8.19 Nancy
Writing from British Columbia, eh!! Yahoo, we made it, and it only took 3 wonderful weeks. We were welcomed to Canada by two bald eagles, and as everyone knows, the rivers are around every mountain and the mountains are everywhere. Turquoise, gleaming rivers, almost translucent with glacial influence. Stunning.
We’re in Kootenay National Park, one of the several adjoining parks that includes Jasper, Yoho and Banff, which we’ll see in the next few days.
Three weeks in the Rockies so far, and I’m jubilant. What is it about mountains that just make everything seem so perfect and sweet? Every time we even see a deer I’m that much happier, and we haven’t even seen a moose yet. (Plenty of elk, and boy are they gorgeous!) Yesterday on a hike from our campsite to a deserted little lake at the foot of the mountains, we made our first Canadian friend, and true to reputation, the Canadians are friendly. This one enjoyed walking with us for quite a while, ahead of us on the trail, picking seeds with its beak and hopping along on little bird-feet. With bright red eye shadow and a stripey tail, it enjoyed the rose hips that Jack picked and fed it… I’ve never had a bird hike with me before. What fun, that little sweetie. Why would it want to walk along with us? I don’t have a Canadian bird book yet, so it’s currently the Canadian Red Eyebrow Trail Chicken.
Everything here is bear-awareness-related. Haven’t seen a one, but it’s just a matter of time I hope.
At the lake, there were huge dragon flies everywhere. I’ve always loved them, and these were beautiful blue striped, and found us very interesting, checking out everything we did maybe hoping we were stirring up dinner for them. I suspect if anyone cared to research dragon fly intelligence, they’d find them smarter than the average bug. There was a flailing of wings maybe 20 feet out on the lake, and Jack rescued and saved it! Unwilling to actually swim to it in the very cold water, he kept tossing sticks out there hoping the victim would swim to one and recover, and eventually it did. It took quite a while but that little critter kept alive in the water somehow, and amazingly didn’t become fish bait in the meantime. Yeah for Jack’s Dragonfly Rescue Service.
Gas here is crazy expensive, well over $1/liter. We knew that but still it’s a shock. We’re grateful for this relatively economical home on wheels; most of these folks with real motor homes must really feel the owie.
We miss the horses and Cookie; waking up to whinnies or purrs is the best way to awake; but we’re hanging in there. What would we do without Braldt and Margaret, loving Cookie every day with great intensity, and keeping an eye on the house, sending our mail, etc. Braldt’s painting lots of new pieces in time for his big opening at the gallery next weekend, and Cookie is helping by napping near him at all times and biting his leg if she needs cuddling. I’m so sad that we can’t be there for his big night. The pieces we saw before we left were great, of course; Braldt is a master. I hope they don’t all sell by the time we return, so that we can see them.

(Jack)The Icefields Parkway, where we begin to question our priorities

The Icefields Parkway, AKA Highway 93, connects the Alberta towns of Lake Louise and Jasper.
The views along this road are stunningly beautiful: Like Glacier, only much larger.
The peaks are a maximum of 12,000 feet, but they start from a much lower elevation, so are quite dramatic. The rock comprising the
peaks is limestone and shale--remnants 0f ancient seabeds thrust high into the air by colliding tectonic plates. This far north,
the high peaks are cloaked in glaciers and icefields, at least for now until global warming changes all that.
And, speaking of global warming, the air is suffused with smoke from the many forest fires burning in Montana and Washington.
In some parts of Kootenai Park, which we drove through this morning, the mountains were nearly obscured by the smoke. Shades of L.A.!

This morning we hiked through the ochre beds, which are fields of powdered limestone stained by iron oxides, and ranging in color from bright red-orange to grey-yellow. I painted
a bit on my face, as did the natives of yore. It dried out my skin. the Natives used to mix it with animal fats. Over 200 years ago, Capt. Cooks's sailors, after having tasted the charms
of the Tahitian ladies, found the native women of the Pacific northwest a bit wanting, covered as they were in ochre and fish oil. That did not deter a few, who, as the diaries tell,
"scrub'd them on deck and desported forthwith."

This evening we are camping near the Athabasca Glacier, about a mile down the road from the Icefields Visitor Centre (not Center...we are in Canada).
We have found beautiful views, and many people. This is our dilemma. We love the beautiful places, but don't much fancy hanging out with hordes of humanoids. That is the main reason we like Southern Utah. We both are thinking, even as we see these majestic views, that we miss the solitude of the Pryor Mountains and the companionship of horses.
I hear an aspiring Abe Lincoln splitting rails...or maybe firewood... just down 2 campsites from me. Last night, after I had thought we had gone to sleep, a few young women set up their camp next to us and began chattering. (We call these “Corn Krakes”…look it up in google)

Perhaps the solution to this dilemma is to talk with people when we are in places like this, learning about where they are from and what they hope for their children;
and when we are alone, to revel in the wilds. But a much better deliverance lies just ahead…Labor Day, and the lessening of the crowds.