Canada Trip (Part 3): Lakes and Animals

On our third night in Canada, we stayed in the town of Lake Louise.

The next morning, we drove up to the lake itself.

We got a hint of the lake's beauty as we crossed a bridge at the confluence of the Bow River (the green stream on the left, which eventually becomes Calgary's main river) and the Pipestone River. Both the Bow River and Lake Louise are distinctly colored by their glacial sources:



Of course, the lake itself is the true highlight:





Although it was a bit overcast, preventing a view of the surrounding mountain peaks, the lake was so beautiful that I asked Daddy if I could fly above it for a better view:



Daddy obliged me:



I wanted to fly even higher, so I flapped my wings:



After my flight, we headed to the Fairmont Chateau gift shop, where I was excited to find a bear, just my size! (This made it very confusing when we came across a bunch more bears later in the day and Mom and Daddy wouldn't even let me out of the car):



Next stop was Moraine Lake, a lake so beautiful, it was once on the Canadian $20 bill:



Compare this shot to the actual $20:





Like a Highlights magazine: Can you find 10 differences between the two pictures? All commenters get a hug!

Due to the cloud cover, that was just about the most of the Rockies' peaks we saw in the Bow River Valley that day. On the bright side, it was also the start of a wildlife-sighting expedition that I'll never forget if I remember it.

After leaving Moraine Lake, we headed down the Bow River Parkway, then detoured West to visit Columbia Lake, the headwaters of the Columbia River. On the way, we crossed the Continental Divide, passing back into B.C., and drove through Kootenay National Park. Due to my familiarity with the black bear at Lake Louise, I was named the official bear (and deer) lookout in the Heberlein car. Along the highway in Kootenay there were more animals than I'd ever seen in my life (outside of the cow farms in Tillamook and the ant farms on the sidewalk outside my front door). The moose, deer (either white-tailed or mule, the taxonomists have yet to weigh in), black bears, elk, and bighorn sheep we saw on the 60-mile stretch of Highway 93 kept me more awake than any other long car ride during the early afternoon on record.

My animal post already showed you one of the mom and baby bears, one of the many deer, the moose, and the bighorn lamb, so here's a few more shots of two bear siblings (both of which, I'm sure you'll agree, were as huggable as the plush bear above -- if only their mother wasn't so overprotective), the lamb crossing the road, and again with its family, a deer, and an elk:











Finally, we got to Columbia Lake, which I've already written a bit about:



While at the Canal Flats park at the South end of Columbia Lake, we saw two bald eagles swooping together above us. I thought they were American bald eagles, also on vacation (where fighting never happens), because they didn't have mullets. Then again, on the ground, all around us, were eagle black [my lawyers have edited this sentence] feathers...so maybe the generic black birds just trimmed their Canadian mullets off, to try to disguise themselves before sneaking across the border to Montana.



On the way back to Banff, which I'll tell you about in my next post, we stopped at the Continental Divide so I could dump my water bottle and watch it flow to both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans:



☺

P.S. Happy Grandparents Day P, G, J, and C!