Sunday, July 27
Day 30
Kilometre: 6111
Location: Elk Island National Park, AB
On Thursday morning we had a great all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at the Hotel, after which we packed up the cars and headed out towards Elk Island National Park, my next engagement. We drove a scenic route, rather than head back to Calgary and taking the fast way. The scenic route had us travelling north through Lake Louise, up Highway 93, then switching to Highway 11 at Saskatchewan River Crossing. Still in the National Park, we stopped at Crows Foot Glacier, where a Clark’s Nutcracker watched us intently from a nearby spruce tree (see pics below).
The drive along Hwy. 11 (which was new experience for all of us) kept us enthralled with every twist and turn. We passed through Rocky Mountain House and headed north to Edmonton. Needing supplies (food) we stopped in Edmonton, then headed to Elk Island National Park. It was getting late, and once we got there, no one was available to tell us what our site number was. So we ended up taking an empty “reserved” campsite, as we doubted anyone was coming in as late as we did, but knowing that we would have to move in the morning. As it turned out, we were given the two best sites in this small, 77-site campground (in our minds, at any rate).
Elk Island National Park is home to herds of both the Plains and Wood Bison, with each herd separated from each other by expanses of wire fence and “Texas gates”, which are basically just big grates built into the roads. Hoofed animals cannot traverse these installations, whereas all other four-footed wildlife can. The park is home to a huge variety of song and water birds, and we have added quite a few birds to our life lists.
And spiders! A tremendous diversity of spiders exists here. They are everywhere!
There are only 7 species of tree up here, but there are many, many plants that are new to us, such as this species of Indian Paintbrush with pink leaves as opposed to the red leaves we normally associate with this plant.
On Friday night, a male northern flying squirrel paid us a visit, probably lured by the smell of Sabrina. He landed on the lower trunk of a dead 12-metre aspen, checked us out for a minute or so, then ran up to near the top of the tree, launched himself off a branch and glided off into the dark.
On Saturday we hiked a trail in the park, There were a large number of dime-sized wood frogs - recently transformed from tadpole to adult - and we had to watch where we stepped. Speaking of which, one has to watch where one steps throughout most of the park, as everywhere there are many Bison Pies in various stages of decay. That night I did my show at the Astotin Lake Theatre here in the Park. It was standing room only and the show was very well received, as per usual. Oddly, Sabrina was not interested in gliding, and simply sat up on the gliding pole and washed herself. The audience got some laughs out of her grooming efforts. Scooter did glide, but missed me and ended up running along the carpet under the front row seats! Twice! Below is a pic of two of Elk Island’s nature interpreters, Matt and Robin.
Today (Sunday), Jesse, Hillary and Marianne went to check out West Edmonton Mall. As I despise shopping malls, I stayed behind and worked on my blog, made some phone calls, kept the squirrels in the shade as the sun moved along, and did some “chores”. We went for another sunset walk - a birder’s heaven at this park, a plethora of water birds and song birds!
Sunday night at 10:30 pm (it is still light at this time - barely crepuscular!) we had four northern flying squirrels visit the campsite! Some great gliding performances indeed!
Monday morning saw us part company, with Jesse and Hillary heading back to Calgary for a few days before they left for Gimli, Manitoba…while Marianne and I headed for points northwest.