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Editor's note: This excerpt first appeared in photographer and author Harold Davis' recent Focal Press book, Photographing Flowers: Exploring Macro Photography with Harold Davis.
The closer you...
Leaving Glacier
National Park, head north over the plains of Alberta. Stop 11 miles NW of Fort
McCleod at the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre. If the 30' high
stack of bison bones there don't impress you, head for the Red Deer River Valley,
east of Calgary, to view the remains of a few thousand dinosaurs. This is the
world's paleontology and dinosaur tourism center, with museums, themeparks, and
digs, all centered around Drumheller, Alberta. If you'd like to have your own
bones broken, enter the Stampede in Calgary. All 600,000 residents plus an equal
number of tourists converge for one week each year to watch the world's largest
rodeo and listen to country music (July 5-14, 1996; (800) 661-1260). People get
friendly enough that every year sees a boom in maternity hospital business nine
months later.
Assuming you didn't get run
over by a 10-year-old mutton busting competitor, head west to Banff, the biggest
town inside a national park anywhere in the world. If you see a sign that says
"road closed -- avalanche control work" you might want to heed it. That means
that my friend Steve has climbed up into the pass and decided that an avalanche
is possible. After coming down, he gives Nature a push with a 105mm howitzer
anti-personnel round.
A combination of Canadian National Park laissez-faire economics and the
Japanese fear of American crime means that Banff is one of the few places in the
world where one can see a flock of Japanese tourists and a herd of Elk walking
together in front of a Safeway supermarket. In the winter, ski some of Canada's
best hills, ice skate, or dogsled. In the summer, enjoy the
mountain-bike-friendly Canadian national parks, raft the Kicking Horse River, or
hike among the backcountry huts and lodges of the Alpine Club ((403)
678-3200).
Head 30 miles north to Lake Louise, Canada's largest ski resort. All of the
lakes in this region contain tiny particles of rock scraped off by the glaciers
that feed them. This causes the water to refract light in eerie blue/green colors
that delight the thousands of Japanese package tourists who frequent the grand
old Canadian Pacific hotel, Chateau Lake Louise.
Spend a couple of days driving 150 miles north up the Icefields Parkway, the
world's lowest and flattest spectacular mountain road. The mountains, lakes,
bighorn sheep, mountain goats, and black bear will be familiar, but the Columbia
Icefield's Athabasca Glacier tongue extending down to the highway may surprise.
If you don't mind falling into a crevasse or surface meltwater stream, just walk
out onto the glacier. Otherwise, ride up in a baloon-tired "Snocoach" and fall
into a crevasse with 75 other tourists for company.
When you reach Jasper, smaller and less commercial than Banff, head east
toward Edmonton. Though it will remind you of "Houston without the charm," it is
tough to get to the Alaska Highway without getting so close to Edmonton that you
might as well stop and see the world's largest shopping mall, complete with
rollercoasters, water slides, and a submarine ride. If you're a Jewish man and
are there at 2:30 in the afternoon, head over to Phase Three to the executive
offices of Triple V where the Iranian Jews who built the mall hold a minyan.
Total mileage: about 500
Best time of year: summer (though hotels get scarce and expensive in July and
August)
