Picks and Pans – Alberta, Canada

Far away, in the central Albertan plains of Lethbridge, there is a neuroscience revolution happening. The University of Lethbridge is collecting a cadre of hardworking neuroscientists to take over the world (or maybe just publish a bunch of papers), among them is our friend Artur Luczak. Not only did we get to spend a couple of nights eating and carousing like we were the Polish communist elite, we also had the pleasure of being temporary Luczak lab members (i.e. sitting in the lab and using the internet). Thanks, Artur!!

After being scared away by the touristy shopalooza that is Banff (see PANS below), we were happy to reach the Lake Louise Info Centre and find a small, slightly touristy, but mostly outdoorsy crowd along with some very helpful park rangers (although in Canada they’re probably called something more British-y). If you’re going to Banff N.P., skip the town of Banff all together and head for Lake Louise.

This was a pretty typical national park campground: well-maintained, full to the brim and a little on the expensive side, but totally worth it because you’re close to all the action. If we had been a little smarter, we would have driven in, used the showers and then found a place outside the campground to park Arvin for the night. As it stands, though, we weren’t too sad to get a quiet forested site, with access to showers and potable water.

Moraine Lake is so astonishingly blue and surrounded by huge mountains that the Canadians put it on their $20 bill, a not unwarranted move on their part. The lake is a paragon of the stark magnificence of the Canadian Rockies. It also gave me a chance to experience how Parisians must feel when their city is invaded by Americans in August, as Moraine Lake is apparently the destination for thousands of the European tourists that leave on jet plane for their summer holiday. We were surrounded by them. It was memorable to say the least.

Once I looked past the towering hotel and the crowds of noisy tourists ineptly paddling around the lake in their first ever canoe adventure, I realized that Lake Louise is an incredibly beautiful spot. Just another reminder that what I seek in an experience with “nature”, I am, in fact, destroying by my very presence. Funny thing, that. Why is it that the ideal outdoors experience is one that involves as few other people as possible? Why is it that, in my mind, something so magnificent as the natural world can be marred by the presence of a few hundred measly humans? But tangents aside, Banff is totally worth a visit, just know that you’ll have company until you find your way into the backcountry, where the company consists mainly of bears.

As a result of the tremendous glaciers that sheared off the sides of mountains and pushed them up to even greater heights in new locations, there are some insane waterfalls in the Canadian Rockies. Takakkaw Falls cascades 254 meters over the side of a glacially carved out valley and is the second highest waterfall in western Canada. It’s a short jaunt off the Trans-Canada highway and is a nice short stop for a driving tour of the park.

To the untrained eye this may look like just an ordinary gas station, but to the seasoned road tripper with a wi-fi detector it is a haven of free internet with an excellent view of the Canadian Rockies from the parking lot.

After determining that the closest information centre where we could obtain hiking maps and the like was probably in the town of Banff, we quickly headed there to figure out our plans. We just as quickly drove right out (without even stopping at the info centre), repulsed by the posh, consumer tourist mecca that greeted us. Yuck.