8.23 Kamloops B.C.
Nancy:
Camping two days near Jasper, at a sweet little campground in the national park, right on the beautiful Athabasca River. The whole campground is decorated with red and blue ribbons tied to the bushes. This is how they mark the bushes that need to be torn out soon. Reason: too many bears wandering the campground eating the berries. Everywhere we go, we’re inundated with education and warnings about the abundance of grizzly bears, black bears, caribou, moose, elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats: I think the printing and signage industry here is 90% wildlife-information driven. Yet, we’ve seen none of these guys. Zero. Nice birds, cute squirrels, two mosquitos. Maybe we used up our Large Wild Mammal Viewing Points on the horses. At least it was a horse and not a bear sniffing our hats that day.

Yesterday we hiked up to some glaciers. Though they are melting quickly, they are still dynamic, icy blue and huge. In the little lake below, the mini icebergs were gorgeous – they are the pieces of the glacier above that have broken off and avalanched down to the water. The weather and the water then melt them in to the prettiest shapes as they float about looking majestic and really, really cold. The water color didn’t show up in the pictures, but it is an amazing milky aqua, like some impossible exotic precious stone. Glowing turquoise pearl ice water. Quite glacial, eh? All of the rivers here, and there are many, are various versions of the turquoise, some whiter, some deep rich teal, all shades of blue green turquoise aqua. The glaciers as they melt, grind the mountain beneath, which gets mixed with the river and lake water. If ground very fine, they call it glacial flour. You can watch geology up here and it is breathtaking. Why are glaciers aqua?

At the top of the trail, where the signs say not to bring your dogs as caribou are afraid of dogs due to inborn wolf fears, don’t get close to the caribou, don’t feed the caribou, etc., we saw plenty of other people not seeing caribou. We still loved the hike; it was steep and a good workout and we love being way up high in the mountains among dramatic scenery, cold winds, thin air and tiny alpine plants.

Jasper: tiny, pricey little tourist mountain town. There probably are good restaurants there but like dummies we didn’t get a guide book ahead of time so we missed them. We did find an after-hike hamburger, salad and beer place with a great outside patio upstairs, with amazing views of huge jagged mountains on all sides. Jasper is a hub for lots of great high altitude hikes; we should come back and stay longer. Met a young photographer who showed us some of his snow-sports photos on his computer; great shots of airborne snow-boarders etc.

It’s raining today, so we’re heading west towards Kamloops. Can’t not go to a place with a name like Kamloops Kamloops Kamloops. The locals say Loops. It’s a Cree Indian word about the rivers joining together there.

Excited about exploring Vancouver and Vancouver Island, and about eating fresh salmon for every meal, and waking at 4 am for more. We’ve been out (oot) a month plus a couple days, and we love this life. It’s a dream come true. I’m used to the small camper now, and love the flexibility it provides; we can go on the roughest tiniest roads that often lead to the prettiest places. In this miniature kitchen, Jack creates feasts. I’m getting pudgy even with all the hiking, due to his culinary talents. And this is with one frying pan, two sauce pans, two gas burners, a frig the size of a shoebox, and about 2 inches of counter space. He’s amazing. I will always have the sweetest memories about our little vitamin bottle filled now with olive oil, our little plastic butter holder thingy that Wendi gave us, our refrigerator freezing everything every other day, and our two forks, two spoons and two knives. We’re on vacation, so everything is better, brighter, funnier. Every minute seems to be a gift.

Global warming is starting to seriously worry many in British Columbia; the economy and natural beauty are closely intertwined here, and melting glaciers, bark beetles, fires and flooding are of great concern.

Every single word is in both English and French here. It’s great being in another country. I was hoping for different kinds of cars and fewer Kraft and Coke products in the stores, but this morning our eggs were from Poulets En Liberte – free range chickens. Our truck may hereby be named Poulet En Liberte.