Below Banff

The photos are from Jasper area except for the Athabasca glacier off the Columbia icefield. I hope you can read the print.

I tried to do my usual chatty blog entry for the last two days from Banff but the connection gave us nothing but grief.

The most important issue right now is the nuclear power plant that is being proposed for Peace River (!) Two days ago the radio news made it sound like the people of Alberta had been polled and were for it and that the mayor of the town of Peace River was excited because it is such "clean" power. It is also to be sold to a "mystery" party. I couldn't believe it! Now we are, appropriately enough, in a town called Radium Hot Springs, and Michael is picking up veggie oil while I was in the grocery store and noticed that it was front page and the governor is saying the people of Alberta will be able to decide on it. I guess I wasn't the only one to have a reaction.

We loved the Canadian Rockies but they were cold and wet. Even got heavy snow on the way back down from Jasper! On the way north we got some beautiful walks and sights in but on the return the mountains were swathed in clouds. The elk photo is one of about 20 good shots. The elk are a problem in towns now because they don't suffer predation there. My fella tourists aren't too smart about keeping their distance though so it is a major problem and the Parks administration is being roundly criticized for considering the use of an experimental birth control method that is actually a pesticide.. It's amazing that there are as few problems as there are with so many human-bear and human-elk interactions.