Maligne Lake
We moved to another campground called Whistler. It is right in the middle of Jasper and has 781 campsites. There is another similar campground nearby. But, the campsites are spread out, and although the full service campsites were full, we had no trouble getting a spot in the “unserviced” area.
On our second day in Jasper, we took a drive out to Maligne (Ma -leen) Lake. On the way, we spotted bear watchers. They had seen a black bear down by a lake, and had chased it across the road. And, they were motioning for some to go into the woods and cut it off and get more pictures. One man and his wife high-fived each other over getting some close up pictures. MUY ESTUPIDO. We are now taking pictures of others taking pictures of bear!
When we got to the lake, we opted to take a boat ride up the lake to Spirit Island. This is such an iconic landmark and appeared for many years in KODAK commercials. There are several stories of how the island got its name, including that the guy who took the picture for Kodak was asked the name of the island and he said Spirit Island, tired of being asked the question. There were none of the romantic Indian legends that you expect to hear. Somehow it deserves better than Paul Anka singing about "Do you remember - the times of our lives?"
This is such a beautiful area that the pictures must speak for themselves.
John also took a picture of a baby chipmunk – such a tiny one, munching away in the bushes by the path.
On the way back to the dock, we spotted a camera crew and a person in a bear costume taking photos on the shore. As we passed by, too far away to take a picture, the “bear” lugged a canoe up on shore from the lake. We will wait to see if we spot a commercial like this!
Driving back, we stopped at Medicine Lake. It has an unpredictable water level, and some years, is empty, others very high, and no one can figure out why. They had signs there about Caribou and we found out there are only four caribou in the Maligne Herd! There are four caribou herds in this wider area, and they only number up to 10 animals per herd. The sign said the woodland caribou are much different than the barren ground caribou, which can number in the thousands per herd. All the signs we had been seeing telling us to watch for caribou therefore related to four animals!
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