Essentially the Only One

Taken near Duck Lake, Creston. Our last evening here. Tomorrow we go over the border to Spokane to meet Edward, and then on to Helena, Montana.

More spectactular views as Ruth paddles Lake Kootenay.

Early this morning we took a guided canoe tour of the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area.

Just myself, Ruth, a French-Canadian couple from New Brunswick and two young wildlife area employees.

It was cool and the air fresh, perfect conditions for gently gliding across the lily covered water.
All around us grew clumps of cat-tail reeds, a bountiful resource for all the wildlife in the area, as food, cover and nesting material. Our guide even had us eat some - a slightly more flavorful lettuce it struck me. The reeds do not root in the nutrient rich waters, so little free-floating islands drift around the water changing the shape of the lake after each strong wind.

However, even in this paradise there is trouble. English irises have begun to colonize the wetland, a beautiful flower to be sure, but of zero value to the resident wildlife and very difficult to dislodge once established.

The boat trip made for a very pleasant start to the day, listening to the birds and French conversation of the couple sitting behind us, watching a heron take off, and paddling gently through the placid water. Just as we were leaving, some rain showers fell. We had timed it perfectly.

All these photographs were taken from about the same place in the middle of the orchard garden of the Bavarian Orchard Motel and all within 3 minutes of each other.

The first photograph is to the west, over the Skimmerhorn mountains







Then south.








































And lastly to the west.

The wind was moving towards the east. As you might guess, I beat a hasty retreat inside shortly after the last of these shots.

A mellow day today that started out with a moment of high anxiety when the power supply to this laptop failed. Fortunately, I was able to find a universal power unit in Creston, so I am up and running again.

Laundry and breakfast in town this morning, then a drive out to the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area. This is an extensive wetlands area, rich in reeds and associated wildlife, and makes for a very congenial spot with the Purcell Mountains to the east and the Selkirk Mountains to the west.

Congenial in every respect except for the mosquitos who were both numerous and aggressive, necessitating the use of a lot of DEET. We'd left our bottle at home, but were rescued by a pair of birdwatchers who kindly shared the repellent.

Not a huge number of birds to be seen, as the high reeds concealed them very well. Bright yellow water lily flowers (Rocky Mountain Cow-lily) decorated the streams - very pretty.

There were many trails to follow, some on boardwalks, one leading to wooden observation tower where I took these landscape photographs. It really was as pretty a nature reserve as any I've seen, and with the change in the weather from yesterday's heat, it was cool and refreshing with the air heavy with natural scent.

It was so delightful that we decided to come again later in the evening, and that's where I took the top photograph of the Skimmerhorns illuminated with the deep red of the lowering sun.

We may well go back again tomorrow. We've only looked a small part of the reserve and there are lakes yet to see. I think we have struck gold with this little town, and we even found a winery, the Skimmerhorn Winery, this afternoon that had a variety of very good wines (at very good prices).

The day ended with a few thunderstorms and stormy rain clouds, such as you see here.Now to bed!

Looking at the western side of the mountain.

Crowsnest PassBig Chief Mountain, all the way over the border in Montana.Two from Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

A drive this afternoon into Crowsnest Pass that links Alberta to British Columbia.

I didn't get very far. The first thing that caught my attention was this extraordinary dead tree, the Burris Tree, that marked the eastern end of the pass. This tree, that had stood alive for seven centuries, died in the 1970s. Such was its historical and geographical significance that the dead wood was preserved and ressurected as you see here.

A couple more bends in the road and I found myself in the midst of this extraordinary rock field. I pulled into a lay-by and read the historical marker. This was the Frank Slide, a massive and catastophic landslide that fell in 1903 onto the mining town of Frank. Where did it come from?

From here - Turtle Mountain.30 million cubic metres (82 million tonnes) of limestone fell away at 4:10 am on April 29, 1903, destroying a good part of the town, killing 70 people and burying a group of miners underground. Only by tunneling through a seam of coal were the miners able to dig themselves out, one to discover that his family had been crushed to death by the landslide.

Ironically, Turtle Mountain was called the Mountain That Moves by the local native Americans who would never camp near its base. As is often the case, such knowledge was dismissed by the European settlers, much to their cost.

I was planning to go further into Crowsnest Pass but somehow this mountain and those massive strewn rocks with those poor mining families still buried beneath them held me. As good a reminder as any of the impartial, monstrous, power of nature.

Waking up after a long and well-deserved sleep in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. At the "Westwind", a delightful low-key motel where I think I got the best night's sleep of this journey so far.

Yesterday started splendidly with breakfast with my Opera friend Carol aka Dacotah with happens to live in Minot, North Dakota where we had ended up by chance the night before.

There she is in the brown t-shirt next to my wife Ruth.

Carol found us a delightful breakfast restaurant and we had a long and fascinating conversation about Minot, South Dakota and life in general. None of this would have happened without My Opera and our blogs.

Then it was north on Highway 52 to the well-named frontier town of Portal where we, possibly because had forgotten to get my son David to sign his passport, were given a battery of background checks before being sent on our way into Saskatchewan.


Before that, though, we detoured on a gravel road through the Des Lacs Nature Reserve where this pheasant wild turkey decided to present him or herself to us in a most casual manner! Lots of lakes here, as the name suggests, and pelicans, cormorants, coots, greebes, geese and ducks galore.

The hillsides along this North Dakota highway and reserve were decorated with stone numbers much in the manner of the chalk hill decorations you see in England. In this case, the numbers refer to graduation years from high school and have been there since 1945. Although I liked these, I was a little disappointed in the lack of imagination of most of the figures. The one I show here was the most ornate that I could see, but I would have loved to have seen some figures outlined such a a white horse.


Once we had crossed into Saskatchewan, we left those delightful rolling hills behind us and entered an area of completely flat land that really did define the description big sky country. Miles and miles of pancake fields dotted by a few remote farmhouse and grain elevators. But, as we headed north and west, we began to make out a rise in the land to the west, and after about a hour or so more driving, the land began to rise and undulate around us. This is the countryside that surrounds us here in Swift Current and very pretty it is too. Yesterday ended with a lovely sunset that gave me a chance to use my fisheye lens for the photograph you see at the top of this post.

Alexandria, Minnesota, that is. You can travel the American continent and pass through namesake towns and cities to match many of the great cities of the world. It makes me smile.

525 miles of driving today, from these swans in Lombard, Illinois, to Alexandria. Interstate driving north and west on I-90 and I-94. Not much time for stopping, let alone photography, but I did catch this view of the Black River valley near Black River Falls, Wisconsin.Attractive rolling hills under a moody gray sky - this represented much of today's journey. The best bit? A drop in temperature from the 80° F's in Chicago to a blissful (after a week of near 100° F (37° C) in St. Louis) to a mild 63° F (17° C) here in Alexandria.

Lovely.

Shall have to get used again to centigrade - it, as in the rest of the world, is the official measure of temperature in Canada, our next destination.