Dateline: Jasper, Alberta. Today we did Mount Edith Cavell and Athabasca Falls. The road to Edith remains tough: narrow and bumpy. On the other hand, it is better than it was the last time we drove it, perhaps 6-7 years ago. The scenery from the end of the road is amazing, an immense mountain with glaciers and snow all over the top. The mosquitoes were in plentiful supply, as was the use of deet-based products to keep them off.
The mountain is named for a heroic British nurse who stayed behind in Belgium to tend the wounded of both sides in World War I, then helped many Allied prisoners to escape. The Germans captured her and put her in front of a firing squad as a spy, which she probably was not, although she was clearly an sympathizer of the Allies.
Many things in this part of the world are named for people prominent during the early 1900s. That is when this area was first being explored by people of European descent. It is hard to believe it was essentially unknown to all but the native peoples until then.
Athabasca Falls is a sizable river dropping 100 or more feet in a short space, and stirring up a lot of noise and mist in the process. The area it has carved in doing this is interesting too. I wonder what it is about falling water that fascinates humans?
Today, for a change, we have spectacular weather - blue skies and warm temperatures. I've even seen folks wearing shorts, something that has so far been in (pardon the pun) short supply this summer in the Canadian Rockies. The warm weather creates an interesting dilemma: wear short sleeves and shorts to stay cool and give the mosquitoes a feast, or wear long sleeves and long pants and be sweaty.
