Day 8

Today was amazing. My experiences today were ineffable, completely beyond words, but I'll do my best.

We got an early start because it was forecasted to become overcast around noon. We dropped my aunt off at work, then drove out towards the mountains. As we drove, my uncle told me about different peculiarities about the city.

The bow river runs through downtown Calgary. Its all glacier water and it runs into the city's reservoir, so its super cold but really clean and clear. Apparently people like to float down the river in inflatable dinghys during the summer, but the cops nail them all the time for not having life jackets. I'm speaking from experience when I say that you don't EVER want to get that sort of ticket.

A recent bylaw says that all new [large] buildings can't have square corners. Calgary gets really windy, and the turbulence coming off non-aerodynamic buildings is devastating. The city has actually closed down a few times in the past few years because the wind has knocked out windows on people below!

I have never been in a city where absolutely everybody drives almost exactly the speed limit all the time. If you're going through a school zone where the limit is posted at 30 km/h, people drive 30 km/h. There are speed cameras everywhere, and almost everybody has stories about getting a number of tickets from them.

Another oddity from Calgary is that they don't really plow many residential streets in the winter, so the snow just builds up, and it gets packed down, and collects potholes, so most people drive SUVs or trucks so they don't bottom out their vehicles all the time. They also don't use road salt. Instead they throw down pebbles, so everybody has cracked windshields, which they are resigned to replacing every few years when it gets too bad.

One thing that really surprised me was all the stories about people dying in many different ways by nature around here. Back in Ottawa almost nobody dies because they drowned, or were buried under snow, or eaten by wild animals etc etc, so I was given a whole new profound respect for nature.

We got to the mountains, and I realized that its very early spring, if not still winter here. There is a lot more snow than back home for sure. All the lakes are still mostly frozen, and I needed my ski jacket, gloves and a toque to stay warm. We did a small hike to a waterfall that was still covered in snow, but it was still very pretty.

A snow bank in the parking lot

How strong is that sign!?

Next we went to spray lakes, and I assessed the possibility of kite-snowboarding there later with a friend of my uncle's. I think it would be great! As we arrived there, there were a few people just setting up their dog teams to go on the lake. He assured us that the ice was still good, so we walked out and determined that kiting was a definite possibility.

I figured my mom would want me take a picture of the dogs...

From there we drove to Canamore which is essentially Banff, but less commercialized, and less busy. There are some really nice shops with beautiful mountains in the background, and a river going through the middle of it. We got lunch at the local A&W before going to Banff.

Canamore, going into the valley.

On the way to Banff, my uncle explained how 'they' were trying to help people co-habitate with animals in Alberta. For instance, apparently a lot of bears hung out near the train tracks, and were getting killed by trains. At first they thought it was because all sorts of grain was falling off the trains from the prairies going to the coast, so they actually went around and vacuumed it up. It didn't work, so eventually they put cameras on the front of these trains, and found out that the bears would be in the woods, hear the trains and try to run away from them. The most open place to run would be on the tracks, so they would start running down the tracks, and get hit. They're still working on a solution for that.

Another interesting factoid I learned was that 'they' determined that the highways split up breeding populations of certain animals, essentially inbreeding them and weakening the population. They spent a lot of money building animal overpasses, which the animals ignored for about two years, and everybody thought the money was wasted. Eventually however the animals got accustomed to them and now use them all the time.

Finally we got to Banff and looked around. Just as my uncle had warned me, Banff is very commercialized, and it reminded me a lot of mont-tremblant from back near(ish) to Ottawa. The hot springs were closed for the season, so we walked up and looked at the Banff Springs Hotel, which is a huge castle of a hotel built by Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. The same guy who built the CP rail, the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, and the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. I'm pretty sure that they could have filmed the Harry Potter movies there...

A Lousy shot, I know. I'm not a photographer...

Anyway, that's the short version of my day. I did a lot, and I'm still not 100% sure I wasn't dreaming for most of it. Tonight I'll figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of the week.

Until next time: Don't call me, I'll call you. ;) (Besides that being an attempt at a witty closing statement, seriously, its long distance and I probably won't answer the phone...)