Continued from My Canadian Rockies Trip, Part 6: Maligne Lake and Spirit Island.
Today we would be visiting the Columbia Icefields, walk on a glacier— essentially a river of slow-moving ice, and get an opportunity to drink freshly melted glacier ice that had formed thousands of years ago, hopefully without modern pollutants. To that end, I kept an empty water bottle with me.
Continued from My Canadian Rockies Trip, Part 5: Lakes Louise, Moraine and Peyto.
After yesterday’s visit to three scenic lakes, we headed out today to see yet another—the stunning Maligne Lake. Spirit Island in Maligne Lake is perhaps one of the most iconic and photographed spots in Jasper National Park, seen in advertisements by Apple and Kodak showcasing the enhanced photo-capabilities of their iPads and films. A must-see place and I was looking forward to it.
The route to Maligne Lake took us through almost unspoiled wilderness teeming with wildlife. We saw numerous elk and wild mountain goats grazing by the roadside.
Continued from My Canadian Rockies Trip, Part 3: Waterton and Glacier International Peace Park.
The visit to the spectacular Glacier National Park in Montana, whetted my appetite for the Canadian Rockies. This morning we headed north from Pincher Creek through the scenic Kananaskis valley on our way to Banff, a beautiful, vibrant mountain town in Western Canada. Our first stop was the Bar U Ranch, now a national historic site.
Continued from My Canadian Rockies Trip, Part 2, Kootenai Pioneer Village.
Today we headed out to see two scenic parks in two countries, the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and the Glacier National Park in the USA. In 1932 they were combined to form the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, a sign of enduring friendship between the two adjoining nations. It also made eminent sense since the two together form one conjoined ecosystem and makes management of the parks easier.
Continued from My Canadian Rockies Trip, Part 1
After the eventful visit to the Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump described in the last post, we arrived at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village at Pincher Creek, a small town in southwestern Alberta.
John George “Kootenai” Brown was born in Ireland in 1839. He served in the British army in India during The Revolt of 1857 (aka the Sepoy Mutiny). Eventually he made his way to Western Canada and traded with the Kootenai First Nation earning his nickname “Kootenai”. He was a multi-faceted individual; trader, hunter, tourist guide and later, park warden. The Pioneer Village bearing his name was established in 1966 to preserve the frontier heritage of that era. The well preserved cabins with period memorabilia evoke that historic time.
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