Jasper National Park - The Rockies

Day 11-14

From Drumheller I took a little trip to the Royal Tyrell Museum to learn all about Dinosoars and Paleontologists. This brand new museum was a worth-while stop. Then it was up and out of the Badlands and onto rolling prarie hills toward Lacombe, where i visited a twin dome baptist church and got a little tour. I drove on past Rocky Mountain House on Hwy 11 and into the foothills of the rockies. I stayed in a little roadside stop that night, and made a warm fire, the mountains beckoning in the distance.
The Next day i drove out into the thick of the Rockies. Early morning caught many white tail deer family grazing beside the road. This is truly a beautiful drive. I'd love to do it on a motorcycle some day. There are no trucks allowed on the "icefields pkwy" so apart from the odd rv the traffic is great. You just gotta roll down the windows and take in a deep breathe of that fresh sweet mountain air.
Just before you reach Jasper there is a little side road 93A. Turn here and stop first to check out Athabasca falls, then if you follow the Athabasca river you'll reach a mountain road going to Mt . Edith Caval, which is where Becky manages a rustic hostel. Rustic meaning no electricity. Simple and gorgious. There are a few panabode cabins, all of which have woodstoves and gas lanterns. Most visitors come for the day and see the glacier, but a few intrepid mountain climbers make an ascent(some skill required).

Becky has just returned from a 4 day canoe trip with Hieka (her releif manager) in the park, and on top of that Heika's friend Sasha showed up on his motorcycle.
I've spent the last 4 days with this gang and it has been fun. Good food, stories and not to mention scrabopoly! (it's exciting and I'll have to teach you guys it some day)
On Sunday i went on a hike around to the back cirque of mt. Edith Caval and ascended the alpine forest up to the skree at the tree line (7000ft) It was a lot for my first big mountain hike about 6 hours. But I went up with Jack (general manager of Hostels International for Jasper region) and Roger and Laurie (hostel managers). It was great excersice. We got up close to a ptarmigan family who blend in well with the trail in summer and have a total white plumage in winter. I have to say Jack and Roger are a comical pair and in better shape than I. They set a good pace.



The Next day I hiked up to the alpine meadows with Becky and we caught up on a lot of stuff. The Wildflowers are incredable up here. I will do my best to identify them later for you later. (see rocky mountain High gallery on flickr). We saw Clark's nutckracker and Raven. Also a Mother and Baby Marmot. who live in the glacial moraine(rocks).

Last night we had a great exaustive game of scrabbopoly which we invented. It includes as you can guess scrabble, monopoly, but also trivial pursuit, poker and a free market).
Today is town chores in Jasper a beautiful but expensive town. I am heading north west out on the highway to BC tonight on my way to visit with Jeff Taylor and Douglas Curran in Vancouver (2.5 days drive)

Alberta Badlands

Day 10

The Alberta Badlands are quite big and after days of driving the flat prairies you come to what are also called "coulee's" meaning opposite or inverse of a hill. The land drops away into deep valley carved out by erosion and meandering rivers deep down. Dinosaor Provincial Park is a great place to tour and hike throughout this world heritage site.
Home to cotton-tail rabbits, cow birds, cougars, rattlesnakes, scorpions and black widow spiders. It would be worth spending a few days here to get the full experience, but Iam going to head up towards drumheller to see the Tyrell Museum today. Drumheller itself is nestled into the bottom of a large valley of eroded dirt. layered like chocolate cake of all shades of brown.
The town is very tourist driven but feels very much like an amusement park. First stop was the worlds largest dinosaurs. You may recognize it from the movie "wizard" starring fred savage the Nintendo wizard.



The whole town has fiberglass dinosoars everywhere and murals all over the place. The campsite i stayed in had bunnies about 100 all over the place. I'm sure a lot of people think this is cute but i would hate to see the kids face go from joy to terror when it gets run over. which i am sure is inevitable with the volume of rabbits there. I fit in a little more fantasy at the local movie house and saw Harry potter and the order of the pheonix.
Now I'm sitting at Mom's News on the corner of Centre st. and 3rd looking out over the main corner in town, old neon signs of the movie theatre and restaurant still hang and watch moterhomes and pickup drive by while kids tumble over the fiberglass tryceritops.
In a few days I will head up towards Jasper to see Becky Comber in the rockies.

Saskatchewan - Alberta

Day 7 - 9

It was a nice rest during an insane heatwave in the prairies temperatures were up to 45 degrees with the humidity. Aunt Kathleen, turned me on to some great research material on geographic and archaeological sites of interest in Saskatchewan and Alberta's Prairies. So I've spent the last few days discovering some new things i never realized existed out here.
One of the best maps I've ever seen is the Archaeological site map produced by the Saskatchewan archaeological society. It explains and points out in a distribution view the thousands of sites all across the prairies. This Territory is incredibly rich with untouched sites, despite the fact that the majority of the sites that once existed have been destroyed by the influx of the first wave of settlers and Agriculteral industry. There are still yet to be many unstudied sites which get discovered as industry develops farther north.

Things such as Tipi Rings; Stones layed around the edge of a tipi to mark the site for the next camp migration. Many of these stones are left undisturbed many have been moved by farmers to lay crops. They are all hard to find because they are hidden by tall grasses.
Buffalo and Human effigy's of stone, Buffalo jumps where herds plummeted to their deaths and more vision quest sites, and medicine wheels.

Medicine wheels are stone structures built by the natives of North America for various spiritual and ritual purposes.
Appearing mostly in Alberta, Canada, medicine wheels were built by laying out stones in a circular pattern that often looked like a wagon wheel lying on its side. The wheels could be large, reaching diameters of 75 feet. Although archeologists are not definite on the purpose of each medicine wheel, it is thought that they probably had ceremonial or astronomical significance.

Medicine wheels are still used today in the Native American spirituality, however most of the meaning behind them is not shared among non-Native peoples.




I visited the Majorville Medicine wheel which is an Hour trip off of back country roads. I would suggest never do this in an astro-van. Use a 4x4 or a high clearance pickup. I nearly cracked my front axle on a rock while trying to navigate the deep ruts. Along the way There are deep into rancher land, there were a number of very good examples of Buffalo Stones.

Buffalo shed there coats in summer and are vulnerable to attack by insects. They rub themselves on whatever is around to counter the itching. these Large stones likely a few tonnes in weight have been polished smooth like glass on some corners from 10,000 years of buffalo rubbing. The stones have been sunken into depressions by the Buffalo running circles around them.

The Medicine wheel itself was on the highest hill around for miles. I was overwhelmed when i first reached the summit. I left a peice of sage as an offering to the site. This site had been started 5000 years ago (that's 1000 years before stonehenge and 500 years before the pyramids of giza). I am not going to say much else about it, It is worth the difficult trip to experience a place like this for yourself.

The night before I had Stayed at Dinosaur Provincial Park, which is a world heritage site and biosphere reserve. A fragile and ancient peice of the badlands where much of the archeological digging has and is still taking place. I will be coming back in this direction to stay in Drumheller.

Pulp Trucks and Grain Towers

Day 5-6

Leaving Quetico park I headed by Atikoken. Which claims to be the Canoe capital of Canada. Besides having the worst maintained roads in any town I've been in yet there were canoes on every other street corner. I did also see a dome home there, and met Robin of Robin's Donuts. She didn't say much but just waved at honking motorists and invited them to come on by for a coffee and a donut. You see in northern Ontario, although you will see the odd Tim Horton's, Robin's Donuts is the dominant coffee chain. They sell "Robin's Eggs" instead of "timbits" which are slightly more egg shaped.
I drove on through Fort Francis and Emo (yes the town is emo). I realized in Fort Francis Which is a major pulp and paper mill town that all the transports carrying small trees up the highway were actually known as pulp trucks. Hence, all the pulp truck load check pull-off's all along the highway. These loads shift and need to be checked every so often to make sure they don't let loose. All these stripped trees which are small (ie the diameter of my GUT) are processed for pulp not lumber. But i was shocked at how many trees were there in Fort Francis. About 6 times the amount in the photo in a huge holding lot on there way to be ground up for raw fiber. As you might know you must add fresh pulp fiber along with recycled paper because every time you recycle paper the fiber gets smaller. until you end up just being able to make toilet paper and then i guess it's back to the circle of life. You just had to be there standing in front of this 4 story tower of logs that stretch for a mile next to 6 other piles just like it. I just imagined how many years it took to grow these trees.





I made it to Manitoba, Finally after 5 days of driving. I camped for a night in the most mosquito ridden place i have ever been and I am told that all of Manitoba has this problem and that they even pesticide dust the downtown core of Winnipeg. I headed into the downtown the next day to see some great art and visit the Winnipeg Art Gallery. WAG had a show of the Royal Art Lodge which a great artist collective from the mid 90's who made some really quiet and humorous work. I bought a cataloge of paul Butler's collages checkout (the otherpaulbutler.com) and a book of collage work by Beck and AL Hanson (beck's performance artist grand dada). Then I headed to Regina to see my Aunt and Uncle who are both professor's at the University of Regina.
Tomorrow i will be leaving for drummheller to see dinosaurs, and a UFO landing pad in St. Paul Alberta.

P.S. - prairie dogs outnumber seagull's at Mcdonalds in Saskatchewan. They like McFry's.

Sacred Pukaskwa Pits & Terry Fox

Day 3 - 4

From Sault Ste. Marie I headed north up along the great winding shoreline of lake Superior, passing through small towns and pulp trucks. I've passed the geographic centre of canada finally as well as the reached the northern watershed where all waters flow north to the arctic.

I drove out to Pukaskwa Provincial park to find out if I could find and photograph some Pukaskwa (pronounced puk-a-saw) pits. So what are these things you ask? Pukaskwa Pits are small holes dug in the ground by ancestors of the Ojibwa. Estimations of the dates of their digging range from between 1000 and 1500 AD on the near end, to 3,000 to 8,000 BC on the far end. These pits are dug in cobblestone beaches and are about one to two meters long and one and a half meter deep. Theories about the purpose of these pits range from hunting blinds to food storage pits to spiritual sites. They are located mainly in Pukaskwa National Park.

I was initially detered from seeking out these sites. They are not on any trail or marked, and due to there fragile nature are protected from public attention. After a little talking I was directed to Warden Stanely, a man who has spent 20 years in the park and is the person who has led teams of archeologists in to study these sites.

He spent an hour with me explaining through photos and diagrams how they document and keep a record of the sites over time, as well as the difficult nature in identifying most of the caches. from his photos these pits are impossibly hidden due to the fact that so little is left of them from thousands of years of weather on the North shore. It turns out that there are hundreds of them all along the northern shore of the lake from Thunder bay to the Sault. but the nearest identified site in the park is a 3 day hike and there wasn't likely a chance that I would be able to identify the sites myself. I was eager to do some spotting so Warden stanely drew me a map of a way to get to a cobblestone beach north of the park that was on my route near Marathon that he has never brought his team to explore but that he has seen on a rescue operation from a plane.
I jumped at the chance to do some bushwacking and see what I could find. So off I went down an unfinished dirt road that followed the train tracks and at it's end, bushwacked to a sand beach and crossed it to a portage trail that led to the far shore of the next cove. Singing all the way to myself just to let the bears know I'm coming. I scoured the entire inlet about 2km long for hours and photographed a few spots which to my unprofessional archeological skills looked like they could be pit sites well. Satisfied, and humbled by the great skills Archeologists must posses to read and interpret these sites a retired to my van. I am definatly planning a trip back here in the future.
From Marathon I drove still further north up and around towards Thunder Bay. Just about 15 Km east of the city on the Trans-Canada hwy is a small humble white post marking the spot where Terry Fox was forced to end his run. A small mowed patch of grass and a post with a marker reading MILE 3339 Terry Fox's "Marathon of Hope" September 1, 1980. I think he would have appreciated this marker much more than the giant statue of himself 12 km down the road on top of a hill.


Passing through Thunder bay which is kinda scary I spotted a classic car rally with some sweet machines (see flickr). I drove all the way out to Quiteco Park before darkness fell and I set up camp. Oh! I saw my first Black bear too. Did i mention Northern Ontario is really big and beautiful.

p.s. - watch out for swamp donkeys!

Thornbury Mystery Mound & Dreamers Rock

Wow, It's finally just me and my van! This is Day 3 and I am sending this out from
Sault Ste. Marie's "Steamy Bean cafe", While the Commadores blast "Sail On" over the cafe radio. Let me get you up to speed on the last few days and what I've seen.

On Monday I burnt up the Highway from my Dad's house (south of Base Borden) and headed North up over the escarpment and into Thornbury to track down the Thornbury "Mystery mound". A number of locals directed to Robert Bircher, the authority on this mound and the guy who came up with the theory of why this might not be just some ordinary lump of Red Clay. However, he was unreachable so a handfull of inquiry's finnaly led me to the site. Across the valley from Blue mountain the next bluff which rises up along the Thornbury/Meaford Townline, and which was the old shoreline of nippising bay if you can imagine back that far, sits a mound of red clay with a stone atop.
Not unlike Native burial mounds it would be quite unnoticable if you weren't looking for it except that it is the highest spot on the bluff and from this mound you can see across for miles to Blue mountain where coincedentally or not there is another mound. These are not the only two however, many more have been found in a direct line that stretch far and which also line up with the summer solstice. Bizarre eh? There are no Native historical establishments in the area which has led Robert Bircher to assume these may be Celtic mounds like many he has studied overseas.
More on this later when I finnaly get in touch with Mr. Bircher.



I headed up to Cape Croker Indian reserve to camp for the night. Early up the next morning to catch the CHi-Cheemaun ferry from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island (The resting place of the Great Spirit in Native Lore) and Dreamer's Rock.

Dreamer's Rock is just north of Manitoulin Isl. on the Whitefish River Indian reserve. It is considered an extremely sacred place and permission from the Band office in Birch Island must be signed on paper. Down an unmarked road and past the cerimonial pow-wow grounds, is a small path connecting a narrow piece of land over to what is an island when the water was higher. This island is a steep smooth towering mountain 100 feet up of pure white Quartz, camoulflaged by evergreen and brush. This is Dreamer's Rock.


It is used today as it has been for hundreds of years, as a sacred site where young men go to fast and have a Vision Quest. At the end of the trail of red painted arrow's which guide you up the hill lies the final rock. Atop this peice of stone i am confronted by a small but rugged shrub with many ribbons and small pouches attatched tied to it. Offerings to the great spirit. From the top you are actually the highest point around for miles. No words.
To be honest i felt a little undeserved to be there. I had come to see with my own eyes that a place like this from legend and Lore actually existed but I hadn't planned on staying or fasting, or even brought tobacco as a peace offering. I hadn't really prepared to come here for the reasons most people do, I was still in my tourist mode and so I didn't stay too long.

Next stop The Pukaskwa Pits! Stay tuned.

see more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/garettwalker/

Goodbye Twelve Mile

My time at the cottage is finally up. Not only is grandpa's old mattress doing a number on my back but my grandmother is finally moved in and taking over. The sign's say it's time to get onto the next adventure. But not before the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition at City hall this weekend. It has proven to be a lot of hard work but also a worthwhile success. I am still recuperating from exhaustion and lack of sleep, as well as this crazy heat.
Sarah did come out with much to be pleased about. She won two awards for best student drawing and Best drawing overall by the Globe and mail (these incl. mulla) and she was approached by two galleries in Montreal...and she sold a large peice!!!

I am very happy too, I was really nervous for her as well. But it has all turned out worthwhile.

Also, things got out of hand at city hall this weekend too. So they had to call me in to bring order back to the chamber.

See more cottage photos and TAOE 2007 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/garettwalker