Touring the Canadian Rockies has been on the back burner of my wish list since my Mother said many, many years ago that she’d like to visit her namesake- Lake Louise in Banff, Canada. I had a vague idea that it was a long way west of Minneapolis or she might have actually made the trip but she never did.
Then, last year, a couple of our senior friends toured the Canadian Rockies and boy was I jealous. I’d been talking about it for years. Why had I put it off? I made a decision that this year, all’s well, we go.
I promised Moe no long walks and we even began to joke that we’d take only wheelchair accessible trails. As a non-vacationing family the decision
to take an extended vacation, just the two of us, was a leap of faith.
We flew to Calgary, Alberta and map on lap headed out of town west to Banff and our B&B. After a short drive we could see the distant mountains and got all excited, as they grew larger and larger.
The guidebooks said you want to see Lake Louise early in the morning in order to see the reflection of the surrounding mountains (and to avoid the crush of tourists). We were up by 7AM. An hour later we were parking at Lake Louise. No rain but hazy. On the short trail to the lake I was very excited. It couldn’t be as lovely as those pictures I’d seen, could it?
Well folks, it could and it is. Simple breathtaking. I couldn’t believe the colors, a combination of shimmering gray and green from the glacier-silt filled water. All around dense pine forest, moraine, ragged peaks, snow and glacier, canoes and tourists all reflected off the tear shaped lake as off a giant mirror. It was just too beautiful.
After wonderful days touring glaciers, lakes and waterfalls we decided to drive southwest out of the Rockies to Well’s Gray Provincial Park near Clearwater, British Columbia. The tourist office suggested a hike around nearby Ray’s Farm where animals often gather in the clearing at dusk. It was now approaching dusk and we headed to the farm a bit off the main road. The farm was owned by pioneers who cleared the land in this wilderness, built a log home and barn and raised 3 children. After they died and were buried on the farm, the children moved away and donated the farm to Parks Canada. That was over fifty years ago and nature is gradually returning the land to its original wilderness state. As we set out on the path to the farm I realized that we were completely alone on the trail for the first time on our trip. We soon reached the clearing and the deteriorating buildings and got a real sense of what it meant to be a pioneer- alone with nature. The place was silent except for the hum of mosquitos. I wanted to turn back but Moe said we might as well take the path around the farm, which, the info center had said, takes only an hour. On the path I noticed fresh droppings of an animal or two, which I could not identify so it wasn’t a cow, horse, goat or dog. We had been warned to beware of bears and I was suddenly very bewaring. In fact, I was scared silly. Terrified. Here we are, all alone in a forest, no phone reception, the sun is setting fast and wild animals might appear at any moment. The guidebooks said to keep talking so as not to catch the bears unawares as that angers them. To be on the safe side I kept singing in a quaking voice. What on earth did I have in my mind coming to see wild animals in a clearing? On top of that it was prime time for the mosquitos and they were having a ball on my shoulders and knees. In a shrill voice I didn’t recognize, I told Moe we better move it. He took the lead (to block the bears) and we set a fast pace, scratching all the way.Over an hour later, after a few bewildering wrong turns, we exited the forest at the parking lot, exhausted, and headed back to Clearwater. We found our B&B on a quiet street. It was a cosy little cabin that the owners had just built themselves. My shoulders, knees and elbows were a mass of throbbing redness but a good soothing cream and a hot shower helped. After supper we Skyped the kids about our near bear adventure and then climbed into the high bed and dived under the big fluffy feather quilts, feeling great.
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