Ride 'em cowboy!
Maligne Canyon
Pyramid Lake
What's missing in Canada? Wildlife. I thought that the place would be full of a wide variety of animals but the all appear to gone on holiday at the same time I did. There was very little around the area that we were there, I wonder if the number of visitors going to the national parks has driven them all away.
We've seen a few things like deer, sheep (with big horns) and black bears. These animals aside there seems very little around the public areas of the national parks - one big species missing was birds. There was almost none around, the odd Eagle or Osprey but what I would refer to as garden birds didn't seem to exist.
Today was spent driving around the Jasper area looking at a number of the natural wonders in the area. One of the first was Medicine Lake which is in the Maligne Valley. This lake had unfortunately thawed out but still looked stunning and was great to get outside and see one of these lakes in the flesh instead of rushing past one on the train.
We then looked at the Maligne Canyon before heading back into the town of Jasper and then up to the lakes of Patricia and Pyramid. It was nice to see the lakes and listen to the history. On lake Patricia there was some sort of WWII experiment about frozen boats which you can no longer see anything but there is a plaque.
The afternoon was a free day and Nadia had plans for us both...
Nadia had found the Pyramid Riding Stables advert in our hotel and we were off trail riding!!!! Me the cowboy riding out in a western saddle and all the set up! I sadly didn't have the cowboy hat or chaps to complete the 'Village People' look!! Joking aside it was brilliant it was nice to get away from the road and see some of what the Canadians call, the back country. It was also nice to ride a nice, calm horse that just plodded along and not a fire breathing loon like the two I have at home!
We sadly didn't see a bear but we did get a lot closer to the big horned sheep and some deer which was good. Also we managed to see and hear some birds - so there do have them in Canada!! See pictures of us riding in Canada >>>