Jasper Strong

Day 7 August 21

Today was another early start day (notice a trend here). Up and off to get on the water before the lake winds picked up. There are so many lakes asking to be paddled here in Jasper National Park. We were on our first lake by 8:30 am. Paddled Edith Lake #96, did a quick portage and hit Annette Lake #97. I was recently at a party where one of the get-to-know- you questions was “Do you know where your name comes from”. I like to tell people that it was the Hotel Carolyn that my folks may or may not have stayed in, but at least now I know where my middle name comes from!

Pyramid Mountain dominates the landscape around this area. Our campsites are pretty wide open with not a lot of shade! And I am loving the English and French on all the signage around -Danger!!! Sables mouvants!

After paddling TWO bodies of water we wanted to go for a walk/hike after lunch. Went up to Lake Maligne which turns out is quite the stop for EVERYONE. After numerous attempts to park the van, we grabbed a spot along the road which soon became van parking for the many! On our way we did pass Medicine Lake which just might be calling our names for #98 tomorrow….

Spent the warmest part of the afternoon in the Jasper Museum learning all about how Jasper came to be. Was fascinated to learn that parallel competing railroads were built in the Athabasca Valley in 1911 and 1913 – both of which went broke shortly there after. They were nationalized in the 1920’s and became Canadian National Railway. No wonder we hear so many trains going by in the dead of night.

We also learned that Hwy 16 which it the highway thru Jasper is called the YellowHead highway and is named after a fur trapper who’s nickname was Téte Jaune because of his striking blonde hair!

And finally, the last factoid from our day…the Columbia Icefield is a hydrographic apex of North American – the only point on the continent where the water drains into three different oceans…The Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic Ocean’s! Enough for today, time to enjoy a glass of Blue Mountain Pinot Noir from the Okanagan Valley, Canada.

One Fish, Two Fish, Three Fish, No Fish…..

Day 8, August 22

Opted to spend another day in Jasper so we could go out with a fishing guide on Lake Maligne. Thought we were heading out to do some fly fishing….when we showed up at the lake the guide had Freighter canoe with and electric motor…

Wondering how this was going to work, we set off with our guide Chris a local guide who has been around for 40 years. Not very communicative until he launched into politics. He really could not understand what was going on with the US. Kept mentioning that we all used to be friends and the idea of 50% plus tariffs absolutely set him off. Though we were all aligned in our thoughts, it was really hard to hear how heartbreaking the impact of our current politics are for individual Canadians.

After a 5 mile “canoe” we dropped our long sinking line into the water and trolled along about 1-2 miles an hour. We had a shrimp fly on the end and had to constantly mimic the movement of the shrimp by pulling our rods back, “ripping” and allow the fly to float back.

After a lot of moving our rod’s constantly back and forth, we finally had a bite! Sadly unsuccessful in hooking the sneaky Rainbow Trout. Finally, I hooked one and then learned about this trolling technique – I could see a fish jumping 50 feet away from the boat, I didn’t realize this was the fish I’d just caught! Numerous efforts to pick up the frantic fish to get a picture but finally succeed on my third fish (or 2.5 fish as Chris was holding my pole when the fish bit but I got to reel it in).

Our guide explained to us that after retelling your fishing story, the fish get bigger each time. We had a good laugh when he sent us the post fishing photos….