September 2013

There are more than 3 million lakes in Canada - so many that there is no accurate count. There are more than 30 thousand large lakes, (and some of the largest lakes in the world), but most of the lakes are in the far north with no road access. However, there are plenty of lakes in our backyard and one of the most popular is Harrison Lake about 2 hours east of Vancouver...

While we enjoy looking at the lake we prefer to spend our time in the hot springs at the south end of the lake.

Lake Louise in Alberta is probably the best known Canadian Lake throughout the world due to it's beautiful turquoise waters and the fact that it is heavily marketed as a tourist destination...

There are so many viewpoints over the lake that it never gets boring...

Lake Louise constantly changes colour with the light

However, with so many lakes to choose from there is no need to fight the crowds to get a good view of Lake Louise. There are lakes everywhere...

The Rocky Mountains, (the Rockies) stretch 3,000 km from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States. The Rockies are distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, and the Sierra Nevada, which all lie farther to the west. The Rocky Mountains formed 80 million to 55 million years ago when a number of tectonic plates began sliding underneath the North American plate. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys. At the end of the last ice age, humans began inhabiting the mountain range.

This is Mount Robson - the highest peak of the Rockies in Canada...

Very few visitors get to see Mount Robson like this as it is only cloud free for an average of 2 days a year.
We were very lucky.

The Rocky Mountains are neither the longest nor highest in the world - but they are certainly impressive...

The mountain scenery from Banff to Jasper along the Icefield's Parkway is a spectacular roller coaster through the Rockies...

There must be thousands of trees for every person in British Columbia and there is no way of getting even a rough count. The evergreen forests are vast, covering some 150 million acres, and some of the trees are more than 2,000 years old. Most of the forests in accessible areas have been logged at least twice in the past 150 years while many of the 'old growth' original forests are now protected as Provincial or National Parks. This forest is in the foothills of Mount Robson in Wells Gray Provincial Park...

The trees in the temperate rainforests along the Pacific Coast are often covered in decorative moss...

There are trees everywhere so it's not surprising that timber products are a major export. This lumber is on the docks awaiting shipment...

The felled trees are still dragged to the sawmills in floating booms sometimes a mile long, but many are now taken by truck. There was a time when rivers like these were the only highways in British Columbia and felled trees were thrown into the rivers and collected downstream...

Giant logjams would often block the rivers as the logs piled up and one of the most dangerous forestry jobs was to untangle the logs and risk being swept over the falls...

The early settlers of this land still make a living from their decorative wood carvings and from making traditional totem poles...

The forests of Western Canada together with the mountains form some of the most picturesque landscapes in the world...

Rated as one of the top drives in the world by Condé Nast Traveller, the Icefield Parkway is a 232 km stretch of double-lane highway winding through soaring rocky mountain peaks, icefields and vast sweeping valleys...

The Icefields Parkway parallels the Continental Divide through some of the most wild and remote parts of Banff and Jasper national parks. This high route is known for its glaciated peaks, turquoise lakes, waterfalls and an impressive view of the Athabasca Glacier; part of the Columbia Icefield.

This is where the Athabasca Glacier was in 1982

But this is where most of the glacier is today...

Giant lakes now pool around the foot of the glacier and the runoff coloured by 'rock flour' from the melting glacier now stream into the valleys below...

This land was under the glacier for millions of year before global warming took hold

Today, unless you are willing to take a long muddy hike across the debris left by the retreating glacier you won't get much of a view...

At the rate that this glacier is melting it may disappear in just a few years.

This is the in the series of pictorial posts from British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.
The following are views of various easily accessible rivers and streams in the National Parks...

And this is the historic cable car that spans Hell's Gate on the Fraser Canyon a couple of hours drive north of Vancouver in British Columbia...