Lofty's Visit to Canada & Alaska 2005
Continued.

I woke the following morning to a bright clear day and having had breakfast made off towards the Banff National Park, it is interesting to note that having bought an annual ticket when entering the park for the first time no further payments were required and it covered all of the National Parks the ticket having cost approx 90 Canadian dollars.









Just some of the beautiful flowers that were seen throughout the parks in some cases plants grown at home for rockeries etc growing in their native environment and a pleasure to see.











Colours that at home in your garden you wouldn't mix, nature knows best and all the colours blend and work well together in the wild.













As I made my way back through the park we visited the Parkway Ice fields and yet another large Glacier. In an art shop one would say the colour of the water in Peyto lake was wrong, but in this case it is correct, it's brilliant colour be produced by the finely ground talc like deposits filtering out from beneath the glacier, the weight of the Glacial ice grinding the substrata to a fine flour which then finds itself in the waters of the lake.




















How pleasing in this instance to say that apart from the viewpoint overlooking this glacier, man had not commercialised its existence

Our next stop was at Johnston Canyon where we took a walk, as there were plenty of visitors about one didn't have to worry about the bears, they would either have been frightened off our had their fill! What I did encounter however were Golden-mantled ground squirrels, and what delightful little fellows they were, obviously used to being fed although the law in the National Parks forbids feeding animals, which makes sense, if they become reliant on humans in the summer they will perish in the winter months when the food is not available

















Not to be confused with the Columbian ground squirrel that seemed to appear everywhere.


Or with this beautiful little Least Chipmunk this little fellow made my day, he was so energetic and inquisitive, there was no doubt he was made to live in the wild and should never ever see the inside of a cage! he just melted into the background when in the wild "spot the chipmunk"






Or this little Red squirrel, just setting out in life, and how lucky to live in Canada, always providing he keeps and eye open for those birds of prey!
















If you visit the Rockies do take a walk up Johnson Canyon it is well worth while, and at a steady pace its open to all. Of course you won't see all these animals in the same place but you will see them throughout in the Rockies.


From a distance they look like blue bells, when you reach them they turn out to be lupins, covering Railway banks and roadside verges.















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