Page 14

Walking, Canoes and Rats

I could not resist taking the picture of two well dressed ladies on a sightseeing trip in the Rockies. There are quite a few Chinese tourists, we assume from the rather extreme dress this one was from China not a Chinese Canadian who would have more sense.
The Parks department restrict the number of cars and coaches which are allowed up to Moraine Lake where we are but during the day we still get a thousand or so visitors to admire the view shown above. I understand rather more visitors go to the other lake (Louise) which is equally picturesque.
Fortunately after the pictures have been taken most visitors get back on the bus and head off so once we had walked half a mile away things were a lot quieter.

We walked to Consolation Lake which is less popular perhaps because it is not a strange colour which looks good in photographs. Moraine and Louise Lakes contain "rock flour" which consists of fine rock particles ground off the rocks by the glaciers and washed into the lakes. The flour becomes suspended in the water and reflects the green and blue wavelengths of light depending on the concentration of flour. Consolidation Lake has much less rock flour so is not green.

Day visitors to Moraine Lake can pay $130 (£85) for an hours canoeing round the lake (you would think at that price someone would do the paddling but no they have to do that themselves).
Hotel guests can spend as long as they like canoeing for "free" so we went canoeing today and will do so again tomorrow to get our moneys worth.
The mountains are even more spectacular from the water although I got quite a pain in the neck looking up. There are also quite a few bangs from the glaciers but we did not see any avalanches.

The picture is of a Pika, a small mouse like beasty, it is not a rat. How do I know? Because there are no rats in Alberta.
I always assumed that there were rats everywhere but apparently they were introduced into the east of America by the Europeans (by accident presumably) in the 18th century and have been working their way west ever since. By 1950 the first appeared in Alberta and the authorities decided to act, putting down lots of poison and jumping on any outbreaks they have kept Alberta rat free.

What a wonderful source of useless information this blog is, I am sure you can't wait until tomorrows exciting instalment.

The picture below is taken from our shed, as you can see we could not afford the best rooms in the place with a direct view of the lake (actually we got the last available room even though we booked in February!)