Day 6 - Jasper

It was a cold and rainy day in Jasper. Clouds and rain obscured the scenery, so no trail hiking or photographing mountains is in the forecast! However, Lisa and I signed up for the whitewater rafting excursion today. We were going to get wet anyway, so who cares about the rain! We headed out in the morning for a 5 mile rafting trip on the Athabasca river. Only about 12 guests on the tour went ahead with the excursion. I think the cold and rain scared a lot of people off. However, those of us who went had a blast (but we did get quite cold in our feet and hands)! After the excursion, we headed back to the hotel to thaw out. At 5 PM we heard a presentation from one of the indigenous people in the area, Cree Indian, who shared some information about his people's culture and about how they are trying to get the Canadian government to allow them to integrate back into the national park lands. He made some compelling points, about how the indigenous people were part of the natural ecosystem that helped keep a balance. And when we tried to eliminate the influence of people in the local ecosystem, this threw off the balance. A real-time example of this is the infestation of pine beetles that are destorying trees in Banff. The Indians used these trees (the Lodgepole Pines) for making their tents. They also created fires to control the growth of the trees. As a result, the trees never got particularly old. The few, older trees that did survive were weeded out by the beetles. Now, the land is protected. As a result, the trees have flourished. They have gotten much taller, and more crowded. They have crowded out a lot of the other flora that would normally be part of the ecosystem. Now the beetles are out of control (their food source is flouriishing) and large portions of the forest are full of dead, dry Lodgepole Pine trees. There is concern that a thunderstorm will result in a really bad forest fire. As usual, Mother Nature will find a way to restore balance despite our influence on the environment.

After the Cree presentation, we had dinner in the Emerald Lounge, a restaurant in the main lodge of Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. We sat next to a roaring fireplace, which felt great after our day in the cold and rain.Read more