Confederates Stake Claim to Jasper Lake

As we drive around Banff and Jasper National Park in Canada, I’ve enjoyed watching people and their activities.

After visiting Lake Louise, Adolfo and I started a hike up to Mirror Lake. I huffed and puffed my way up the steep trail, but gave up after a while and told Adolfo to go on. On my way back down I met two older Australian women. They were happy to have escaped their tour group to take the tough hike to Mirror Lake and farther to another lake. As we walked down together, I felt like a wimp since I hadn’t even finished the shorter hike.

The long drive from Banff to Jasper is amazingly. Breathtakingly beautiful snow covered mountains tower over the highway. People crowd into the turnouts to take pictures of the gorgeous scenes. In one of these vista points a woman stood with an easel, painting the scene. I stood behind her and watched how her brush strokes were transformed into a mirror of the scene before her.

Athabasca Falls in Jasper create a deep gorge. Interestingly, the waters abandoned an older gorge allowing the park service to create a stairway so that people can walk down the gorge and admire how the water sculpted the sides.

There, we looked down on the river below. It was the starting point for a river rafting company. Four boats were ready to take off. Guides were instructing people on how to paddle. It was fun to see how difficult it was for people to coordinate their paddles and move the boats forward. I was jealous that I wasn’t in one of those boats as it headed for rapids down the river.

On our way back from Athabasca Falls, we stopped at Horseshoe Lake. As we entered, the lake didn’t look like much but a large puddle. We could hear teenagers yelling and splashing off to the left, though. I think Adolfo was about to turn around (he doesn’t appreciate screaming teens), but a park ranger caught his attention. I think he wanted to see the teens get busted, so we headed toward the noise. There we found a beautiful lake that wound through tall rocks. A teenage girl stood atop a cliff, pacing back and forth as others yelled for her to jump. The park ranger walked around the back toward an ice chest. He pulled several boys away and ticketed them for having open liquor. $300. Adolfo smiled.

Meanwhile, the girl continued to debate whether she should jump or not. This lasted for about a half hour before a large group of boys showed up, one of the boys jumped. That did the trick, the girl jumped, too. Both screamed in shock as they hit the frigid glacier water. The dive wasn’t nearly as scary as the water temperature, they agreed when they surfaced.

Jasper Lake was our final destination in the two parks. Along the lake were families swimming and wading in the water. The lake wasn’t as pretty as the others, so we didn’t stop. However, a group caught our attention at the end of the lake. They sat together, perhaps at a picnic. A large confederate flag waved in the wind beside them. “What the &($@!,” I exclaimed. Was this a group of American Southerners who gave up on the U.S. and decided to claim Canada? Was it a group of Canadians who were tired of the cold and wanted to be Southerners in the U.S? Adolfo and I tried to figure it out as we drove down the road.