Northern Trails And Tales

It’s Saturday, our layover day and planned foray to the Rockies around Banff and Jasper. The weather wizard was rooting for us, and what had been forecast as showers and rain actually materialized as a cloudy morning and then a mostly sunny afternoon…. The morning started with a trip to Starbucks so we could access the internet. And so we did, a four buck vanilla bean mocha and a $7.50 Bell Internet fee later. For that kind of coin I could have called most of you! We did get e-mails from many of you and I got a chance to get the blog and quite a few e-mails out. Forget dollars and sense, I guess it was worth it….The approach to Banff from the plains is absolutely magnificent. There really isn’t much of a transition. Suddenly, the mountains loom before you and then–bang– loom over you. It’s truly impossible to try to convey the awesome grandeur they present. Big. They are. Tall. For sure. Overwhelming. Certainly. Majestic, too. Breath taking.
Well, close— and who knows if it’s the mountains or the emphysema? But just absolutely remarkable in the way they humble everything else. Standing in front of, say, Bow Summit, it isn’t hard to imagine some kid gazing up and planning to level it with his robotic atom powered dozer that he sketched in study hall just last week. Or maybe not. Anyway, a picture’s worth all the words I can conjure so I’ll try to get a few photos up on the blog within the next couple days…Lake Louise deserves promient mention. It’s located off the highway, maybe a thousand or so feet up a mountain. It’s not too big, about 200 acres maybe. But its tourmaline glacial waters tend to mesmerize against the gray and snow capped mountains. We drove the Icefield’s Parkway and saw some glaciers close up. What we never did see was much wildlife—and no bears at all. We did see a cute chipmunk and an emaciated squirrel. Also, something that resembled an obese crow that I decided was a magpie because I don’t know what a magpie looks like but suppose a crow afflicted with giantism might be close. We also saw two “somethings” tearing apart a carcass (unidentifiable, but bloody) but Dave and I couldn’t decide if they were coyotes, cougars, or wolves, though we did agree that they
were too far from home to be common house dogs. Maybe it was just the noon day sun, but none of the large animals we hoped for ventured forth though there were literally hundreds of signs warning us of their presence and the fact that it’s both unwise and illegal to feed them….. Hunger on the mind, we were too tired to cook supper so we had KFC. No extra crispy. No mashed potatoes. Fries only. And maybe that has something to do with why Kerry lost the election….

They said you have a blue guitar
That doesn’t play things as they are.
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”….
- Wallace Stevens( I think)

Anyway, up early Sunday morning and off from affluent Calgary to the booming oil area beyond Edmonton. Actually, we took a perimeter route around Edmonton, which we feared was still celebrating yesterday’s win over Carolina . Believe me, no one up here thinks the final goal was at all in dispute. Anyway, we are sitting in Whitecourt about 100 miles northwest of Edmonton tonight. It drizzled on and off for a good part of the ride today, and actually rained for a while, but had pretty much stopped by the time we reached the campground. In some ways, this was the dullest ride of the trip, though it would be unfair ro say it isn’t a pretty area. Calgary is cattle country and that pretty much continues up to Edmonton and beyond. Occasionally a working oil rig can be spotted from the highway, but there is no spectacular scenery, and perhaps we became jaded after yesterday’s trip to the Rockies. I may have mentioned this, but several people told me that the Alberta Rockies may be the most beautiful part of our trip. So far, they are right!…. Once again we got stiffed on an internet hook-up. The campground is changing from modems to wi-fi, but the wi-fi isn’t hooked-up yet (They’re waiting for an electrician, Ethan)and the modems are gone….. But Dave is very happy to be here: They have a petting zoo— for real. A few goats, a miniature donkey, some turkeys, chickens, a sheep, and one loud bantam rooster. And now the blue guitar. Right after we got here, Dave said he was going into town to pick up some groceries. Town is a couple minutes away. He returned over an hour later. As soon as supper was over, he said he was heading to the river, the mighty Athabasca River which boundaries one side of the campground. The only way to the river is past the petting zoo. He came back to report a fisherman with a couple pike down at the boat launch. No mention of the petting zoo. In honesty, I did stop at the petting zoo myself, and in addition to the normal menagerie, they had about ten or twelve seemingly tropical birds. So that was about it. Not the most stimulating day, but if you want to liven it up a bit, just try the blue guitar….

We had a good drive from Whitecourt to Dawson Creek, covering the distance in about five and a half hours. The morning started out cloudy but quickly turned partly, then mostly, sunny. And temperatures soared, probably up to 70 and maybe a bit more. There is a lot of rolling country some of it as flat as the prairies, and checkerboarded with farms, but things get a bit more hilly as you approach Dawson Creek, which you reach by dropping into a river valley. There are some wooded areas, and we saw a moose and a couple deer. There are still lots of cattle and an occasional working oil rig can be seen from the highway. Out of view there is a lot of oil exploration going on and the Sagitawah RV Park we stayed in last night has pretty much been taken over by workers from the oil fields. They are easily recognizable by the trucks they drive which are so mud encrusted it’s impossible to determine the make or model. The mud is literally two inches thick— on the sides of the trucks!…..Perhaps the most interesting thing we saw today was the Kleskun Hills where the erosion of glacial drift, mostly clay,sand, and gravel has formed interesting terracaes and land formations whose names i don’t know. It’s an area rich in dinosaur tracks and particularly aquatic fossils, from roughly 70 million years ago…. On the political front a number of issues are hot right now. Folks are reacting to the loss of the Liberal government, pro and con. The Provinces are debating revenue sharing and not coming to any agreement. The taxpayers of Alberta are particularly incensed that they are sending money to Quebec, which they claim are able to provide better services than Alberta— on Alberta’s dime. The papers are full of letters warning citizens not to give up any civil liberties as it won’t make the country any safer and it’s just what the “enemy” wants. And, many sure as hell don’t want to be like the United States. The death penalty gets some play, and the game wardens in Saskatchewan want to carry guns now that they have a Conservative government….. Alaska feels a lot closer. We are sitting on Mile 0 of the Alaskan Highway , roughly 1500 miles from Fairbanks, our first major stopping point in Alaska. Tomorrow, it’s off into the forests as we head to Ft. Nelson. Our wildlife sightings should pick up considerably. The Alaskan Highway is vastly improved from WWII days when it was constructed in just nine months but it’s still pretty rough compared to what we’ve become accustomed to. However, the stretch we’re covering in the morning is in nice shape, and the weather is supposed to be superb, so we hope to enjoy ourselves and have some interesting reports for you tomorrow— if we get on the ‘net…. For those keeping score, we are now on Pacific Time, three hours behind you Nutmeggers….