Kellys Bathtun

This was a beautiful little lake outside Hinton.  It was part of a huge William Switzer Provincial Park.  Such a serene place.

Beaver Pond

Hinton Beaver Marsh

We went back into the town of Hinton, which is another crossroads town with whatever you need to provision to continue the trip.  This is right at the northern entrance to Jasper National Park.   We did all the usual things, but especially wanted to see this Beaver Marsh.

The marsh is on the outskirts or town, and is a wonderful example of what a town can do to really make itself special.  The money came from one of the big lumber companies.  The beaver family has been here about 20 years, and have this beautifully protected area.  There are lots of trails and paths around the marsh.

This duck family – I counted eleven little ones, had the most wonderful place in which to grow up.

There was a big beaver lodge.  While we were there in the middle of the day, and saw no beavers, it was a special place.

Flowers at Rock Lake

I have been saving a lot of wildflower pictures to try to do them justice in a special blog, but they are accumulating at such a great rate, I thought I would try to show them more as we go along.  These were at Rock Lake.

Rock Lake - Our First Deer!

Rock Lake

We have seen several deer, but they are very quick to run.  The moose were always watching you nonchalantly. The caribou seemed confused.  The ones we saw on the road ran one way and then the other, not quite making up their minds.   But the deer we have seen stay just at the edge of the clearing, and turn tail and run the minute you slow down.But, I got a picture of one today --- finally! You have to look closely!

Our campsite tonight is at Rock Lake.   This is a staging area for Willmore Wilderness, which is accessible only on foot.  It is about 22 miles off the road, but it sounded beautiful.  This sign says the road is ending; right after the sign that tells you it’s a Provincial Park!    However, it is a well-graded logging road and we figure it is through some mutual agreement that the logging company takes care of the road and the government assumes no liability or responsibility for maintaining it.

 It is the weekend and as usual, we worry about whether there will be a spot. As usual, there are very few people here, and we end up with one whole camping area to ourselves.  There is a pretty creek with campsites on it, and then the lake.  It is really windy!

  As we scout out the various areas, we see a young couple and their baby.  They are bringing a strange looking raft out of the water.  They are from Edmonton, although they have been there only a year and a half, and lived in Grande Cache before that.  The raft was one he built for Canada Day, but the authorities are telling him he needs a license for it.  We thought the mast was for a sail, but it was for the Canadian flag.  He said that the flag was the first thing he removed, since it would be the first thing that got taken!  The Canadians have their flag on everything!   I looked at a big fishing reel attached to the mast, and he tells me that it is attached to an anchor, and the line goes through the middle of the raft.  All pretty clever – the raft is Miss Emily. The wife appeared to be Indian, but it is very hard to tell.  Some of the people look Asian – and if she weren’t Indian, John thought she was Chinese, I thought Japanese.  The baby looked Indian.

He works in IT for health services for the First Nations.  It encompasses about 40,000 Indians.  They are divided into many bands.  He says everything his department does must be run through the Chief, and they aren’t allowed on the Reserves without the Chief’s permission. Also, he said the First Nations don’t own the Reserves, he just found out.  They control them but the land belongs to the government.  Anyway, he finds the work very different and “challenging.”  I wish I could have talked to him a lot more!

Rock Lake has an interesting legend on how it got its name.  And the Lake Trout here have not been stocked.  Their story, too, is very interesting!

After dinner, we once again took our chairs down to the Lake.  The young man we met said the sunsets are great!  We watched the light change on the hills and mountains, although it is much more dramatic when there is snow!

Wildhorse Lake

Wildhorse Lake

We have chosen our next campground right outside Jasper National Park.  It is  down another  dirt road, but the view is supposed to be great. Our choice proved to be a good one.

 On our way to the turnoff, we could actually see the beginnings of the National Park.

  The lake is small, and is popular with boaters.

In the evening, the wind quieted down, and the lake became smooth.  Plenty of bugs on the surfact to attract the fish.

There was a great sunset , a wonderful way to spend an evening, looking out our window.

INto the Canadian Rockies

Into the Canadian Rockies

As we left Dawson Creek, we headed south into Alberta Province.  Now we are on Mountain Time and push our clocks ahead one hour.  As we were leaving Dawson Creek, John wanted a picture of this sign.  All I can say is one, I hope this guy’s wife gets an extra 25% of the sale proceeds for tolerating this sign, and two, anybody who can’t spell “within”  - well it says something about them!

This is such pretty farm country.   You could be going through any farm community in the Midwest of the US, with grain elevators and railroad crossings.  The primary crops are oats, wheat, barley, and hay, which has just been harvested.  Rapeseed is still evident, but they are having problems with bugs, and in order to save the crop, the pesticides would cost so much they wouldn’t make a profit.  The newspaper says they aren’t rotating their crops enough, planting canola in successive years when it should be every third year.

The road is pretty = big clouds and blue sky above us.  There is quite a large clear cut.  We see signs for elk, moose and deer.  I asked John why they didn’t have signs for bears. We have never seen a road sign saying watch for bears.

We are seeing the Canadian Rockies now, the foothills anyway.

We stop at Lake Musreau, a really pretty mountain lake with a campground full of kids dogs and lots of people having a good time.  We take our chairs down to the lake after dinner and stay until it is almost dark.  Then we went back and built a campfire, our first of the trip.  It sounds weird to say that it was too cold up until now to build a fire, but its true! Late into the night, someone is telling kids ghost stories and we can hear them scream with delight as they get the wits scared out of them!

The next day, we are headed for Grande Cache.  The areas we are entering have lots of places to stay and things to see, so it’s getting hard to pick.  This is different than Alaska, where the roads were few and so were the towns, parks, etc.  This territory was both a staging area for fur trapping, and a place to cache the furs until they could get to major trading areas. The trapping families whose descendants still live here were Iroquois from the East.    Lumber, coal, oil and gas are now the major economies.   We saw the coal factory right by the road, and veins of coal in the road cuts as we drove along.  Grande Cache was only built in 1969 to serve a large Porcupine coal plant just north of it.  We did stop at the visitors centre.  We liked the feel of this area and would have stayed longer except the place we picked to spend the night is way down the road, and we got a late start.

Now Here is a Real Deer

As we were leaving Rock Lake, I spotted this deer sitting right in the tree line.  We could have gotten more pictures of him if another car hadn't come along and he took off.

Our wildlife pictures seem to be like making pancakes.  The first ones don't turn out so good, but then we get the hang of it and they start getting better!