She IS the Fire Starter!

Linda that is!

Seriously! She was/IS like a woman obsessed when there's an opportunity for some pyromania!! Global warming!? Carbon foorprints!? Phah!! She couldn't be happier than when she is in posession of some kindling, a nice chunk of flint, a hard sharp object to strike it against, some small animal fur, an entire days worth of print from a small town in Belgium, a gallon or two of kerosene, a ray of sunlight and a magnifying glass (preferably one from the top floor of a Scottish lighthouse), two sticks and a box of Swan Vestas. When it comes to fire, Linda is stark raving mad!! Nothing was safe, if it wasn't fastened down and it wasn't wet, the safety curtain was drawn back and it got thrown onto the hearth like a sacraficial animal while she danced around the cabin flailing her arms, well her left one at least, and chanting like an over-enthusiastic guest at a Hawaiian fire circle beach party.

During our trip to Jasper National Park we stayed in a fantastic log cabin, surrounded by pine trees, watched over by Whistlers Mountain and overlooking the Athabasca River beyond the short lawn. http://www.alpinevillagejasper.com

This was our cabin for the week, what a glorious setting it is and inside and out one couldn't help but feel relaxed and perhaps inspired to go and live in the great outdoors. Birds, trees, water, mountains, snow, blue sky, white fluffy clouds, small animals, large animals, more trees were just a few of the things we could see out of the windows and from the porch. It was completely gorgeous and romantic and best of all for Linda, it was beautifully cosy inside and it had a log fire!

Take a good long hard look at Linda's face, we should have done that too because for the rest of our stay all we saw was her backside as she stoked and poked until the wee small hours, EVERY night. She must have burned her/our way through a small hillside of trees, more firelighters than you could shake a bottle of highly flammable lighter fluid and a box, no three boxes of matches at, and in my opinion she is more than likely singularly responsible for a whole new layer of ozone disappearing forever. Was she happy!? Oh yes! Like Elvis with a cheeseburger!

The cabin is in a lovely setting, this is the view from the front porch, the Athabasca turning a sharp sweeping corner just outside. We regularly saw rafts of screaming people going by...

Katie, bless her, as much as she tried, never actually got to strike a single match, or place a single stick on the fire. She did help Linda to gather sticks, and pine cones, oh my Lord, the pine cones!.... but her only real compensation for all that hard graft was that she did get to cook our dinner one night, outside! Linda of course lit the fire on the barbeque, and lit it again, then scrunched up and stuffed more paper into it, added more charcoal, more paper, wood, and then finally after about 2 hours she fired a jet of lighting fluid over some more scrunched up paper, and opened up the gates of Hades, well.. the grill of the BBQ and threw it on! Success!

The meal was fabulous. We made bacon and cheese minced steak burgers and sat out on the porch enjoying them... and some wine.... eventually. You can see by the jackets that it was getting late.

Damn good job though! If you ever need a BBQ chef, Katie is your girl and I can highly recommend her abilities. Junior Master Chef, Alberta style :-)

Sarah meanwhile had a nervous breakdown from the near starvation and the trauma of watching, listening to Linda usurp the laws of physics and chemistry in her attempts to set alight the park, and during which time she put her nose just a little too far into her Little Booky Wook (she was reading Russel Brands autobiography at this time...)


The surrounding scenery is amazing and it's hard to believe the colour of the water at first. More about that later on... We regularly walked up from the site to Jasper town centre which was up through enchanting woodland pathways and over rivers between the trees. This view is from the back of the Tekarra Restaurant which was the nearest to us, about a 20 minute stroll along the Athabasca River.

What a special place! On the expensive side perhaps but such a wonderful setting. A really rustic dining room settled in amongst the pines. Traditional service, fabulous cocktails, frequented apparently by many celebrities including Marilyn Monroe and more recently John Travolta. No wonder, the food is amazing. All their dishes are created from fresh ingredients by world renowned chef David George Husereau. I had Bison. Well.... Why not!? The wildlife around the Apline Village is plentiful and one night, we had such a treat...

"Wow!! Look at that!!" Linda cried out and for a change she wasn't holding a match. Just outside our bedroom window was this Elk gently grazing on the lawn. We crept out (just like that cat in the crypt) onto the front porch and saw that there was more... Many more! We were lucky enough to be able to walk over to the river bank wihout getting too near to the herd or disturbing them and I still can't believe that we stayed for over an hour watching these fabulous beasts grazing, drinking, and the younger ones frollicking around in in the water.

You can't tell from these pictures but it was actually quite dark being around 22:00.

The Elk were eventually chased away by the staff of Alpine Village, apparently because they like to come onto site and eat all the flowers.

The locals call the Elk "Wapiti" (woppitee). They are very similar to our native Red Deer here in the UK but I believe they can grow much larger. One of them had a collar on it and we later found out that this is an identification tag. If an animal hurts a human, they get tagged. White=1 incident, yellow = twice, etc.. Three strikes and they are out! How annoying this is when you see the tourists hounding them and trying to get closer and closer all of the time just to get a snapshot with their four year old standing within touching or goring distance.

I promise that we were at a safe and respectful distance and I only managed to get these shots thanks to the power of camera and lens technology. The most beautiful and unforgettable moment of this evening, if not of my life so far, was when Sarah really connected with the fact that were among genuinely wild animals, in their natural domain, and yet as long as we didn't disturb them, they were happy to let us watch. It was a genuinely moving experience for me when she told me how thrilled she was to be there, and how truly special a moment this was always going to be for her...

Here she is, taking in the view and a few rays the next morning just across the road from our cabin.

More scenery from behind the Tekkara...


Oh yes... another of our regular cabin visitors. This little guy was very entertaining! An American Robin. About the same size as our own Blackbird, perhaps a little bigger, he constantly filled up his beak with as many worms as possible from in the lawn. I tried to count them several times but he wouldn't let me.

Then there was this chap... When Linda wasn't burning stuff she watched him dig up his nuts and stuff from just infront of the cabin next door, and then he'd hop along our balcony and bury it all over again just feet away.

He was quite tame really, and didn't mind having a lens shoved at him. When he'd had enough though, he always let me know in the most vocal way he could. Noisy little Tufty!



The last picture in this episode sums up for me what all this was and is about... Getting away from it all, switching off, drinking in the amazing surroundings, the cleanliness of it all, the sheer peacefulness, the beauty, the absolute tranquility of Jasper National Park. Not a care in the world, not a sound to disturb the moment, whatever that moment may be, and this little girl in the picture like many before her over generations and generations, just totally chilled out and happy with a view of the river and the mountains, a belly full of milk and cookies and her new stuffed toy 'Monty, the Mounty Moose' to keep her company.

Mouldy Socks and the Twee Bears

If you go down to the woods today... you're in for a big surprise! Not half! Because the Buffalo Berries have ripened early this year and so... well... I'll come to that in a bit.


“What's that!?” is usually the first thing you hear, closely followed by “What!?..” and/or “Where!?..” then of course you get “There... in the woods... that dark thing... I thought I saw something in the woods!!” and then without a paws (intended!!) it generally goes...

“IT'S A BEAR!!!!!!”, then you get “WHERE??!!!” from several directions and then perhaps “Awww I can't see it!!”, then “THERE!! behind the trees!!” and ultimately it gets a great deal louder and more urgent as the tyres start to screech and smoke and the back of your drivers seat gets ripped up from its anchor once again... “IT IS A BEAR!! IT IS A BEAR!! I CAN SEE IT, IT'S A BEAR!! IT'S A BEAR!!, QUICK!!, STOP THE CAR!!!!!”

So... this is what you may get a glimpse of if you're very lucky... and BOY... were we lucky!

I apologise in advance if you don't like bears, because the whole of this chapter is about bears! There are approximately 300 Black Bears in Jasper National Park, and we were lucky enough to see 16 of them on our trip to The Rockies. Here's the tales and pictures behind one or two of them. I took hundreds of pictures and Linda took hours of film so we had to leave out loads and loads of images just to give you a flavour of what we encountered.

“You won't see any bears at this time of year!” I was told by one or two people, “It's too early! You need to go at the end of August, or September when they're getting hungry and ready for winter and don't expect to see any cubs 'cos the mothers will eat you alive and display your head on a spike by the side of the road if you go within 3000 miles of their cubs!” So... I didn't expect to see any.

You know there's something by the side of the road up ahead because driving through the mountains is a somewhat solitary experience. You're amazed if you see another vehicle at all so when you see several of them ahead of you, all parked, well... more like abandoned really, by the side of the road in front of you, you are pretty certain that there is some form of wild animal to see. As you approach the gathering paparazzi of far eastern tourists climbing up on step ladders, onto SUV roofs, on top of each other, or their children, or each others children, you can be forgiven for thinking that you may actually be about to witness the second coming of The Lord himself, in the flesh, right there in front of your very own eyes. How the animals manage not to eat at least one small person from each party just for fun is way beyond me, and that's just when it's only a Gopher, or a Deer!

So when they've spotted something like this below...

...Forget it! You may as well stay in your car, climb over the back seat and snuggle up beneath the coats with your Bovril and your Graham Crackers because you could be in for a very long wait. You just sit there, or lie there, hoping for one of two things to happen. 1) The Park Ranger comes along and fires his gun to scare off the bear(s) and then threatens to arrest every one unless they disperse their abandoned vehicles, or 2) the bear flips its lid, bites the head off a small eastern child and plays keepie-uppie with it until everyone runs away screaming and vomiting. Either option will do for me on these occasions but sadly, the former usually wins.

Far far better is when you make a deal with your fellow travelling companions that the first person to spot a wild bear, gets $100. That way, you get to see the bears first and take one or two pictures and you can enjoy the moment, alone with your bear(s) before the other road users spot you and start to descend like Starlings around a crusty slice of Nimble.

Sarah was first to score the dosh when she spotted him:-

Linda spotted Her, and Him, and Her among many others.... including a mother and cub on the same road as our cabin when we returned on foot from Jasper town centre one lovely evening. We did that walk a number of times as well as others just in case we spotted something, and because it was just fabulous to be out in the open surrounded by such marvellous beauty. Even if we did get mouldy socks!

Katie Spotted a mother bear foraging in the woods with Him! On our last evening in the mountains.

We'd eaten dinner and decided to go on one more spotting trip before it went dark... we got lucky one more time AND the youngster even climbed up a tree, right in front of us!! Now that was special...

and I spotted Him...

...on the Maligne Lake road one afternoon:- and Yes! I did get a little too close to this one and had to retreat back to the car blushing and twitching a bit before he/she warned me off! Sorry Bear... Sorry Linda, Girls, Mum and Dad... Oops...

The Buffalo Berries are what brings the bears down from the mountains. They gorge themselves on this fruit in readiness for winter hibernation. They are part of a family of plants called Shepherdia and these in particular are Shepherdia Argentea, or Silver Buffaloberry or Bull berry or Thorny Buffaloberry.

Sometimes all you can see is the bush waving about in front of you as the bear feeds itself, then you may spot an ear... or two.

A fully grown Black Bear can eat up to 250,000 of these berries in a day. Yes... 250,000 berries! That's why it is possible to watch them and film them at this time of year because they are so busy eating that they just aren't interested in you. As long as you don't get too close of course. That amount of berries is about 35000 calories, equivalent to eating more than 85 quarter-pound cheese burgers. Think of that every day for a month... Apparently, Buffaloberries are edible by humans. They are supposed to be quite sour though and can leave the mouth a little dry. Not to mention how dry your mouth would be from trying to steal these little beauties from the bears, and then having to run for your life :-)

After a mild spring and summer this years crop was a few weeks early and somehow, the bears know that. So they came down from the mountains early. Well.. I actually prefer to believe that they came down just to say “Hi” to us...

They are truly beautiful creatures and it was such a pleasure to watch them go about their business. The grown ups are fascinating but when you see a cub, it's such a special display of subliminal communication between mother and child that it's hard to explain.

As well as eating of course, the child wants to play and Mother allows the child to play until such a time that she feels it's time to move on or to concentrate on the matter in hand, gorging. The fur coat is so rich that you can see it ripple as she walks along and stretches to grab hold of a branch. Her eyes are so clear and every now and again you find yourself looking straight at each other as if she's letting you know, that she knows you are there.

Meanwhile the baby turns over rocks and stones to see what's underneath and digs in the soil for grubs, then switches attention to a branch of berries, then chases a flying bug, then takes a swipe at his sister to gain her attention in the game and then they both panic when they realise that Mom has already walked off and they scurry after her only to throw themselves at her feet and offer up a paw for her attention as they roll on their backs.

I'd like to point out that we were actually stood well away from these three,

we watched for around 20 mins as they fed and played but what you can't see in the pictures is that we were on the the opposite side of the road on top of a 40 foot bank, behind bushes, so we were safely out of the way at least from these three. This was along the road to/from Miette at around 18:00 one evening after we'd been up to see the Hot Springs.

We saw an incredible amount of wildlife in Canada and I will be eternally grateful for having the opportunity to see it all and I will share some of that with you in later episodes.

For me though... absolutely nothing can compare to how I feel about having had the privilege of watching these beautiful and fascinating bears, just doing what comes naturally, going about their daily chores, in their very own back yard.

Going to the Dawgs...

Take me out to the ball game.... What is it about climbing the steps at any stadium and getting that first glimpse of the turf below that is so exciting?


I've always believed that new experiences are good for the heart and soul and I couldn't contain my excitement when Janet and Eamonn booked tickets for us to go and watch a 'proper' baseball game! Their local team is The Okotoks Dawgs and we were going to see an end of season crunch match against local (ish) rivals, The Lethbridge Bulls. The 'Bulls' are in black shirts and The 'Dawgs' in white.


We arrived at the $8M Seaman Stadium on a gorgeous sunny evening for a 19:05 'kick off' and as we drove in among the plethora of huge 4x4s, the crowd of 2500 were buzzing enough to have made one think that there were 10 times that amount of people watching. All of the legendary images were there... Great big trays stuffed with bucket-sized sodas, barrow-sized bags of 'chips' and nachos and corn 'Dawgs'. We settled for a cold 'Canadian' beer and took our seats.

I knew absolutely nothing about baseball when we arrived and I quickly realised that I had no idea what was going on. Why did they never seem to hit any of the balls that were thrown? Why did the 'Pitcher' make funny stretching movements before he threw the ball as if he was about to run and do the high jump? Why did the 'Batter' run to the next base, even if he hadn't managed to hit a single ball thrown at him? What the heck is a 'foul' ball? What or where exactly is 'Left Field'? Why is there a great big fat old guy stood in the middle shouting at everyone? Why do they continually scratch their privates, and spit so much? Why on earth do all these people pay good money to come and watch a baseball game and then do anything but that? They sit and chat, they go to the shop, they read books and papers, they eat, drink, eat, play cards, eat, in fact anything except watch the action on the field! Oh.. and one last question that's been bugging me ever since I watched 'Rain Man''; Who IS on first base?

Anyway... it amazed me just how quickly I did get the point of the game and soon I not only got into the flow of it, but I was into the scoreline and sharing the anticipation and the angst of the Dawgs fans (those that were watching) as 'We'... were losing!

The 'Canadian' went down VERY well and so did the sun and as the floodlights came on whoever had flicked the big switch, had also flicked another one because all of a sudden, the crowd became interested.... VERY interested!


Janet spotted her boss Linda accross the other side of the ground and she later came over to say 'hi' to us all and was telling us about her up-coming trip to Scotland. She's a very nice lady and it was lovely to meet her. But wait... now WE were the ones not watching! ;-)

As the game progressed the scoreline didn't get any better, however.... I now fully understood what was going on and I couldn't have been any more passionate about it if the game was being played at Goodison Park by Blue shirts. All of a sudden, we were stood a lot closer to the game and there was a lot less chatter... we were concentrating! There was a palpable change in the mood as the possibility of a draw... or even... no.. surely not?

The Dawgs were coming back... The crowd were getting right behind the action... The sky was black and the diamond was lit up like a runway. The scoreboard was suddenly brighter and the pace of the game seemed to increase. The Bulls were huddling in the middle as though they were having a crisis meeting and the crowd started to get, well... almost... rowdy!

Spencer (below) used to work in Janet and Eamonn's bank in Okotoks, now here he was stomping around the ground, whipping up the crowd into a frenzy. He shouted "Dawgs Dawgs Dawgs!!" and the crowd chanted back "Wooff Wooff Woofff!!!!". This was brilliant!

Another classic theme about the game was that they constantly played the really cheezy 'labour club style' organ music every time an element of the game happened, a strike, a miss, a hit, a run, a huddle, and stuff. It was just like it had always been portrayed in the 'Goofy' cartoons!

As the game neared its end the crowd, including me, Eam, Katie and Sarah were going mad! The players couldn't bear to watch... All 'We' needed was one home run and we'd win!

The Pitcher did his best but the Dawgs batter hit the swing of his life and with a beautiful 'thwack', he sent the ball to the back of the ground. He started to run as if his bum was on fire... the fat old guy in the blue shirt started to smile and shout and at one point, he even moved a bit... the crowd were on their feet and by the time that the batter had reached within 10 yards of the last base, it was all over.

The Dawgs had come from right behind and won the game! The players hugged each other, the crowd high-fived and hugged each other, the sky changed from black to blue and a voice from above told me that I was a Canadian and that that's why I had tears in my eyes and, ahem.. sorry... ok, Ok got a bit carried away. What the voice actually said, had there been one, was that I had far too much 'Canadian' !

Then best bit of all... the high point of the entire event.... Diggity Dawg came out as all the kids from the crowd ran on to the field and they all completed 2 home runs in celebration.

What a fabulous evening out! Really! I'd so love to go again :-)