Monday June 8th

9:00am

The French couples were packed and gone very early this morning. We got up and went into the kitchen, and started our cereal. Good job we bought some milk too! The host, Terri, told us that this morning we could move our things into the “Bear Hill” room when we wanted. So we did, and then set off for Maligne Lake.


4:00pm

On the way, we were on the lookout for wildlife of course, and we came across three Mule Deer on the roadside. We continued ad arrived at Medicine Lake which we weren’t going to stop at initially, but the weather was turning out to be really quite nice and so was the reflection on the water here. We stopped to take a photo and a glance through the binoculars revealed......

THREE BLACK BEARS!!

This time, it was a mother and TWO cubs foraging and eating dandelions. They weren’t too close though, and we did edge nearer to get a closer look, but by then they has disappeared into the trees further away. At this point, we weren’t quite so sure if they were grizzlies or black bears. Mathew thought they were grizzlies because he thought he could see the mother’s hump on her shoulders. I thought they were black bears, even though the cubs were quite brown – the mother looked jet black to me, and grizzlies don’t usually have such a variation of colours as black bears do. I didn’t think the mother had the face of a grizzly.

They were off doing their own thing, so we continued on to Maligne Lake, which is the largest natural lake in the Canadian Rockies at around 22km long. We got into the ticket office and booked a place on the boat trip. We looked in the gift shops – no ladies t-shirts unless you just wanted a bunch of flowers and “Jasper” or “Maligns Lake” scrolled on you. I swear – do no girls like bears except me?!
Anyway, onto the boat we got. It was a little chilly but the seating was inside. Apparently the lake was frozen just a few days ago, and they’d only just started doing the boat tours – I guess we were quite lucky being able to go on the boat trip then! We went around half way when we got to “Spirit Island” which got its name from a photo competition where the world-wide known shot was entitled “Spirit of Canada”. We stopped off near the island on the coast and walked along a small path which gave us several angles of the same view of the famous island...which isn’t really and island....well, I guess that doesn’t really matter..! I’ll have to compare my photos with the postcards!

We only spent about 15 minutes there before getting back onto the boat and back to the shore. Once back, we had lunch as a previously noted picnic spot, and headed for Maligne Canmyon. On the way, we decided to stop off at Medicine Lake to see if we could spot that bear family we saw earlier. It didn’t seem like we were going to be very successful until we reached a spot not far from where we had originally saw them this morning. Sure enough they were there, eating all the dandelions! They were easier to see now.

We moved up and down the roadside until we spotted them going down to the edge of the lake for a drink, then we sat and watched then for a while as they moved around the area. We moved up the road with them so we could see them better. And we discovered that they were indeed black bears, and they all looked very furry and healthy. The cubs were actually quite brown, but their faces and ears gave away that they weren’t grizzlies. After watching them for the best part of an hour, we looked up to find that we had actually caused a “bear-jam” on the road, where at least 8 vehicles had stopped on the roadside and the people in them came out to have a look to see what WE were looking at!

So.....we quietly left, as Mathew had parked quite a way up the road, away from the bear-jam..!! We arrived at Maligne Canyon and walked to the fourth bridge – it was probably a good idea to stop there since my lung capacity was somewhat effected by the altitude here. We then made our way back to Jasper town centre, went shopping, and I actually found a t-shirt with a bear on it which fit me! Ok, it wasn’t a ladies cut. No surprise there...but I thought it looked fine, like the youth – size one I had bought in Banff. I could have gone for another but they didn’t have any changing rooms and I wasn’t wearing an appropriate top to wear it over....I thought I might go back at some point to see if I can try it on another day.

When we arrived back at the Alpine Log House, we discovered another French couple were staying here for just the one night before driving to Price Rupert, Prince George, and making their way by boat down to Vancouver. That sounded very nice indeed!