Alberta, Part 2

We arrived as Lake Louise at 4:30 pm. It’s a beautiful hotel in a beautiful valley. I’d seen pictures of it my whole life, but this was the first time I’d ever set eyes on it. The icefield at the far end of the lake bathed in brilliant sunlight. The lake itself was glowing seafoam green, the colour of all glacial lakes in Alberta, as far as I’d seen. Some were brighter than others, but they all carried that distinct colour of the rock flour suspended within. It was a picture postcard.

We walked the shore after checking in and making dinner arrangements, following the stone walkway to and onto the boardwalk where we rented a canoe for a half hour. I can’t say we were any good at guiding the canoe, then. We’re much better now, but we fought against it and each other the whole time we were on the lake, going round and round in circles, never once keeping the damned thing straight. I lost my temper. Not a good thing. Totally uncool of me.

We showered and changed and I indulged in a wine and cheese platter before taking a late dinner at the Italian restaurant at the hotel.

We stepped out for some air, afterwards. Too much food. Too rich. Too much wine. Damn holidays. Oscar Wilde had it right when he said, “I can resist anything but temptation.”

The mountain face was a black wall, devoid of stars or any detail, for that matter. It disoriented me. It made me slightly nauseous to look at it. “Where’s the sky?” my equilibrium screamed. This was not the first time I’d felt that soulful bewilderment, but it was by far the worst, the forested rock wall so close and so tall. It closed in on me and felt like it was crushing me.

I looked up to relieve the sensation. The stars glittered brightly up there in that far too limited expanse of cloudless sky. There was no moon. Had there been a moon, we would have been bathed in its glow and seen…something. But its absence left me bathed in black, the void only broken by the flood lights of the hotel.

The next day we climbed to the Fairview Lookout. It took about twenty minutes. It was steep. Very steep. Steep enough to cramp the calves if we took it too fast and in one go. Mostly duff underfoot, a few roots reached out and grasped across the path here and there, tripping up the unwary. More than a few wooden stairs were constructed along the way to help us up the steepest bits. Even so, the climb necessitated a few breaks. Luckily, maybe not so luckily, there were benches and lookout points along the way. They learned that most people might need a rest break while climbing up there decades earlier. We certainly used them, and we weren’t the only ones to use them, either. We passed a few climbers along the way and were in turn passed by others, waving and saying hello to those on their way down, stepping off the path to give them the right of way in a display of politeness that may have been a break in disguise. But we made it, greeted by a song bird at the lookout rail. It was a great view, well worth the exhausting climb. It was a bit of a concern coming back down, though.

We ate at the Walliser Stube restaurant and wine bar that evening, attended by another sommelier for another perfect pairing of course to wine, with the expected results. How anyone can drink four or five glass of wine with a meal is beyond me. It’s a wonder that I did not require support to make it back to our room.

We bought sandwiches and snacks the next morning for the trip to Banff. We needed them. It was a long haul. Moraine Lake, the Icefields parkway, and another harrowing switchback traverse to another glacial falls. It was a wet excursion, raining for most of the day, the spray from the falls adding to the experience.

Banff was bright when we arrived. Thankfully. We required a bit of a dry off.

Where most of our fellow Brewster companions were shuttled off to the Banff Springs Hotel, we were deposited outside the Delta in the heart of the city, which was fine with us. We had dinner at the hotel before making our way to the main street, browsing up one side and down the other, the mountain down the road in full view the whole time. It’s a lively place, compared with the Lake Louise Chateau, where there was nowhere to go and nothing to do that was not put on by the Fairmont. There were people in restaurants, people in pubs, people buying this or that, usually fleece or camping gear or provisions for their lengthy trek on the trails. There were backpacks everywhere, tall, heavy looking things that looked like should their bearer topple over, he might never get back up again.

We had the better deal. So said those few Brewster companions we talked to, afterwards, comparing our accommodations with theirs. Theirs carried a grand old affair of past opulence. Ours was cheaper. Ours was far more spacious than the stately old rooms they’d been shoehorned into, their bathroom door rapping up against their footboard whenever one of them tootled off to the bath, their pipes rattling and groaning after decades of use.

The next day we explored Banff and the springs. We lined up for the first ride up the Gondola to the mountain top, up there long enough to begin in morning haze and watch the clouds burn off, giving us a most spectacular view of the lands around its feet. We visited another moraine lake and another falls, this time following the course of the river as it carved its way deeper and deeper into the rock, the rush of the water deafening us with a roar that rolled up between the tight channels of smooth rock, as it dropped from this level to that, making it almost impossible for us to hear one another speak.

We visited the Hoodoos. It was more of a walk than a hike, and we didn’t actually walk right down to the towers of rock, halting far enough away to get a good photo, but that was all. According to folklore, those monoliths—sometimes called “fairy chimneys”—were human beings until a witch turned them to stone. Other legends tell of travellers witnessing the hoodoos reveal themselves to be wizards, offering a helping hand by pointing them in the right direction. All hokum. They’re just columns of limestone that were a little harder than the rocks around them. Unless you like to believe in fairies and wizards and magic. And I’m all for fairies and wizards and magic.

The next day we were deposited back at the Jasper Inn. We lost touch with those Brewster couples we’d shared the last few days with, only getting to know them in the waning days of our time together. Too bad. They were great people and I wish we’d connected with them sooner; and judging from their response to us, I think they wish they’d connected with us sooner, too. But I’d come to realize that older people aren’t as open to meeting new people as younger ones are. Youth blends instantly, we older ones take a little more time.

I realized then that the lion’s share of my Euro pal experiences might be behind me. Or maybe it was just the choice of holiday, or the type of Tour Company. Did they treat their clients as a group to gather or as separate entities sharing a common experience? Were there meet and greets? Cocktail gatherings? If not, I gathered that I needed to work harder at meeting those people I stumbled across than I had.

But it was easier then. Easier by far.

No matter. Done was done. We still had a couple days in Jasper before boarding the Canadian and crossing the country, riding the rails as people did in days or yore.