Alberta

In Alberta we saw more family, a volleyball tournament, and lots more rocks and trees and water, and also ice, of even more impressive sorts than you get in Vancouver. We started a fire. We went to West Edmonton Mall, the largest and possibly also most absurd shopping mall in North America (unless there is some other mall out there which contains an amusement park, working submarines, a full-sized pirate ship, and a metal whale). We saw a black bear having dinner at the side of the highway, and a truly magnificent elk in Jasper Park. No northern lights, but Dawn got her first clear look at the Milky Way (the stars don't get much clearer than in Jasper).

Pictures:


Lake Abraham.


Peyto Lake. It's gorgeous, and tourists love it, so shots like this are a dime a dozen. But I think the play of shadow and reflection here puts this picture in the top quartile of Peyto Lake pictures.


The other end of Peyto Lake. It is currently being fed by a tiny trickle of glacier melt water. I hear that trickle has been getting smaller, so Peyto might not be sticking around for too long.


The Athabasca Glacier. It would have come right up to the bottom of that picture just 20 or so years ago.


Dawn looking proud because she's standing on the glacier. Well, actually only about a foot onto it. The glacier was surrounded by hilarious warning signs concerning the risk of falling into crevasses.


The planet is getting warmer and the glacier is crumbling away. Just one tiny part of the approaching environmental apocalypse. It sure looks pretty inside, though.


I wish I'd got more pictures of warning signs.


By Siffleur Falls. My mom demanded that we sit on this tree.


Dawn is looking down at a slightly angry river flanked by treacherous cliffs. It's hard to make out the gap, isn't it? Well, it was just a few metres. I dared Dawn to jump across, but she chickened out.


At the top of the Falls, the rocks have been worn into the shape of waves.


My mom irresponsibly doing a jig at the top of a waterfall.


The water here is a quite a few feet deep. It only looks really shallow because of the crystal clear water.


Canada is really big (Dawn used for scale).


Rockies, there's a decent chance I won't be visiting you ever again, but, just so you know, you are way cool.