Cultural Explorers

Day 5 – Tuesday, July 28th

Getting to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta isn’t on the way to ANYWHERE. The guidebook said that anyone who goes there really has to WANT to go there. Waterton Lakes is part of the Waterton Lakes Glacier International Peace Park, and is directly above Glacier.

Rain, rain, rain. Patti loves rain, but we have had rain! We continue to keep our string alive of having at least some rain every day of the trip. That said, we have also had breaks in the weather that has allowed some amazing things to happen and sights to be seen. We have been glad to not be sleeping in a tent, but using our great mini-van set up. It is getting better every night.

We left Glacier National Park in the early morning and headed north to the sister park that adjoins Glacier. Once we got to Waterton, having crossed the Canadian border, and being told by the Border guard that we had been in Canada for ten seconds and had already broken the law three times by rolling through three stop signs 10 feet apart to stop at the border crossing station…we think this is his deal that he must say all day long! Whoops. Anyway, we showed our passports and were “in”. Waterton Lakes is a charming little town, with one of the old classic lodges, The Prince of Wales Hotel, built by the railroads. This one was built during the US’s prohibition. Canada was a place you could still drink, so the Great Northern Railroad would bring people in to Glacier, and then bus them up into Canada for a party. Who knew!?

We got a campsite, this time in a beautiful valley, set up and then, surprise, it started to rain! We drove into town to look at the hotel and to stop at the Visitor’s Center. But, as we were driving the winding road back to town we saw several cars pulled to the side of the road. We stopped and asked what they were seeing. “Grizzly Bear,” was the answer. We quickly parked, too, and got out the field glasses. It turned out the bear was behind a tree about 150 yards away. We were just beginning to doubt there really was a bear when it came out from behind the tree and rambled along the hillside. We had seen many black bears in the wild, but never a grizzly. We watched it for a while until it disappeared into a growth of bushes.

So, we were back on the plan to go into town. There we explored the grounds and lobby of the Prince of Wales. What a tribute to the engineering and artistic abilities of 80 years ago. Then it was on to the visitor’s center where we met another of our interesting people, a park interpreter named Pam. Pam is from Vancouver Island and has been working at a number of parks throughout the past several years. She was fun and charming, offered us great advice on what to do in the area, and then offered us the chance to take a computerized quiz to find out what type of “explorers” were we. We both dove in taking the quiz and found to our relief, but NOT amazement, that we were both what is termed “Cultural Explorers” The summary is this “In the world of explorers, you are a Cultural Explorer. You seek constant opportunities to embrace, discover, and immerse yourself in the entire experience of the culture, people and settings you visit. Not content to just visit historic sites and watch from the sidelines, you want to participate in the modern-day cultural festivals, or go off the beaten track to discover how people truly live.” As a couple of old history majors, we had to just laugh and smile at the apt description…. and it was fun to have acknowledged that our style was really that of digging in and learning as we travel.

For those of you who are feeling REALLY glad that you are not on this 9,000 mile drive, but are curious about you or other’s vacationing style, here you go: Want to find out your own exploration style? You can take the quiz at: www.canada.travel/eq

Following Pam’s advice, we went exploring on one of the few roads in the park, following it to its end at the lovely Cameron Lake. We discovered the lake straddled the border with the U.S., the far end of the lake was in the States. Dick was ready for a hike and Patti was ready for a break. Under threatening skies and a little drizzle, Dick headed off along the lake shore. The crowd of people at the parking lot soon thinned to only a handful of people really enjoying the peace and beauty of the place. As expected, there were great views and many wild flowers. The trail ended at the edge of a bog that was a protected area for the grizzly bears. Dick returned to the car to find that Patti had found some hot chocolate and a good murder mystery book to read. She was snoozing peacefully when Dick returned. The real rain had held off while Dick walked but now began to fall. The idea of cooking dinner in such conditions did not appeal to either of us (not in our explorer style for the day) so we had a good meal in town. The rain continued for much of the night.

We returned to the campground in time for the evening educational program done by our own Pam. It was called, “Oh Give me a Home” about ungulates (hoofed animals who chew their cuds like deer, big horned sheet, and elk). Pam was a great storyteller, a highly knowledgeable educator, and it turns out, a pretty darn good rapper ending the program with a highly energetic “rap” about her inner mule deer. You really DID have to be there, but trust us, it was fun.

Day 6 – Wednesday, July 29th

We were awake bright and early, watching the clouds build in the sky. This was the first morning where it was, as Patti termed it, REALLY cold. When she got up shivering, she put on a shirt, another shirt, a polar-tec jacket, a windbreaker, and then a winter parka, hat and gloves. No one else was dressed like this, but she was cold. We decided that a quick pack up, plus a hike along the Red Rock Canyon trail gave us a good start to our day. We had the trail along the canyon to ourselves. It was a little gem, a 30-100 foot canyon carved into red slate. The white glacial melt water rushing through the canyon was in such contrast to the deep red in the rock. The wet night had left the wild flowers covered with moisture, such that they looked like they were covered with ice. Such an interesting effect.

Before we left the national park we stopped at the Buffalo Paddock, a several hundred acre enclosure with a herd of buffalo (Bison). We drove for a while through the rolling hills before we found the herd. It was fun to watch them in such a relaxed setting. Several calves were running around playing until one got hungry. Luckily mom was nearby.

As we left the park we had clearly left the mountains and driven out onto the Great Plains. We could have been in Kansas or Nebraska with the rolling hills and green grass. In Canada the Great Plains spread much further west than they do in the States.

We were headed north toward Canmore, Alberta, just into the Canadian Rockies and just outside of Banff National Park. But, why not get in a culture experience or two on the way? About an hour north of Waterton Lakes, we went to our first site, Fort McLeod, the Museum of the Northwest Mounted Police, the origin of the Mounties of today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We arrived just in time for the formal presentation of the troops and then “The Musical Ride’ where 7 college students dressed as traditional Mounties of the 1880’s rode horses and did stunt riding in time to music. This was great fun, and Dick had the chance to speak with Tim, the young Sergeant in charge of these “troops.” He gave the commands to direct their formations and while they were riding in the performance. It turns out that the Royal Mounted Police got their start in this very area as they were sent to create law and order in the wild west of Canada, dealing with crime, as well as the out of control whiskey traders who were wrecking havoc on the Indians. They did quite a nice job with the depictions of the Mounties as well as the First Nation people, as Canadians call them. There was a treaty with the Indian people that was kept by the Indian people and the Canadian government to this day. A little different history than we usually see in the US.

Then about 20 km (gotta get used to seeing everything in those kilometers and liters!) we went to another amazing historical site: Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. For over 6,000 years, Indian people used this particular cliff to drive bison over a cliff in order to kill them for food and for survival. It sounds terrible to us today, but remember for all this time, the native people did not have horses and needed the buffalo to survive. This approach was used only when conditions were right, sometimes not for generations, but would provide needed food for their winters. The killing was done in a manner of being in harmony with the land, never really diminishing the numbers of buffalo. There were many of these sites throughout the plains area, because at one point there were over 40 MILLION bison in North America, then at one point only one thousand left. This happened after the Europeans came and decided to slaughter these animals for sport or their skins to use in making belts for machines. Now there are a few hundred thousand, thanks to careful conservation and bringing them back. This site in Alberta has been designated a World Heritage site, and they have done an amazing job of telling the story and honoring the native people in this area. We just happened to be at the site on the one day each week where they also do a demonstration of dancing and drumming and we saw astoundingly good dancing. It was a joy to be able to really soak in this fine experience.
If you want to know more about it, look at their website at www.head-smashed-in.com/. The site is operated by the local Blackfoot tribal council.
THEN we got in the car and drove another 3 hours to the town of Canmore, 15 minutes from Banff. The drive was sooooo flat, especially after spending several days in great mountains. We definitely were still on the Great Plains. Only the last half hour finally started to give us something besides really FLAT landscape, and then a few foothills, and finally we were into the mountains again. The area here is truly gorgeous. We are staying in a unit of the timeshare system in which we have ownership. We look forward to settling in for three nights of sleeping in a real bed, hot showers, getting some laundry done, and seeing some great scenery. AND it looks like the rain may give us a break for a while. There is so much to see and we are really enjoying soaking it all in.