy snowflakes is the only polite way I can phrase it, and I feel the videos that I took of sections of road cannot be published due to the obscenities forcibly used by the driver (I was not the driver). Although I think I was using worse language in my head.

We set off early one morning from Jasper along a very simple road with no junctions or changes that would take us all the way to Banff. Easy right? Wrong.

I think it was only 40 minutes into the journey we past the first set of snow gates, which I would like to point out were open at the time… only to be closed an hour after we went through.

Could have been a very bad diversion...

In the first and second hours, we were laughing and joking about the weather and lack of snow trucks to clear the road. It was absolutely stunning and it really looked like a winter wonderland with glittering snow and festive trees every which way you looked.

By the third and fourth hours we were driving though a continual sludge of at least 6” of snow and our tyres were starting to get clogged with ice around the rims. There was not so much laughing as there was a weird whimpering that was meant to sound like a breezy light-hearted chuckle. 

It was the most extreme weather I have ever witnessed and the intensity lasted a mere five hours.

Now, I never tend to talk about pee breaks but I feel it has to be mentioned as I was hysterical by this point (I laugh when nervous) and this just pushed me over the edge. Being somewhat influenced by the fight-or-flight instinct I was in desperate need, so Lewis the ever caring driver pulled over to the side of the road in the safest place we could find. I do not exaggerate when I say the snow came up past my window. Try getting out of the car when there is a wall of snow, I dare you.

Somehow, in my full-bladdered state I gained super-human strength and opened Scooby’s right wing (the door). It was here, between a mixture of galloping-jumping-leaping-head-first-tumbling that I dove into a pile of snow and landed in a weird mangled knot that I couldn’t fathom how my body could twist itself into such a position. Thankfully the effort and movement that I had to perform in order to untangle myself had made a delightful 4ft high open-topped igloo. The snowy ice-toilet.

The journey to Banff was phenomenal in all senses of the word and we have never been so thankful to see cars again. It was like re-appearing from an ice-age.

Funnily enough, it was only a 1km from the Banff snow gates, aka civilization, that we saw two snow ploughs beginning to clear what we had just driven. Great timing yet again.