June 21 – The first day of summer in
Glacier National Park. We woke up to a light mist in the air and up in the
peaks it looked like snow. We packed up the campsite and started on our way
out of the park. As was the case the day before we had to drive the Going to
the Sun road through Logan Pass (elev. 8680 feet). On our way we saw a bear
cross the road right in front of us. He didn’t stop for a picture. As we
neared the pass the light mist turned to sleet and then to snow. Snow, on the
first day of summer! We stopped for pictures and then continued on our way
north to the Canadian border.
At the border we stopped at the gate and were
asked the usual questions – any guns, pepper spray, alcohol, etc.? We were
given a yellow slip of paper and told to pull into slot #1 in a covered area.
The car next to us was completely unpacked and two
officers were going through
everything. This didn’t look like it was going to be easy (not that we had
anything to hide). We were told to enter the building and go to the second
floor. Once there we turned in the yellow paper and were told to have a seat.
After a few minutes later an inspector came out and took Dave away to an office
to re-ask all the questions the first inspector asked and some more like “Have
you ever had to defend yourself in court? Have you ever been convicted of a
felony? Do you have any DUI’s?” Then came the money questions – “Do you have
enough money to sustain yourself while in
Canada? How much money are
you carrying? Do you have any credit cards? Any debit cards?” The inspector
then finished by taking Dave’s driver’s license and saying “I had another
question, but I forgot it.” Dave was returned to the lobby and Stacie got
dragged in and was asked the same questions. Once Stacie was returned the
inspector told us to wait and she’d get back to us. Fifteen minutes later the
inspector returned our driver’s licenses, told Dave he had two overdue library
books, and asked us to go back downstairs and into the glass office. We
complied and were met at that desk by the same officer who originally
questioned us in the truck. She looked at us and asked if we were done, but
before we could answer she turned over the yellow paper and stamped it
“admitted”. We were told to enjoy our stay. As we got in the truck we noticed
that the 2 guys from the car next to us were handcuffed and several officers
were debating how much the bag of marijuana they had found weighed.
We sped away from the border and headed towards
Calgary, where we turned west towards Banff. As we entered the park we had to
stop and pay an admission charge at the cutest little booths. We wound our way
through the park, surviving a wrong turn (the Canadians have the oddest
definition of straight) and stopped at the Columbia Icefield Centre because we
had missed the turn for our campground (turns out a snowplow had hit the sign
in a storm a few days earlier). As we got out of the truck for directions we
found out that it was very cold out! We went inside and looked around. The
exhibits were closed, but we did find a map telling us where the campground
was. We also stopped by the front desk of the hotel that was in the Icefield
Centre to ask about a room since it was frosty out, but at $150 a night we
decided to break out the extra blankets! We got to the campground and picked
out a nice site by a waterfall that ran through the campground. As Stacie was
doing dishes after dinner a few snowflakes fell.
June 22 – We didn’t freeze
to death that night – Dave’s brothers had given us both some excellent sleeping
bags and we were actually quite warm. However, when we got out of the tent we
got a surprise – those few snowflakes from the night before brought their
friends and there was a half inch of snow on everything! (on the second day of
summer) We had oatmeal for breakfast and then dusted off the tent and canopy
and packed up. We stopped by the Icefield Centre again and spent some time
looking at the exhibits. Our next stop was the Athabasca glacier, conveniently
located less than a mile away (about a hundred years ago the glacier was at the
Icefield Centre, but it has been melting steadily). We walked out
onto
it, and took some
pictures. As we pulled back onto the main road there was
a “sheep ahead” sign – and they weren’t kidding. There was a group of 5
hanging out on the cliff next to the road. We stopped for pictures (see wildlife) and while we were there they came off the
cliff and walked down the road like they owned it (and we all know that Clio
owns everything!) Our next stop was Sunwapta Falls, a neat little spot where a
massive river of melt water has to squeeze through a narrow pass in the rocks.
We
drove on and about 10 miles later saw a few cars pulled over with people
gawking. We joined the crowd and got to see an elk across the river. About 15
miles later there was another pack of cars pulled over and people were running
with cameras. We stopped again and were treated to a coyote hunting some cute
furry creature. It was not more than 50 feet from the road! It was so
consumed by the hunt that it didn’t even care about the crowd of people
watching. In the end the cute little furry creature got to live another day
and the coyote move on. About 20 miles later Dave wanted to pull over and
pretend that we saw a snipe to see how many other people would stop and look.
Stacie didn’t like that idea. About an hour later we exited Jasper park and
headed west through Prince William and to a provincial park near Fraser Lake,
BC.