Enjoying Jasper National Park

In spite of the cloudy weather again - we started out to explore around Jasper Friday 6/29.  Heading east to see Maligne Canyon and lake we found some scruffy looking mountain sheep ewes by the side of the road with half of their winter coat on and half off.  Not very beautiful but interesting all the same.

She might need an exfolliation treatment at one of the fancy spas around here!
Just after we turned on the Maligne road we saw a mother elk with her baby still so young the spots were on its back like Bambi. It was frisking around like a silly kid but mom was keeping a pretty close watch on it. 

Further down the road we saw a black bear. The funny thing when we saw the cars stopped and Dad asked a guy with his camera going back to his car what he saw he said, “just a black bear” – just like it was a buffalo in Yellowstone.  But of course to us a black bear is still cause to stop so we pulled over.  Interestingly enough there was also a somewhat large elk with horns still in the velvet in the same area.  When the bear got too close to the elk he stared the bear down and the bear moved away on up the hill.  Less than 100 meters on down there was another black bear. They must have some agreement to share the territory.

Never with any of the animals we have seen in Jasper has there ever been a Ranger on the scene.  And believe it or not no-one has been injured or any animal seem to have been bothered by the people watching it.  I have been thinking about writing a letter to the head ranger in Yellowstone and suggesting he might want to contact Parks Canada and get some tips on wildlife/people encounter management.  Of course up here there are just a fraction of the people you see in Yellowstone.  Dad did have to tell one dumb “touron” he ought not get any closer to a monster elk we saw later in the evening next to the road by Talbot Lake.  They were already about 10-12 yds from the elk and the guy was walking closer. 

We drove on down to Lake Maligne, the largest lake in the Canadian Rockies, but did not take the boat cruise out to see the mystery island because it was so cloudy. 

We hiked out a ways to a look-out point and met a retired teacher from Ucon Elementary School, Mr Sweat.  He is the director of the Family History Center in Idaho Falls now and they are closed for a couple of weeks so he and his wife came up in their van with an air mattress in back to see the country.  I am glad for my luxurious accommodations!  I was yakking to these folks while Dad had gone back to take a photo of a Sitka Black tail deer along the trail back from the look-out. 

The folks from Idaho told us not to miss the Maligne Canyon which we had not stopped at on the way to the lake so we stopped there and it was another amazing set of bridges or look-outs over the Maligne River rushing through a very narrow canyon.  We only went down to 3 of the 6 and even that was a monster hike out.  The name Maligne was given to the River by a fur trapper because it was so treacherous to cross – means “evil or dangerous” in French.

Back on the main road heading east Dad stopped to take pictures of a small bull elk in the velvet on the left side of the road.  There were about 6 or 7 cars stopped there.  They have nice wide shoulders to pull out on. 

I was sitting in the truck just watching and looked on the right side behind all the photographers and there was a monster bull elk standing eating the bushes and another medium sized one just laying down there surveying the scene.  I yelled to Dad to turn around and he did and then all photographers followed. 

This was when the one guy started to get too close to the one laying down I talked about earlier.

I could not resist taking a picture with the other camera.  You can see I go for the whole scene with the amazing mountains and the elk – not the nose hair close up like Dad favors.  To each his own I guess.

We traveled a bit further on out the road and were again stopped by a big curl Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep just licking minerals by the side of the road.  Dad got another nice picture without any rangers telling us to stay back.



Our destination was the Miette Hot Springs which we finally made it to and enjoyed a nice soak in a beautiful set of pools of different degrees of heat with fabulous mountain vistas.  The pool was operated by Parks Canada so was beautifully maintained and nice lockers.  It was the first thing we thought was really reasonably priced $5.25 per person for seniors and one “looney” coin for the locker.

We finally made it home again around dark 10:15 pm after seeing a herd of about 12 or 15 female elk in front of some rental cottages by the river.  There was not enough light to stop and photograph them or we would have been even later home!  I am going to have to start packing both lunch & dinner in the cooler when we leave home in the morning.  We never seem to make it back until there is no more light!!