Driving to Jasper

Hi all,

Our drive today was absolutely beautiful. We left around 6.45am and started off the morning heading through some mountains, surrounded by trees and frozen lakes. We tried to stop at a lake I had read nice things about called Joffre Lakes, but the whole carpark and track was covered in snow so I assume the lake was frozen too. We saw lots of frozen lakes in this area!

We intersected with the train line that the Rocky Mountaineer travels on at a few points, and saw a few beautiful unfrozen lakes as we continued on. Once we reached Lillooet we had to take a slight detour as there had been a flood overnight and the freeway we were meant to use was closed. Once we found our way on the detour, the landscape changed greatly. It was very dry and bare and soon we saw lots of ranches and farms. Signs actually indicated we were on the gold rush route for the this area, which occurred between 1861-1867. I decided to read a bit into the history of Canada at this point after googling the gold rush, and found out that after being colonised by the English in 1815, Canada became a country on the 1st of July 1867. However, it was only the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that made up Canada at this time. With Manitoba and the Northwest Territories joining in 1870, British Columbia (where we’ve been for a week) joining in 1871 and 8 other places joining later on including Alberta in 1905 (where Jasper and Banff are). Despite becoming a country so long ago, Canada only became independent of British parliament in just 1982. At one time, British Columbia actually nearly became part of the USA due to the states having bought Alaska (north of BC) and already having Washington state (south of BC), thus hemming in BC. But the British said no, and the Canadian Pacific Railway was finished in 1885 linking east and west Canada like it had never been before.

We stopped and had lunch in a town called Clearwater at a cute bakery where we shared two paninis and a Canadian Dry ginger ale. Rob then had a cinnamon bun and I had a lemon chia slice. All were delicious. Then we continued on. Before long we were seeing signs about salmon in the rivers we were crossing, so we knew we were arriving in the Rocky Mountains properly and in grizzly bear territory. We didn't see any bears or anything by the road today. Chris was saying yesterday that at this time of the year the bears don't really go too close to the road like they do in the Summer. Because they haven't been out and about for six months they're a bit timid near the road as they are unused to it, and the berries they enjoy eating near the road haven't come out yet either.

The mountainous views got more and more insane the closer to Alberta we drove. We stopped at a viewpoint for Mt Robson, the Canadian Rockies' highest peak at 3954 m. The view was dramatic and gorgeous. It was strange driving around today still seeing lots of visitor centres and things closed, this has been the case for a few days now. The weather has been summer like recently and the views and trails magnificent, but we have the benefit of not having hoards of people here. It feels like we have cheated the system somehow. I would love to come back one day in the summer and do some of the higher altitude hikes though, many of which are shut at the moment due to snow. It was strange today seeing one lake frozen solid and then five minutes down the road one that was a beautiful deep blue. There really are lots of micro climates here.

We arrived in Jasper around 5.30pm after nine hours of driving (we have gone ahead an hour now upon entering the province of Alberta). Our hotel room is really spacious with a kitchen and living area. Rob had another online interview tonight, so I went for a walk to the supermarket while he did that. I'm a big scaredy cat here - grizzlies and black bears are known to roam around Jasper and the news at the moment says we should expect them in the town potentially. So I took the bear spray with me and went walking. I find it funny that Australia has this huge reputation for all of our animals wanting to kill you and yet I feel more scared here. In Victoria we obviously have snakes, spiders etc, but last I checked when I go for a walk at home I'm not terrified that a ferocious mammal like a bear, a mountain lion or a lynx is going to come out and rip my face off!! I had visions of a bear tackling me to the ground to take my bread and milk, and then I laughed aloud in the street that I was silly enough to think that would happen. Anyway, I survived the trip to the shops and came home and cooked us pasta with a tomato based sauce. It was actually nice to cook and chat and have a low key (and cheap!) meal. We budgeted plenty for this holiday but everything is so expensive.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox